that makes sense, I suppose like everything there are uses for certain situations, and they seem to be working for you
I think for me, the way I use the speedo paddles I have (I only attach via one point on the middle finger) is to try and use that instability to identify counter forces. If they’re struggling to stay on, say at hand entry or extension, then that’s certainly unhelpful drag.
I do agree with H’s general point that ideally you want little force in the early phase of initiating the catch, and with the “no grip paddles” I do wonder if that’s not helping that if you need to create force to “keep them on”. But I’ve never used them, so can’t really comment - it’s just something I have previously thought.
Delaying the initiation of force in the catch is certainly something I need to work on. I think if you had a force v time graph for my stroke, I definitely wouldnt accelerate through the catch and pull
One thing, this might get shouted down by some triathlon coaches, but is a swimming technique, is on the extension rotate the palm slightly inwards, that way as you move the forearm the hand is less likely to catch. so enter palm down extend rotate palm inwards and then bring hand and elbow down to face back and pull the water. (note this is the opposite to the outward scull that used to be taught in freestyle and could cause some shoulder impingement)
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I’m inferring that’s along the same lines of the pinky down extension approach you were saying on the other thread? I tried that a little bit after. I can see how it works. Especially with the finger paddles on, I could tell there was less resistance to initial extension in that position versus hand flat.
The issue was getting the hand rotated back around for the catch, but what I think you might actually be saying is that’s part of the upside? With the hand not being flat, you automatically slip some water at the beginning of the catch? If so, I now see the logic. I might experiment with that again now I understand that part too.
As with everything though, making such a change “automatic” will take hours of repetition
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Is that like the old S pull?
Organised adult sport and exercise classes can resume indoors and saunas and steam rooms may reopen
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No , the old S pull you’d enter thumb first and do a slight scull out (similar to fly) but now you pull straight back. Tgere is still an S but you don’t force it, it happens through rotation. This is flat hand entry but as you extend rotate pinky down palm inwards, between the extention and EVF you’d get tge palm facing back readyvto pull/push. @stenard is right, I mentioned it the other day after it was highlighted by Gary Hall on Slowtwits .
Masters back on from next Tuesday. You should join us if times fit! Check out the Ojays website but there is generally good mix of abilities including a number of triathletes so I will have a good Crawl bias in there.
Gary Hall? What are his swimming credentials exactly? 
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And luckily it was at the shallow end - lost a paddle one time 
mostly terrible push from the wall and bobbed up to the surface in oxygen starvation!
396m with paddles and pull just felt like a constant mess, my turns being the worst part of all.
429m FS felt strange after the paddles but my pace was pretty good.
528m just the buoy and open turns was much less stressful but at least according to my watch my pace was all over the place 1:20-2:08 but I suppose I did have some traffic issues
165m FS pace all over again because some people decided to accelerate when I started passing them 
so instead of a solid but gradual pass Ive got some world class efforts in there 
Without sounding harsh I’d double check your watch 
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Yeah, I really don’t think you can have so much variability in a single interval?!
Another little moment of illumination for me today. Some of the things we were talking about yesterday had me looking at a couple of random photos and it reminded me of reducing drag being as much of a goal as increasing propulsion. I’d done a series of 3 endless pool lessons last summer when the main pools were shut, and one of the key things that coach emphasised was being streamline and, similar to turtling on the bike, tucking the chin in and hugging the shoulders to the ears when an arm was extended.
I seemed to have forgotten most of that, but focused on it today. It came to me when doing 8x(25 sprint into 25 easy). I did the final 3 reps all focusing on hugging the shoulder to the ear during extension and it made a 1s per 50m difference. I went from repping 42s, to 41s. I then carried that into the subsequent 200s I was doing. It definitely requires more effort (shoulders are sore now from the extra effort of hugging them in, but I suddenly did 200’s in 3:08 and 3:09 with everything else generally feeling fairly relaxed, rather than a hard effort.
I then did some paddle reps, and I really suck at that. I guess it says my muscular strength is absolutely toilet, but 2x200 with full paddles, pb and band, and I did 3:31 and 3:32. Take the paddles off, so just pb&band and I did 3:29, and then remove all toys and I went back to 3:12. With just pb, I’m roughly similar to standard swimming. Add band, and I utterly suck.
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Don’t kick when you use a PB - that’s not the point of them.
(if you aren’t kicking there should be little difference between with a band and without)
I’m not kicking, but it’s clear my lower legs somehow offer some stabilising effect when unrestricted. When I add band, I go from flat in the water to what feels like diagonal
fair enough.
How do you manage the boredom in these epic sets? Did I see somewhere that you’re listening to music?
Try and focus on one part of the stroke per 500m.
Today was rotation (my abs kill) left hand entry and pulling down the centre line
Have music as well which always helps
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