Swim Squad - 11/11/09

Ahh.. our second swim training was joined with wonderGirl Ziting and wonderBoy Weihan! Two of the fittest secondary school students with better strokes of front crawl I've ever seen (swim team people not counted!=P)!

So, last night was a speedy night. It was intense! It was painful! But I am pretty sure the inner masochistic nature of ours made it enjoyable at the very least.. com'on! All of you smiled and laughed last night~! incredible! =P..

--------------------------------TRAINING------------------
Warmup sets of easy swim, pulls and kick...
Followed by speedy swims of 50s.. not alot.. but with recovery swims and ample amount of rest except for the last person (thank you on behalf of everyone wonderGirl.. :p) with 20secs only.

I personally feels that at this stage when everyone's stroke isn't fantastic and mature enough to hold for a really high intensity bout of training, the ample amount of rest will do very good to help us recover from the lactic build up and allow us to swim good strokes for the most of the whole 50m at good speed.

That is an idea I founded when I was training on my own when I set targets like 10x50m at 1min and i'll only end up with about 5secs to even just 1 sec rest at the end of the reps. Yes, that is what you want to do to FITNESS.. but then, swimming is so much about reducing drag with body posture and that the stroke technique is of such high significance, I can't help but felt that my stroke was SHITTY at the last few reps especially after the first 25m of each 50.

Basically this idea is that to train time-tight beginner swimmers, we should balance the workload (intensity and volume) vs technique in the very few sessions they can squeeze out. Thus the long amount of rest will allow for greater stroke control and still good speed. Of course, we have endurance sets which is swam at a lower intensity and that will help on the "stamina" side... so it should be a perfect plan for now..

------------Results----------------

Name	Fastest Lap mm:ss	Slowest Lap mm:ss	Avg/Lap mm:ss
KK	0:42	0:48	0:46
Sam	0:55	1:06	0:59
Gen	0:52	0:59	0:56
Lawrence	0:59	1:06	1:03
Weihan	1:00	1:12	1:05
Ziting	1:10	1:35	1:25

----------------Review----------------
Ziting and Weihan tend to pull too deep into the water at the starting half of the pull. Try to keep a bent elbow a the first half of the catch.

Ziting's high elbow recovery always have her hand swinging very far away from her body. Try to keep it closer (shorter distance to travel from exit to entry compared to drawing a semi circle with your hand from exit -- out to the side -- then to the entry).. That will equate to a easier higher stroke count if need be.

Sam's main weakness comes from her inability to be aware of what her lead arm is doing. It is not straight almost all the time and is going waivering up and down after the entry. Try to keep it at the same depth after entry. Good work on the body roll! Keep working on it and you'll eventually get the hang of it! Old habits die hard.. I'm sure you'll do better in no time and that your shoulder will feel no more strain!

Gen's lack of awareness in her swim cost her all of her second 25m of last night's training. You need to be aware of your body posture even ESPECIALLY swimming at slow speed because that is when you're able to swim longer and thus ingrain the much needed correct stroke into your nervous system. When you're tired and worn out at muscle fatigue, the strokes will collapse due to a human's inability to multitask the need to constantly gasp for air, thinking about the pain in the arms and body and.. the last thought of the mind will be "what was that? the stroke? i need to survive! F the stroke la~!... Get what i mean..

Lawrence stroke issue still lies in the pulling that crosses the center axis of the body. This cause the body to move side to side in each and every stroke. You could manage to go straight because you swam with your eyes opened and your body makes minor adjustment that it needs to travel straight. Just try swimming 20strokes with your eyes closed one day and you'll see what i mean.
Despite that there is a chance that both arms pull across the center axis at the same strength and same distance and cancel out the moving to the side notion, it is still a waste of energy to sway from side to side compared to moving straight in every stroke... Keep working on that and you'll be faster than me in no time! Judging from last night's swim, your start can be very strong! jiayou!:)

Last but not least, myself...
Stroke wise, i think my lead arm is not having a deep enough entry and I am not reaching in front enough. Also have the same habit as sam of letting the arm waiver up a little after the entry. Should try to keep it at same depth. Kick has a little too much knee bent and thus i could feel the drag. Still couldn't get bilateral breathing quite right.. stupid habit of mine.
Left arm's lack of feel for water at the catch is a deadly weakness for me.. need to work more on left arm sculling to learn to catch more water. Lactate threshold dropped quite alot too having missed quite afew swim squad hard swims.
Not to worry, I'll get it back in no time.

C you guys next week!

Cheers
Coach KK