Ahh... wanted to update this in the morning but I guess I'd do it now since I just had a late night talk with my good brother Jing Fu.. now very motivated to achieve some goals. That aside, I'll talk about last night's training.
First and foremost, a VERY warm welcome to Marianne!!! A really tanned girl who looks really great with that sunshine smile. Just like Samantha when I first knew her (now still the same..=)).
*clap clap clap*
So, with Wilson at Thailand, Ben giving the last burst at his exam, Edmund going to Polo training without early notice, gen at a make up class because of a missing lecturer and then Lawrence overseas chionging for work, we're left with me, Sam, Ziting (wondergirl), and Weihan (our super biker)... and Marianne~
The night was an easy cruising night.. with loads of drills.. loads of talking from the coach, myself.. puzzling everyone with things that never come across the mind of any person who just hit the pool with nothing in the mind except "30 laps in 'N' mins".
After the warmup 200m swim, we settle into slow moving pace and started the following drills:
1) FS Kick on the side (arms on our body side)
-Teaches what is wrong body posture
-Allows recognition of sinking hips with the knuckles as indicator and palm touching thighs
-Teaches swimming downhill with thoracic (chest) pressure.
-Teaches confidence to swim without the use of arms as leverage/support which will aid in relaxation of the arms when not needed in propulsion (e.g. breathing.)
-Teaches bodyroll.
2) FS Kick on the side (1 arm extended)
- All of above + more specific to frontcrawl
- Teaches the perfect gliding position in front crawl swim.
3) Underwater FS swim
- Due to the whole body being submerged, any drag created by body is amplified and thus allowed easier recognition of any stoppages/slowdown of body in FS Swim caused by non-streamlined movement. In short, teaches streamlining.
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SAMANTHA
Significant improvement tonight in body positioning and maintaining arm extension. Consistently pressing on the chest and keeping the body streamlined has her averaging 44strokes for both laps of normal swim continuously. That is something impressive.
Issues:
- Need to work on the activation of latissimus dorsi during pull. Can tell she's still swimming with the arms only.
- Need to work on the coordination body. I.E Synchronizing the arm pull and kick WITH body rotation.
- Need to work on kicking from the hips and having smaller kick
- I also noticed the lack of effort on the plantar flexion while kicking, thus creating drag.
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MARIANNE
Despite looking similar to Sam, Marianne SWIMS LIKE HER TOO. Except she has better arm extension. Perhaps all the rowing has developed the triceps better and does arm extension is better held. Who knows? =D
It is a pretty good first swim impression. Not as lousy as she claimed herself to be. Very humble indeed. She manage to grasp the technique of pressing her chest into the water and swim downhill. But it seems like only the right side is firing and left side still need some time. Good enough for an hour in my opinion!
Of course there are places to improve on and to name afew......
Issues
- Kick has too little hip flexion (30degrees), weak kick.
- Left pull starts with palms ulna flexion. Can cause ulna ligament inflammation if not changed.
- Always looking forward in the swim literally... seems to be trying to find some handsome guy or something.. :P
- Too much emphasis on 'S' pull. 'S' should be created by body roll. Not a purposeful deed of pulling in a 'S' motion.
- Recovering without a high elbow. Not relaxed at all.
- Body roll not synched with pull and kick (like sam's).
-ETC. :)
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ZITING AND WEIHAN...
They have pretty good body positioning when they do make the effort to press the chest down and really get into the position. Bad news is they don't seem to be hardworking enough to hold that position whilst swimming. Perhaps, the lack of competition has caused the lack of need to improve and be persistent in the strokes. Still, this is something worth mentioning and letting them to look into.
Signing up for a race is a great idea, but still, its up to the racer to decide whether or not to put in 150% effort or just go there and DO an event.
But then again, little boys and girls, I understand that the competitive nature is probably not needed here if all you're looking for is a leisure swim... Maybe you can just do it to shut uncle KK's nagging because you know HOW PERSISTENT I CAN GET WHEN YOU'RE JUST NOT DOING IT RIGHT.... :)
Issues:
- Weihan's kick is powerful, good for racing if done right. Not good when he overdo and let the leg come flying out of water and creating huge loads of drag during swim. He should not be slower than Sam THAT MUCH.
- Ziting's stroke is buttery smooth. Even I like to watch her swim and feel its really effortless. But when tiredness set in, she need to put in the extra effort to hold the position (read above for re-emphasis)...
-Weihan's recovery is NOT RELAXED. Remember, high elbow, dangling wrist and hands.
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MYSELF
Corrected my left arm entry whilst turning my body to breathe. Now I'm moving almost equally on both side but tiredness still can make the bad habit come back which means its not 100% changed yet.
Improved water catching feeling with sculling drills and underwater swim.
Changed my catch to start deeper than my shoulder level to prevent shoulder pain. Worked wonderfully for my recent 2X500m TT.
Overall swimming seem to have improved because of the recent hypoxic swim training I've done. I've just started on it so maybe its psychological for now.. or maybe I really do think about it when I train thus it is sinking in really quickly compared to the others?
More on hypoxic training:
Hypoxic (low oxygen) training involves the reduction or elimination of breathing while training. The development of hypoxic training is credited to legendary coach and scientist, Dr. James Counsilman of Indiana University.
The theory is that hypoxic training increases the ability of the muscles to work better when oxygen levels are low, such as at the end of a 200 meter race. It is also believed that reducing the number of breaths per lap will increase the swimmer's speed, because changing the body position to take a breath tends to increase drag.
However, I personally agree with this article by Terry Laughlin:
http://www.alexandriamasters.com/articles/hypoxic.htm
Hypoxic training gets you used to swimming good smooth strokes without the unwanted tension and also helps you to focus on good swim technique symmetry. It does not promote physiologically the amount of O2 used by the body unless you live in high altitude places and train there like some Craig Alexander do. :Pp
That will be all for now, I can finally sleep.
Cheers
KK
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