Motivation versus RPE (Perceived Exertion) Part 1 of 3

How many of you has went through two exact same sets of workouts, fully rested, but felt like a champion on the first time then totally beaten at the middle of the set in the second?

Or how about a 10x100 set that you barely manage to drag yourself into the pool to start, let alone survive by your own (with nowhere near best results) but then later, felt that you'd breeze through the same set in a group swim (with all sets closed to your PB)?

I'm pretty sure most of us has experienced either or both types of the situations above.. Some of us may feel the urge to do it again just to conquer it by yourself and prove to yourself that it is do-able. But the rest may be totally demoralized the moment the once "easy" set of workout in the group turns into a grind. When that happens, you'd start to doubt your capability and your training plan.. unless you understand truly what's the concept behind the two different perceived exertions. If you felt the doubt on your capability, this post is for you as I try to explain why you felt that way and how you should go about getting it right.

Rest assure in this article you won't be finding a resolution as "because I'm in a group and thus the workout is easier cos of higher motivation.".. That commonly used phrase to describe the reason behind being motivated is so overly simplified that most people who experience motivation or the lack of often does so with little understanding to the meaning behind, let alone managing such matters.

As a firm believer of "knowing what you want to do in detail is the only way to accomplish what you want to do.", I hope this article will help you have a better grasp over your motivational issues and pave a better route to excellence.

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What is Motivation?

Motivation is the drive that gives you the initiative to set out and do whatever you plan to do. Everything, from the training plan, to the 4.30AM rides, to the 10x100s, to the 10x400s,  to the wearing of compression tights to sleep for recovery and even to the reading of endless triathlon tips no matter how many of them may seem to be talking about the same thing over and over again.

Obsession? There is a source that obsession stems from and that source is not passion. It started with a motivation to do something, and in turn, fall in love with it because you liked what you do, and the passion from within then fuels the motivation to make it an obsession.

We look at motivation from the simplest source, the reasons we feel good about doing something and keep us wanting to do it again, in this case, it's Triathlon.

Why do we need to manage Motivation?

1) If you're overly motivated, you may overtrain with an overzealous training regime.

2) If you're under motivated, you will dread to go to any training. Gone will be the goals you set.

3) To excel in anything we do, we have to find just the right amount of motivation.

Having the right amount of motivation each time during your workout, races or basically anything you do will allow you to get the most out of the achievements at the end of the day.

This can mean a decreased RPE for workouts due to the psychological factor of being "On form" for the sets or race. This can also mean achieving the best effort that you deem is possible of your capability in the race you chose.

And of course, at times when you underachieved despite feeling motivated, you'd most likely gain a whole lot too, out of the learning experience of what went wrong just by the focus that you are able to exert.. i.e being Completely Involved/Absorbed in the whole process and situation due to the motivation of constantly trying to achieve your best.

In its simplest form, the reason to manage motivation is to make the best out of your investment, be it time, equipment or even emotional investment into the sport that you've grown to love so dearly.


How do we manage Motivation?


Knowing the factors behind feeling motivated for doing and training for triathlon help a whole lot in developing a plan for managing motivation.

To start the discussion, I will list the several popular reasons that leads to motivation..

1) Fun

2) Affiliations

3) Intangible benefits (Health, Hot Bod, Race Edge, Bragging Rights)

4) Confidence

5) Goal(s)

6) Believes

Fun

First reason of motivation often comes from the purity of the fun factor. If something is not fun, nobody will do it 100% willingly, let alone feel motivated to initiate the start of it.

Knowing that Fun is the very fundamental of motivation helps because when you plan your training, you can in fact add in the Fun Factor to ensure you'd enjoy the training even more.

I'll give you two examples of boring workout set versus fun workout set.

1) Basketball - Shooting

Not so fun set:
- Warmup jog
- Shoot 550 balls from anywhere and everywhere you get the rebound.

Fun set:
- Warmup jog
- Do favorite dribbling practice
--25 right, 25 left single beat dribble
--25 right, 25 left left to right double beat dribble
--25 right, 25 left front to back to front double beat dribble
--4 lengths fake cross over dribble practice
- Shoot 50 balls from 11 spots on the court
-- Split the 50 balls to 25 right handed shots and 25 left handed shots

2) Swimming - Main set: 1KM Race Pace 

Not so fun set:
- 10 x 100m Hard on 2:00 <-- see already also sian if i train alone.. -_-...

Fun set:
- 8 x 50m Hard on 1:00
- 100m Hard rest 1:00
- 200m Moderate rest 1:00
- 300m Flat-out rest 1:00 then cool down

Basically, you can see that for both training, there is a main set to be completed and what I did was to add Variations to the training set.

At times, deep inside us, we know that a training set is definitely doable such as 10x100 kick. Just ask yourself if you can do a 2km swim, why can't you do a 10 sets 4mins worth of kick with rest?

However, we sometimes can't put things in the better perspective because of the enormity of the big picture. With that in mind, I also attempt to break the set into several specific mini targets.. that way, there is always something to look forward to and achieve throughout every mini sets of the training instead of having just a big chunk of workout to complete.

Affiliations
Affiliations is the term used to describe a partnership between two or more parties.


Having been through the fat and lazy stage of life, I remembered how much I dreaded going to Physical Education classes and NAPHA (National Physical Fitness Award) test. It was the PUREST form of boredom and apathy (an absence of enthusiasm or emotions was the online explanation, for me, it's an absence of BOTH)..


But I remembered how excited I was after school ended to literally RUN to the basketball court to unite with my bunch of basketball brothers. We'd run up and down the court tirelessly with NO HYDRATION in the HOT sun till the sun goes down and we'd gather for a cup noodle and a bottle of coke for mini celebration of fun and laughter. That began my journey to becoming who I am right now but that is a story for those of you who're interested to come to me for. :)


And you can see, there are so many cycling groups, running groups, swimming groups, basketball teams and there're THOUSANDS of people joining these groups and working out.. even people like Calvin of our team, he is a self proclaimed lazy person but he has not missed a single session that I could hold as long as he could make it at his best possible effort. This is an admirable feat of conditioning as he transformed from a couch potato who just do a 20lap swim a week for fun to a 2++km swimmer who have a stroke that the average joe swimmers in SG (that makes up 85% of the people in singapore mind you.) envious and drool for.


THAT - is the power of affiliation. No matter how tired he is, he'd make it to the training.. and he held himself accountable for it no matter how he perform. There're times when he felt he under performed because he was tired and he came to me and apologize for the listlessness...

Honestly, I am all impressed by this self proclaimed lazy guy because he DROVE from TAMPINES to the pool to make it for the swim when he's WORN OUT from work. Tell that to another couch potato with no motivation to workout at all and he'll tell you "YOU CRAZY OR WHAT? I RATHER SLEEP AH.".


If you don't believe what I mentioned is happening and affiliation is a form of motivation, go join a group of swimmers/riders/runners TODAY and feel your own responsibility to join them every time and again just to ENJOY the Training. =)


----- Tips for you when looking for a group to join... ------
When looking for groups in the internet, you don't necessary have to ask for groups to join. You can FORM a group yourself just by going to the forum and ask if there is anyone of the same standard as you interested to train together. Write in the post your Goal, swim/bike/run race pace, last race timing and set a date and time. 


People will not judge your timing and say you're slow, in fact, the slower you are, the more likely people will join because it is just so damn hard to find a beginner group when every groups are ongoing. At least that is the norm that people who doesn't belong to any group thinks when they thought about joining a group. The most common excuse to not join a group is "But they've been training for a long time together.. i sure last one in the team one lor...".. Seriously, only your pride and ego will care about placing, no one else will. I'd rather start last and work my way up there because I know someday I will if I start now. I know that I will get nowhere if I'd stay at home and lament about everything but nothing.


And again, if you don't want to go through the hassle of coping with your ego and pride, then start one group yourself.. it can start with 2-3 people at first but make it an effort to go at it every week and trust me, the group will grow. Just like Team Sapphire. =)


Stay tune for the continuation of article on Intangible benefits (Health, Hot Bod, Race Edge, Bragging Rights) & Confidence. 


Cheers
KK

Swim Squad 18052011 Review

Dear Team,

We did:

100Kick

200Pull

300Swim 

10X50 Kicks on 2:30

10X50 Pull with Strap on ankles on 1:45

4x50 Swim on 1:15

100 Breast

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Total: 1.9K.

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I'd review this swim short and sweet. I thought I saw many faces who are feeling pretty distressed about kick sets and still felt the fear for doing such practice. 

To put things into perspectives... I'd like to remind everyone about 3 points:

1) All of us were once only half as efficient as what we are in the water right now. Just a year back.

2) All of us manage to cope with the sets and finish it.

3) All of us were tired.. And those of you who felt like you're the only one, NO, you're NOT.

For those of you who have been merely following through whatever I prescribed in the menus, I'd like to ask you to step back and look at what we've done over the past weeks and this week and look at the true meaning and fruits of the training. 

I've always said that in each and every training, I hope you go back with a mind full of ideas to improve and full of confidence that you will do better on the next session!

However, in these last two sessions, I thought I saw little of the latter.

The longer and tougher sets are always demoralizing especially if you focus only on the perceived exertion side. Meaning, how bad you felt in the sets. Seriously, I thought we ought to all know that training shouldn't be about staying in the comfort zone and if you do stay, then so will your plateaus.

In order for consistent motivation, we need the motivation to come from our heart and to do that, we need to first accept what our weakness is and what our strengths are and to have the curious heart of a beginner to improve. 

We need to shift our focus from how we feel in the already-known-to-be-difficult sets to quantifying what we've accomplished and what we are trying to accomplish. Having that clear mind set of "how to become better" is Key in not losing focus and motivation.

Anyway, tonight's sets are very educational just like last week. Having your timing to compare from set to set allows you to see if your kicks are actually dragging you or are they really working to help you move faster.

The strapped leg pull sets are meant to be a superb test on your streamlining ability and core muscle to keep your hips afloat. I see most of us have difficulties in these two areas.. to further elaborate, they are about...

1) Keeping the body straight and not crunching the body from side to side with each pull and body rotation.

2) Keeping the hips afloat.

Problem with Point 1...

If you have problem with point 1, it shows that during your normal swim, your pulls and body rotation have not been executed correctly. You're either rotating too much from side to side that causes the body weight to be "thrown" from one side to another that causes drag or water resistance on the side or you're pulling too hard in the wrong direction (side wards at the catch instead of down maybe?) or both.

Remember that your catch is to be done relaxedly.. if you don't, the outward scull and downward push at the start may cause your body to move sideways. 

Secondly, If you are pulling the water across the centerline of the body like what Lawrence(we miss u.. so have to mention about you here.. :P ) always did, your body will definitely rock from side to side too and cause difficulty in accomplishing Point 1..

Problem with Point 2...

If you have problem with point 2, it simply shows that your back and your buttock and hamstring muscles are not strong enough to keep your lower body hugging the water surface. 

And the matter of fact is if you can't do Point 1 properly, the wave drag you create in your body rotation will be "slapping" you from side to side and make you slower and thus the buoyancy will drop.. the hips will sink even worst.

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All in all, we have to go back to the value of "Stop stopping yourself." -- reminds me of Love Guru the movie -- as per mentioned last week. And exercise more control over our body exertion to ensure we only propel ourselves forward and not exert any amount of force laterally(to the side) that is not necessary and causing our body to be "slapped" from side to side.

As for combining your kick and your pull to make it into a proper integration and moving as a whole body.. I'd not nag about it here anymore as I already explained how your body will tangle up if you don't kick the rhythm properly with your arm pulls during the debrief ya..

Contact me if you need help.. I hope to see more SMILEY FACES EXCITED FOR TRAINING NEXT WEEK PLEASE!!!!

CHEERS

KK

18052011 Swim Squad

Dear Team,

Everytime I start my post with Dear Team, I'm just glad I don't have to deal with plural or singular kind of language errors... =p

Anyway, we're in our 3rd base endurance week. Loads of swim again, loads of "time goes by so slowly" kind of stuff....

Warm Up: 123 hundreds. (15 minutes)

100 Kick
200 Pull
300 Swim 

Main Set: 3X10X50 (Kick, Pull, Swim) 60 minutes

10x50 Kicks (25slow, 25fast) on 2mins ----> So it starts gently.
Rest 2 minutes
10x50 Pulls with Strapped Legs on 2mins ----> So that you can't cheat, and you'll have to fight the sinking demon and still do the catch properly.
Rest 2 minutes
10x50 Hard Swim on 1:30min ----> Aim for continuous kicks (especially in breathing) and proper techniques in swim
Rest 1 minute

Cool Down: EasY SwiM (15 minutes)
5 x 100s as
Backstroke [Loosen shoulders - stretch all the way back in recovery]
Breaststroke [Practice your catch, and feel the glide in your kick to streamline your body
Fist Freestyle [Practice water feel, feel the catch and building of resistance at the front part of pull]
Breaststroke [Practice your catch, and feel the glide in your kick to streamline your body]
Backstroke [Loosen shoulders - stretch all the way back in recovery]




Cheers
KK

11052011 Swim Squad REVIEW with timing and smthg else...

An important finding:
Wave Drag caused by the entry of the arm and lateral movements to the side because of a unstabilized torso moving sideways can be costing you more energy than you thought!

Let us first recall the definition of success in swimming or what is efficient swimming:

It is to move through the water with the minimal amount of energy required for a particular effort.

Timing of your swim is but just a quantifiable aspect of this beautiful skill. The actual success we're looking for is in the efficiency of the performance of the art of swimming.

Visualize this:

Two persons (Swimmer A and B) swimming side by side at the same speed. Are they expending the same amount of energy to get the same result?

Let's put aside the weight, height, palm size, strength and every other physiological aspect and just focus on the technique aspect of this little comparison.

A smash his hand into the water at entry everytime then extends his arm and shoulder underwater very quickly in an attempt to stretch as far out and as fast as possible.

B makes his hand entry as effortless as possible and extend his arm and shoulder underwater quickly but still conscious in not putting any effort to push the water frontward.

Judging from these two circumstances, A would definitely be expending more energy than B to swim at the same speed.

3 reasons:
i) A is not able to do a clean entry and thus his catch will not be productive and so his pull will be affected too with the large amount of bubbles(air) that he brought into the catch with the smashing entry.
And because of the inefficient catch, he will have to push back much harder to get the same result.

ii) A'll also have to do more strokes to catch up because the push phase he'll do will not be as efficient in propelling him than B's push will.


iii) Third and the most important factor is the wave drag Swimmer A will be getting from the strong extension of arm and shoulder under the water after entry.
As the extension of the arm and shoulder is done frontward, it is actually pushing against the water in the direction where he's moving.
His strong extension will cause a lot of resistance from the water because of the force applied forward.

To top it off...
B will be able to do a much more efficient catch because the little amount of bubble stream would have dispersed by the time he finished extending his shoulder. Thus he'll be able to hold on to more water and make a better push.

With that scenario and reasons, we can easily conclude that Swimmer B expends much lesser energy to move forward at the same velocity as Swimmer A.

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Take note that it is not just about the moment when the fingertips enter the surface that needs to be effortless. A lot of us do that with great ease.

However, because the "stretch" or the extension of the arm and shoulder gives us the feeling of extra surge and glide.. people tend to overdo this part of the swim and do the extension very forcefully in an attempt to achieve:

i) More surge
ii) To reach in front as fast as possible and as far as possible

For swimmers with tight shoulders especially, they'll need to use a lot of force to stretch the lats and shoulder girdle for them to feel a good extension.

When they use that force in the extension, you're actually stopping or slowing yourself down. I.E Negating the push phase of the opposite arm.

SOLUTIONS:
Take note about this 3 points:

i) It is virtually limitless in how effortless we can work to become because of the need to perform a movement with our arm - The extension/stretch. BUT we can practice to make it as effortless as humanly possible. Read (ii) below to find out how.

ii) Fast/Quick does not equate to FORCEFUL. It is possible to do things fast and quickly without using much force. One way is to master the movement by first doing it relaxly and slowly. Once the movement is mastered, the speed of executing the movement will become faster without the need to use much force to control the movement's execution.

iii) It is the push phase working together with the hip rotation that allows the surge to become significant. The stretch merely works as an additional aspect of streamlining the body.

CONCLUSION:

I have to let this off my chest as I conclude this chapter of new discovery about wave drag.

I felt bad about this and I have to apologize for using Vincent's swim against mine as an example. I've been very close with him that I kind of taken it for granted as I was too excited about the new discovery and I thought I started criticizing unnecessarily.

What went on was that my analysis of every detail of his swim was constantly occurring because I am very concerned about him trying too hard to catch up after missing the two weeks of training.

And thus I watched extremely closely every single stroke he took while doing my own swim and that's why I could tell the actual effort from the facial expression and the amount of force I felt from his entry and push as we swam virtually side by side or me lagging him by half a body length getting all his turbulence from the torrential amount of force.

Even though he is always very comfortable with race pace all the time, the way he needed 15-25 seconds to recover/catch breathe to talk with ease says quite a bit about the exertion level also and thus my conclusion during the breathing that he was pushing pretty hard - his RPE can of course tell the opposite because RPE is about how you feel over a certain effort and not the effort itself.

And with that analysis of his swim, I was excited to tell that by this slight change of my stroke to reduce the wave drag at the entry and extension, I've gained time on him while we maintain the same pace or effort throughout..

More importantly, at the end of the day, the big picture I was trying to get all of you guys to see is that we could all swim a much faster timing while using the same or even much lesser effort. As you can see from the timing of my last set of kick, I was actually able to do that much faster because I conserved energy from the swim while still getting a decent timing for the swim. That showed a lot about how an efficient form with lesser wave drag can save you tonnes of energy to expend later on whatever that is needed.

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Timing: - I was on high alert mode on wednesday night because of my lousy swim and my brain was hyperactive thus I could remember from my watch what are your individual timing. I was also consciously calculating how many seconds I won each and every one of those who came after me just to make my brains busier and not feel so bad about swimming so slowly. I was fuming for my own swim to be truthful but its more like I didn't have time to rest as I committed to help a young basketball team.

Vince, I thought the swim was a little off for you.. which I was guessing if you were feeling stressed out from your work. If you need any help for training do let me know what I can do for you. I hope you can do well for OSIM. One thing I thought you did really well was your kick was really consistent until the last set.. As for the pull sets, you managed to control the legs very well after the second set! I also noticed when you breathe left on your bilateral swims, your head comes up very high compared to your right side breathing. A few seconds can be shaved from there.
Last but not least, the old habit of not straightening the arm to 90% is coming back.. the push phase for you now ends with a 90degrees flexed elbow. Slight more extension behind will aid a lot more in the glide rather than the forceful extension. We both know that you have a harder time than average joes controlling your tremendous amount of strength but I hope you gain insights from this article and starts working towards a better stroke as we've always been spurring each other for from now on!=)

Pauline, you were SUPERB in your swim. Your kick was Shockingly fast to be honest. I'm sorry I underestimated you. =P Do take note in the last 2 sets of swim and kick when you're tired, you're not able to push the amount of water you controlled in your catch. Fret not as it is a good news if you're indeed able to do the catch to control a lot of water. Just make sure you keep training and keep pushing for the push even when you're tired.. if training yourself, rest more but still must do the push phase.. the strength and endurance will come in few weeks! =)
Oh, for your perusal, I included your previous 7x100 swim timing and you could see that even at your last sets you were faster than your that 7x100 swims. Crazy effort, crazy ability to understand and grasp concepts.. no wonder you're a surgeon... I am Truly Happy for you. =)

Sam, I am so happy you finally got into the focus and problem solving mode I've been preaching to you about. Your amount of focus is tremendous throughout the swim and your ability to evolve your stroke during your kick sets (especially the last one) is just so incredible. Congratulations on getting better on your mental training. =)

Ben, improvements are clearly visible as you nearly catch me in all of the first 50s of the hundreds. Keep working on your technique at a moderate pace right now, so they won't all fall apart when you go really hard at it in a few weeks' time. =)

Calvin and Wilson, I admire your determination in trying to get better set after set by putting in more and more effort especially in your kick sets. Calvin has shown so much more improvement in your kick since last time and Wilson improved by a freaking 3 minutes just by letting the fear of pacing go loose. For your swim, you still have to make sure the right hand enters a little shallower. Calvin, I'm also extremely extremely pleased with your swim.. your every stroke executed gives the same amount of glide and the rhythm of your swim was so constant from lap 1 to the last that if I were to take a metronome to just calculate how many strokes you take for 6 seconds, I can multiply it by the amount of time you swam to get the exact number of strokes you took for all the swim.

Teck Beng, I thought you were pretty off that night but the good news is it is normal and off nights usually happens to people who trains consistently night in and night out or follows a routine of swimming a specific frequency week after week. To take something out of it is that the off night was probably a sign that you've plateaued and/or your body needs more rest. It could also be just the body reacting to the purpose of the sets sequence I made. If plateauing is what you felt happened then it's time to shake the routine up a little.. either make it easier or slightly harder! Nonetheless, kudos to you who still finished 12 x 100 of swim.. it is an endurance set and you ENDURED. =)

Cheers
KK

11052011 Swim Squad Menu

Excluding this week, we're 11 weeks away from OSIM Triathlon.

We're on the second week of Base Endurance Phase (5 weeks total).

We'll have 4 weeks of build, 2 weeks of Peak and 1 week of Taper.

Warmup: (30 mins)
5x200 (Swim/Kick/Pull/Kick/Swim)

Main Set: (44 mins)
12x100 Alt Swim (on 3minutes), Kick (on 5mins), Pull (on 3minutes)
Focus:
1) Consistent Effort and Timing.
2) Streamlining at the frontal area (Stretching of lead arms)
3) Relaxed arm stroke other than a HARD PUSH with body rotation to the side to assist glide.
4) Proper EVF Catch.
5) Whatever personal mistakes you've made in your swim and reviewed last week(s).

Cool Down: (16mins)
400 EASY  as Back, Breast, Back, Back - 2mins per lap. easy right?
Focus:
1) Stretch arm backwards fully during Backstroke to get the benefit of a lats and chest stretch every stroke. Helps loosen up the shoulders
2) Breast stroke is for you to catch your breathe.

Total: 2.6KM.

Cheers
KK

VIDEO REVIEWS - 6 May 2011

KH

1) when you are gliding, the legs are opened up instead of kept together, notice that when you attempt to glide each time, you come to a complete stop in the water despite looking pretty streamline at the upper body.. its because of your legs opening up and tensing up to get ready for the next kick. Keep the legs close.

2) When doing pull, both hand fingers are widely spread apart. It is a MUST to change.

3) It seems like after your catch, you just let the pull become automatic. You have to continue to make sure that the palm is facing backwards and your forearm also as you push the water back. This "automation" of pull and push is now causing your palm angle to be pitched sideways when you push.. and thus the water you controlled at the catch all "slipped away" and when you push, you're not surging forward cos the water already gone and you're not pushing onto anything! Do you feel that way? 

I used to have that problem and now i still experience it on my left side unless i am really conscious about keeping the forearm and the palm facing back as i extend my elbow. Where the palm is facing is REALLY important. (Check your swim catching ben.. you'll see what i mean, he is always surging forward because he made sure that during the catch, he establish the control over the water with a Vertical forearm position and the palm facing backwards.. then when he push back, he made sure he is always in control of the water till his push is fully done.. thus he moved much further than you do since your push "isn't working".)

4) Right arm pull is late. It waited for the left arm to come back then you start catching. The late pull also contributed to the stop in gliding.

5) The body is generally not moving as one piece in a synchronized manner. It looks pretty ok to the non swimmers but you can see clearly that the arms and shoulders leads the rotation and the hips follow, then the legs kick to get to that side position. The rotation to the side has to happen as a plank from head to toe. I.E the turning must be from the core, obliques and hips area in order for the majority of the body to "swing" together.

6) When you're tired, you tend to have the Mr Take mistake of leaning your head to your arm and think that you're stretching your arm and shoulder forward to touch your ears with your shoulder.  It has to be the shoulder moving up and not the face coming closer to the shoulder.. learn to focus on one point diagonally in front when you swim and stay focused on that point when you rotate your WHOLE BODY from side to side. 

7) When you're tired, you also tend to fidget your line of sight from front to down to the side.. keep your line of sight focused on the diagonal front.. you need to feel like you're a very stable knife slicing through the butter(water) while moving the whole knife (synchronized body) side to side.

Ebnu

1) Not enough rotation on the left side.

2) Too much focus on coming up to breathe.  The lifting of the head out of water to inhale caused a lot of tension to the shoulder area which translate to a sinking rear end.

3) Return lap looks better because the right arm (master arm) is better at stretching. However, it is important to note that it is the stretch of the LEFT ARM that allows you to stay on the side to breathe without any pull.

4) Currently, the left arm is dropping down as you breathe. You should keep the left arm extended until you finish the inhalation. 

5) You need some personal time to grasp the concept of turning with the left lead arm as you surface to breathe. Take note i used the word 'surface' to breathe.. not lift. Right now, you can see that even though you're rotating your neck to the right, your left arm is pushing down with the momentum of the entry to help you keep your head up to breathe.. look at 00:00:29sec of the video onwards till 45 seconds and on.. it is obvious. 1:31 also showed the same thing.

6) The legs are pretty opened up when you breathe thus causing the drag to stop your glide.. same as KH.

7) It is important to note that you have a much better control over your legs' exertion now that you don't kick that much. You have to shift your focus to having an effortless breathing on the side.. no need to press down on your left lead arm.

Remember: To succeed, we have to be discipline to do those that are good but we don't honestly like to do. In this case, if i were you, i'd hammer the drills and ask Teck Beng how to do it. He's good with the side skater drill.. :)

Teck Beng:

1) Catch angle is too small, i.e too shallow and the fingertips are pointing inwards to the chest. The finger tips should point straight down to the floor (with the elbow, wrist and palm in one line). When your fingertip is pointing inwards to the centerline, you're catching with a dropped elbow and thus the resistance at the front is very very little only and no matter how hard you try to push, nothing much will happen because you got nothing to push back. This is a mistake resulting from over pushing in your swim even when you're feeling fatigue and you're no longer able to control the amount of water from the proper catch… the hand will automatically make adjustment so that you'd slip some water during the catch to make it easier to catch, pull and push. Go look at my multi angle land drill again and compare against yours.. you'd see your hands are really under your centerline when you finish your catch.

2) Don't keep your left lead arm on the left side of the shoulder. Note that when you rotate your shoulder you need to rotate the arm together to keep it at shoulder width apart. If you keep your arm at where the previous shoulder was pointing then you're separating the arm from the body to rotate the body only. the 6th second onwards of the video clip shows this very obviously.

3) Recovery is hand leading instead of elbow leading. The elbow is not high enough. Remember that when you finish your push, the first thing that exit the water is your elbow, not your hand.

4) The overall rhythm of the stroke is very jerky.. need to start smoothening by recovery with the elbow and swinging the elbow in front effortlessly. Because of the hand leading recovery, it becomes very controlled in order to do a finger tip entry at the front while keeping the elbow high becomes a necessity. When you start recovering with the elbow first, the high elbow, fingertip entry will become an automated smooth process.

Mr Take:

1) The body is swinging from side to side. 8th to 30th seconds in the clip shows this very clearly. The side to side movement is causing a lot of drags and also causing the body to move sideways instead of using the momentum to move forward.

2) The stroke you're doing is very upper body and upper limbs dominant, thus if you're going to race like this without the kick, your hips will drop very low and sink.. look at 1:33 onwards from the clip. So if you want to continue this position of your head, you have to add the kick continuously.. else, i'd advise to keep the head lower and press more on the chest constantly to keep your hips floating.. just like what i showed in my short swim for you guys illustrating between kick and kick-less fs swim,

3) Very wide arm recovery causes a very slow transition from stroke to stroke because the arm and hand takes a longer time to travel back to the front for the next stroke. This is not obvious in a slow swim like this but when you attempt to go faster, you'll find yourself not able to pull as fast as you want because of the outward swing of the arm during recovery traveling a longer distance. The shortest distance to recover from the back to the front is a straight line along the body's side as close as possible. =)

Yukari:

1) Recovery started with the elbow… but…. once the elbow comes out of water, the hand/palm immediately takes over and lead the whole arm forward. Thus it is still a very wide recovery like Mr Take's. If you take a ruler and put it along side your body on the video screen, you'll see actually your arms are swinging outwards like a butterfly stroke too… you felt that it is correct because the recovery do start with the elbow… :P

2) As you get tired, the catch become very shallow and you're not getting a firm hold on the water anymore.. Need to be more conscious and focus on the catch to control a large amount of water before pushing back. If you can push back easily, it means your catch has been done wrongly and need to scull and feel the water a bit more when you catch. I can see that your body is "cleverly" adapting to the tiredness by trying to catch a little less water so you can push more really… not the way to go ya.. :)

 3) Also you can see very clearly from 1:06 onwards.. i closed up on your catch and you're doing actually a STRAIGHT ARM PULL.. no more EVF high elbow catch! That slowed you down a lot because you couldn't catch properly… You see from 1:51 to the end.. you're not really moving at all! So need to control more water yup! Cannot be lazy on the catch.. because if you're not catching the water, you cannot push. I know i'm repeating myself.. but it is just That important..

4) Last but not least, your fingers are all opened up when you're pulling… see for yourself~ this is a mistake that must be changed.. VERY compulsory! Without a closed fingers palm as your paddle.. you won't be able to catch too!

Ben:

1) You're not comfortable staying on your right side (right arm extended) as you recover your left arm.. your left arm recovery is always rushed.. that uncomfortable feeling forces you to kick a lot more when you recover and breathe and do your right arm pull.

2) at 1:16-1:20 you can see that your arms are not straight in front. The yeo family syndrome. 1:47 also shows clearly your right arm is crooked. No stretch…….

3) You're doing a straight arm catch. No good. Please go read back my "Description of the catch" post and watch the video of the rotation and DO IT in your swim. If you jus think about it and expect your limbs to follow, it won't happen because you haven't learn the rotation of your humerus properly yet. You're compensating on your catch by doing a very very exaggerated 'S' pull.. that is not good cos it causes your body to move sideways and back straight each time your catch.

4) You are kicking with very opened legs.  Keep the legs together. 

5) STOP YOUR HEAD FROM FIDGETING AROUND WHEN YOU'RE TIRED!!!!

Lastly, a video of myself for you to compare...

KK



It is a 1:33 but it isn't that fast in the sea all the time.. i just try to aim for this effort as and when i can.. =)

Cheers
KK

Menu for 04052011 Swim Squad

Warm Up: (5mins)
200m ----

200 Freestyle Swim

Drills (All return with 50m FS Swim working on focal points): (20mins)
500m ----

50 Right Extended arm, kick on side (Focus on turn gently to breathe without disrupting body position)
50 Left Extended arm, kick on side (Same as Right)
50 Breast stroke pull (Ensure correct pull and fast recovery)
50 Free + Fly Kick (Ensure 3 kick per side Rhythm)
50 Freestyle Sprint with SLOW ARM, SUPER FAST KICK (Try to imagine everytime you reach forward and glide with your arms, you're using your kicks to drive you forward)

Rest 5 mins

Main Set: 48mins
1800m ---

3 X 123  on 16mins 
100 Kick 2mins
200 Pull 6mins
300 Swim 8mins

Cool Down: 12 mins

300m ---

100 Back
100 Breast
100 Back

Cheers
KK