This perfectly sums up my internal ( and external ) battle every time I swim, and your miles ahead of me.
How far do you swim underwater after each push off? If I’m blasting a 100m then on my final turn I come up a lot earlier then initial push off and first turn. I would love to be able to hold my breath for longer but I’m gasping!
Shouldn’t that be a benefit? Center of buoyancy and all that. I have a short torso & long legs, pretty sure that sucks for swimming.
Went for my second coaching session yesterday. Found 3s/100m just focusing on streamlining my kick. However, going back to @Hammerer comment on making swimming hard. My coach told me that I need to get a better balance, and that I am swimming at a reasonably good pace through good fitness and brute force rather than good technique, and I need to spend more time doing drills and focus on technique as well as trying to swim hard. He summed it up by saying that he thinks that I swim too much with people who are faster swimmers than me, as a result I have developed the strength to keep up, which is great, however, If I developed better technique I could swim much faster than the other swimmers (maybe he was just massaging my ego)
One point he stressed on the kick is that good swimmers never kick up, the power from the kick should always be down. We spent 30 minutes on this, and it made a really noticeable difference
its a balancing act. No point muscling up and down with crap technique but equally you could look great and get no where fast if you cant hold that technique and slip water. The “hard” thing isnt about intensity but how it feels in the water. You really need to engage the muscles to catch the water and pull yourself through it. This will be hard, if its not you aren’t catching the water.
Exactly right. I am the perfect shape for a swimmer, long torso, long monkey arms and the legs of a fictional chocolate factory worker. Basically Michael Phelps without the technical ability and nearly a foot shorter.
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Apparently I am catching the water OK (not brilliantly, but other areas to work on first). Biggest issue is the drag I am creating from my body position. I guess that there is a wide range of views on this, however, Roy (Caoch) said that many intermediate swimmers kick to raise legs, which is wrong, legs should be raised without the need to kick, however, kick is really important to stabilise body and maintain a streamline postion
yep I agree with that, I may have mentioned here but I get some of the younger the juniors and novice adults just floating! find ways to get those legs up manually. then your effort is used pulling yourself along, not maintaining body position
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Methinks some of you dudes are overthinking this WAAAYYYY too much.
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watch Phelps, probably the greatest swimmer of all time. His stroke isn’t great is it, you can pick faults all day. Yes hes a sprinter so power is key but don’t let perfection be the enemy of the good. Ledecky on the other hand.
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I went to the pool this morning and did:
3 * 100m fc, 50m kick (COS kick is good, innit!)
8 * 25 sprint off 45s
400 pull and paddles
8 * 25 sprint off 40s
300 pull and paddles
8 * 25 sprint off 35s
200 pull and paddles
8 * 25 sprint off 30s
100 mixed cool down
It was fun.
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That looks a fun session, might copy that one!
And as triathletes on a forum it’s only fair that we should do so 
He needs to get the forearm straighter earlier, and he won’t be able to kick like that for 3800m. Also, I heard his bike handling is terrible.
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I like the look of that set. I enjoy 25m sprints, even off 30s that its enough time to recover. Its the 400’s at sub 1:40/100 off 8 mins that kill me
Kick is good, kick is good, kick is good, kick is good
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Said no-one who used pullbuoy ever!
I am slower with a pull-buoy, so decent-ish legs.
Just need to learn how to kick so it doesn’t ache my glutes.
Oh - thanks for the like on the set.
I made it up as I like 25s and 50s, but don’t like the longer stuff, so the sprints act as a “reward” for doing the 400/300/200.
He is also a clutz and cant run. His coach actually banned him from running at one stage as he kept falling over curbs and things 
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I went for a swim. It was pretty awful but I’m still alive and didn’t drown. Ended up doing around 1600m with a mix of 50-400m reps mostly with the pull buoy (technique too useless to bother without for anything more than 100m!)
Will try and go three times a week then introduce sessions once I feel I can actually manage it
BOOM. Within 25m of session knew it was my day, felt like a swimmer again. Session worthy of the #smashedit thread, as the holy water boiled from me steaming through it.
300 moderate (just slower than CSS) 15s rest
2X100 max 3s rest between
300 easy
X4
Quicker than December and january attempts. Reminded me of being a real swimmer again, even though used to do it 5s/100m faster. Focus is on just learning to hurt on those 100s, staying tough. Similar idea to the 4x100 set we talked about earlier in thread.
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Maybe repeat again in March, and/or switch to similar session in reverse so focus comes on maintaining strong pace after hard start.
New Video after a couple of weeks “improving”
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