Samantha's first swim squad review 17032011

Today's gonna be my first writeup and review of team sapphire swim squad..
First things first, I'm definitely less detailed as compared to KK but
anyways, here we go.

It was a tough 1km warmup, inclusive of 2 sets of treacherous 200m kicks but i thought everyone did very well during the 200m pulls(simply because the buoy helps you float better and the set is purposely in the middle to allow a “rest” from the tough exertion in a warmup!). 

Vincent & Wilson
Both don't move much from your kick, too much bodily reactions(rocking) resulting from leg movements. Body looks stiff and tensed up during kick. Exhale more as you kick, think lifting and releasing legs gently but quickly. Light & fast kicks is the way to go.

Ebnu
A tad too much knee bending, straighten your legs up and keep the depth of the kick towards the shallower side. As usual, chest down, butt up,
kick from thighs and loosen your ankles should do you fine. Also quite a lot of bodily reactions from leg movements, keep the core tight like running~

Robert
Keep pushing through the sets continuously. The key here is continuity and in order to continue, you have to force your body to learn how to relax as your exhale and consciously stay loose when you inhale. Imagine Exhaling more than what you inhale will help a lot now as you tend to hold your breathe quite a bit. Also might want to consider front breathing as it is easier to do that with the pull buoy instead of side.

Gen
My guess is you pushed a little too hard in the first 600m warmup. You have to know your limits of your energy level, think far and ration them well through proper pacing.

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Here are some things I noted as I saw KK's group swim your main set.

6x50  10s R
4x100 15s R
3x200 20s R (most strokes falter @ fatigue at this whole of last set)

Teck Beng
Your theories are perfect, time to put them in action! Haha.. I could feel that you were not catching enough water or creating enough resistance at your catch, thus your push wasn’t really making you surge. Also, have to constantly remind yourself to accelerate 2x faster at the push phase and continue consistently at that rhythm, voila!


Gen
It's tough coping with exams and working out when tired. But hey, working
out should make you feel recharged isn't it. Jiayou! You have a diamond shaped entry, I.e your arms bend inwards upon entry and it is entering at the middle of your forehead, you should be reaching at your shoulder width and extend further in the water to glide.

I suspect it might be due to your tight shoulders as well because you can’t seem to have that extra shrug/shoulder extension after the entry that KK has been talking about that is critical to help you glide more.

You have powerful strokes but you need to learn how to segregate them from slow at the start to fastest at the end. You catch and hold the water firmly and then double up on the push, that's where you accelerate and surge forward(provided you can extend that shoulder and glide a wee bit more than now).

Marianne
I got to say you look really fine in the water lady. Alot of improvement
since!! Similar to gen, work on your catch, hold and push water not only
with your arms.. Make use of your opposite hip to push downwards to
coordinate the acceleration. Try to feel more resistance from your front part of the strokes and I'm sure u'd pick up speed in no time! Right now it’s a matter of catching no ball at the front and thus you got nothing to throw backward (in a basketball context).

Side note: Do you feel any pain in your right shoulder? I see your palm tend to turn outward upon entry of your right and that will cause tension on the right deltoid.

KK 
You would be sad to hear this but I honestly don't have much to correct your strokes here..:S due to your bulk around your pigeon chest, you tend to look inflexible/slow while rotating. Work on flexibility and mobility??
Left palm tend to slap onto water surface before slicing into the water(I.e
late entry), increases drag. Shifu said your right arm is more powerful than left, so you should work more on left side muscular activation yup. Lastly, keep the left entry closer to your forehead!

Vincent
You seem very controlled over every movement throughout your stroke. It is one thing to have control over your stroke but another to be able to execute them smoothly at low speed swims. Aim for that fluidity in your movements while executing those control… More flexi please! Swimmers are known to have jello yet firm stark bodies upon glide when they swim. Your pulls tend to shorten as you go deeper into longer swims, keep extending on the glide when the swim gets longer, accelerate and fly!!

Bryan
Gotta admit, you're pretty fast.. But if you're willing to brush up on some
technical issues, you will go even faster and better! I recommend you adopt
a high-elbow recovery and work on your arm alignment!! It should be in-line
with your shoulder width so that your body can glide straight in that sense.
Don't rush through your strokes in order to reach your destination fast.

One critical change now is to keep your head lower and more submerged in the water to keep the hip up. You swim with a 2 beat kick and that means the kick isn’t firing much when you swim, thus you need to play with head positioning to keep the hips up!

Aim to 'feel' your strokes better with more accuracy and glide through the water! You have to literally KNOW IN YOUR EYES whether you’re actually gliding through the water at all. The effort you put into your swim should translate to the velocity of your body through the water, if you see that you’re moving really slowly and choppily through the water while pushing hard then something is wrong.. Keep working on it, You have what it takes!

Wilson
Your legs significantly don't work when you swim, but excellent catch, push
and glide. I think you nailed the glide well and tend to rely on it. However when you glide, the whole body weight tend to be on that side, you have to hold the body weight with your core so you’re more ready for transition of strokes from one side to another! 

Oh do note your right arm recovery as well, similar to marianne's problem, I used to do the same and create some shoulder awkwardness for myself:(

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As for the Ebnu and Robert's group, your focus was to work on continuity of swim  through the following:

6x50  10s R
4x100 15s R
6x50  30s R

Even though some of you did not complete the entire set, here are some
pointers for you to work on.

Musaib
Where are you rushing to ar? It seems like you either rush or shut your mind off when you swim. From the post swim briefing, you said you were pushing hard but it definitely seem like you were not really moving in the water as fast as your effort to award you with. Get what I mean? It’s like with that level of effort, you should be travelling through the water much much faster than what you’re doing now but.. Your strokes isn’t warranting that. 

You should really think of your strokes more!! Do your catch properly, most of the time the elbow is dropped... without the catch, you got nothing to push back and that’s when you’re “slipping” on the hold of water. Once you nailed the catch, try to hold your glide longer, complete your pushes.

I’m sure you will and can make good use of your strong kick and fast arms but you have to get the catch right first. TOP PRIORITY. 

Pauline
Another effortless swim! Too relaxed and too much gliding la... Do you even
pant after your swim? I highly doubt so leh..=p If you can complete the surge with your arm push slightly harder (esp your right) and up your stroke rate (I.e lesser glide), you would speed up a lot more! You’re ready to go a little faster.. =) Hope to see more competitiveness in you Pauline! ;)

Robert
Firstly, your breathing have improvements and it is showing in your ability to continuously swim for that 1.2-1.4km of swim! My suggestion is for you to read up on KK’s recent articles on the catching of water visualizing grabbing a barrel. Because right now, straight arm pull inhibits your forward gliding movement due to the fact that a straight arm pull pushes the water upwards.

Instead, angle your forearm to pull towards your hips. Think catch-hold water(feel most resistance here)-push water backwards-recover as one cycling revolution. Read the articles KK wrote as he described them in the finest of details and easy to understand parts. Break them down and do them part by part.. then once you get them right (can come to us and we’ll help you see), you have to execute the movement in one smooth fluid motion from slow at the front to fastest at the back.

Lastly, keep your body firmly streamline while swimming, body rotation looks fine but a bit lacking on the left (non breathing) side. You tend to rock and sway your body laterally left and right quite a fair bit, looks as though you're swimming like a snake! Do some planks and suck the guts in, that’s the feeling you should aim for while staying streamline relaxedly. As KK always mentioned in a intriguingly contradicting way, swimming requires you to be stiff (holding a position) but relaxed (feel loose) at the same time.

Ebnu
Firstly, Good job on gliding! Rotation tend to originate from shoulders,
initiate the turn from hips instead, so you can use more force from your
core. Keep your arm close to you as you recover, rather than let it flail
outward unnecessarily. Watch your form as fatigue increases, I notice your
upper body is lifted higher due to the need to breathe easier, eyes were looking in front and that severely caused your lower body to sink and slows you down.

One tip for you, Ebnu, is to use the pull buoy and just lie flat on the water without moving anything. You’ll notice the head will want to dip in and stay submerged. Then using the pull buoy between your legs, push off the wall and glide then take 6 strokes without breathing while maintaining the submerged head position. Notice how you’ll move very far and pretty quickly glide through the water because the hips are floating.

Then remove the pull buoy, and repeat the process aiming for the SAME FEELING OF HIP FLOATING AND GLIDE. Kick off the wall, this time you don’t have the float so you have to keep your hip afloat by pressing the chest down with each arm entry. Remember to pierce through the water with your finger tips each time you do an entry and extend your arm into the water, while doing that use the arm extension momentum to press and lean your chest into the water. Continue that until it comes to a full extension each time. That should keep your hip afloat. Remember to do that every cycle. As usual, do it slow and part by part with accuracy first, then smoothen it out into one motion. =)

Overall, I see good continuous swim from everyone. We cannot emphasize more
on focusing of techniques. Think, feel and practice more often. Attempt to
correct one error at a time and then constantly remind yourself to work on
it until it becomes second nature to you. Hope to see more improvements next
time, 

ciao~!

SamSam~~~