25082010 swim Squad

Work Done:

500m warm up with every 6th stroke sighting.

KH (Suppose to do with Alvin):
Before main set, 300m of mixed strokes (sides and breast and free).

Main Set:
2x 500m with 2 mins rest.
Emphasis on stroke techniques and continuous swimming.

Cool Down:
200m Breast Stroke

The Rest:
Main Set:
4x100 Mixed pace with 10 secs R
200 Breast cool/down
3x200 (1.5K RP, Moderate, All out)

Cool Down:
200m Breast Stroke

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Some points to note...

KH:
- Breathing still rolling towards the shoulder (i.e up and back). Should roll up and slightly forward instead.
- Sometimes arm comes out too high, out of water. Have to find a balance between keeping the arms up near the surface and not letting the hip sink by using your back to pull it. Rmb the reverse back extension exercise we did.
- Sighting still using too much force and coming up too high. It should be slow and calm.
- Your arm pull still have some dropped elbow and timing is not right at times. Leave your arm in front when breathing/sighting. Right arm pull too late, Left arm pull too early (before finish breathing)
- Pull from shoulder width out and down Gently to hold first, then push yourself forward by pushing the whole forearm and palm (MAINTAIN perpendicular to the floor throughout the whole push) BACKWARDS.

Just remember that every movement that is about bringing your head out of water has to be done GENTLY. Any forceful jerking or lifting will cause a significant drop in your hips and disruption in your overall body position in water. I.E Not streamline.

Being calm and relaxed is the hardest thing to do during race because of the adrenaline rush and also your slight fear of open water. Lets do open water swim next week. :)

Grace Under Pressure is Key.

Samsam
I noticed significant improvement in swim timing. I got a feeling its a by product from your consistent training that you've been doing. The functional resistance training is helping your core quite a bit and thus the better streamlining and a stronger pull.

The only grudge I bear right now is that your arms are STILL not straight and sometimes going too deep especially after you breathe. Wilson and KH please take note of this too.

Ken, Teck Beng and Hong Jun
Three of you have the Most natural swimmer body. Long arms, big palms and long bodies, Biggie foot too. Intriguingly, there is a number of same problems between you guys.

- There is a lack of body rotation towards the non breathing side.
- There is a dropped elbow during catch on the non breathing side.
- There is a dropped elbow after the pull passes chest (inability to see after passing chest.)
- Hip sinks. Weak Lower back, glutes and hamstrings.

Lawrence
Sam and I both noticed there is an increased tendency from you in using a straight arm pull. The start of the catch should be a flexed elbow.
The pull timing also tend to be more continuous than gliding now. Will be a whole lot better if you do just 1.5seconds more of gliding each stroke in hard effort. :)

Vincent
Your physical prowess is really admirable. However, I've personally told you about self control over your physical execution versus stroke integrity.

Also, the control over your exertion, hopefully the heart rate counting helps you. You have to count fast and not lose count. because your fitness is high, the hr drop is QUICK. You could recover in 10secs without moving anything just to count your hr. so in order to be accurate, you need to count 6secs then multiply by 10 to see what effort you've done and justify your timing achieved against your effort put in.

Heart rate, Stroke count and also your breathing (relax? or short and rapid all the time?) are ways to control and be aware of what you are doing in your swim. If your bilateral breathing is causing you to take shorter breathes and feel congested/breatheless in your swims then I rather you not do them because right now your focus to improve on should be the relaxation part. When you practice with such breathelessness, you'd just further force yourself to pull faster in an attempt to take in more oxygen (rapid breathing). Take deep breathes. Breathe out long. That feels much better. :)

You've proven to yourself during the 3x200 that you have incredible endurance in your upper body. But what I felt in your swim is you're getting a little frustrated from your own timing because despite an attempt to do bilateral breathing, the timing isn't improving. This is all due to a very choppy stroke and also shortened pull (only up to slightly pass your RIBS, when the correct one should end past your HIPS and mid thigh!).

Please see Teck Beng's quote below and discuss with him if you feel like you need another perception of stroke than mine. :)

Wilson
Bro, after so long never swim, there is a drop in endurance I believe you felt that. Not stopping to drink in between sets is a sign of nerves in getting your fitness back. Work consistently, sort out your work stuffs and timing. Fitness will come back in no time. I will help you. :)

Lastly, for now, the arms are going too deep, there is a lack of relaxation in your swim despite your exaggeration to TRY and relax. I can see you're relaxing and gliding more in your pull but the over-control in your strokes caused a backfire. Just let things flow and breathe deeper when you need more air. Don't try to hide in the water too long to glide because at the end of the day if you hyperventilate or don't get enuff oxygen, things are gonna fall apart anyway. The pull isn't gonna be strong because of lack of oxygen, the turning of body will suffer because of the rush to gasp for another mouth of air so as to go back and glide longer and prolong the suffering eh? Get my drift...

Just go do some 30mins practice on your own if you can, you know what to do, just need the time to do them. Jiayou. :)

MariMari (& her little lamb)
I see POWER in your BIKE! How come no POWER in your SwImmmm???
It doesn't make sense because they all come from the same muscle group. I see an improved effort to continuously kick but the kicks are all from the ankles instead of from the thighs. LAZY!
I see a high elbow catch at the beginning but right after the catch everything gets SLOPPY. Immediately after the catch, you have to push the arm straight back.. cannot let the arm become soft for a split second before pushing!
Is your breathing impaired in swims? Please let me know by next session, because I really don't see a reason why aren't you pulling HARDER because you proved that you can push harder than that in your cycling!!! The only reason I can guess is that you find swimming to be very breatheless and that is caused by your controlled exhalation in the water. Try exhaling slightly more forcefully completely and see if it helps you in your exertion!

You're a strong girl like samsam! Jiayou!!!

Calvin!
Always telling me you can't, but you're outdoing everyone else! haha.. I got nothing to say this time round except the kick can be a little more rapid and continuous if you want to go faster. Overall, I am very proud of your swim despite a cough. Keep up the good work! :)

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Teck Beng pointed out a very key phrase that everyone should take a look and learn from.

"First, do Not create drag. Even in exhaustion, lost in form created drag which is much much worse than lost in positive propulsion."
TB.

It cannot be more true. Even for myself, when I get tired in swim, the first thing that I think of to shave timing is NOT how to Pull FASTER/HARDER/MORE. At those chaotic situation of race pace lung busting swims of 100s and 200s, I am always, ALWAYS thinking about keeping my body's streamlining and visualizing how my body is moving through the water and finding ways to keep my hip higher on the surface and also doing a proper holding the water with the gentle catch despite feeling my guts are gonna puke at those high intense efforts.

Of course the very first requisite for you to be able to do that, is that you need to do ALOT of thinking in your slow/moderate swim. Until your breathing, pulling and basically just about every single basic things are so automatic that you can just Execute without much thoughts. When you can do that, then you can blast your efforts like a bull and still think about the more minor details that can enhance your swims. Keep thinking guys. :)


Cheers
KK