20/10/10 swim squad video analysis

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LAWRENCE, MR AND MRS TAKE!! I LOST YOUR VIDEO.. :( DUNNO WHY CANNOT FIND.. but here goes nothing!

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Mr Take:

The only complain I have is your head is lifted too high. Mrs Take saw that. Focus on changing that first. :)

You got really strong core muscles which I must say helps alot in your body position. That is why your swim is so strong. We can see that strong core in work too from your butterfly kicks and swims. :) Keep up the good work!

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Mrs Take:

Your swim looks and feels very very relaxed! Very textbook like.

However on sunday when I saw you swim again, I saw that your recovery is done with a wide arm. Why not elbow leading?

I'll show you on wednesday if you remind me.

At slow swim, the technique looks really good! We'll see how when things get tougher in more speedy swim to come. :)

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Vincent:

Left side breathing head very high. not smooth, jerk up to breathe then drop into the water.. not in control.

Arms unable to close to the side? need to check latissimus dorsi range of motion on wednesday.. maybe due to improper lat pulldown or pullup training.

Recovery is hand leading... ie the fingers are in front of the elbow.

It should be elbow leaving water, followed by wrist and then fingers.. then bringing the elbow to the front to allow the forearm and wrist to follow the entry of the fingertips at the front end of the stroke.

Arms unable to stay at side RELAX-LY for a prolong period of time.. this shows a lack of control over his body.. which means there is no mastery of bodily movements yet.

If you can't slow it down, you can't control it enough to wield it to its greatest potential when torrential forces is unleashed.

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Sam:

As a fellow coach of yours I felt that you've done well to upkeep your stroke technique.

As a chiller (almost slacker status like calvin).. its easy for you to relax and that helps alot in reducing frontward drag caused by the newton's law of action-reaction.

However, do take note that at higher effort, your stroke tend to crumple due to the lack of stabilizer muscle strength to overcome the amount of force you generate at higher speed swim.

As speed increases, the amount of drag increases too and as you rotate your torso side to side, you need to have a fair share of torso stability to keep that position streamlined.

For now in this video, the only few things that is of an issue is the head rising a little too high to breathe and the right hand tend to cross center-line after breathing.

Lastly, you're not applying any constant pressure on your chest. That explains the bobbing up and down from your torso and your head.

Also to note is you're not recovering with a high elbow, its a hand leading recovery.

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KH:

Right arm pull too short, left arm pull too far behind (full extension of arm). To make things worst, left arm pull is done with the "flick" to push the water upwards and out towards surface.. that caused zero propulsion and then some drag.

Legs tend to open up after breathing. Must consciously keep the legs "kicking within a small tunnel" or point big toes inwards a little to cause a inward and small kick.

Left hand recovery tend to over reach to the front. This caused the forearm to drop and touch the surface instead of following the wrist and slide in the water into its extended arm position.

Plantar flexion of feet is not very good yet.

AFTER CORRECTION:

Streamlining is tip top good.

Rotation of hip to the right is slow and thus the right arm pull is not using your core muscle to pull. Resulting in overall deceleration on the right arm pull + breathing.

Legs issue resolved but still worth using the mental cue described above.

left arm still over reaching.

left arm pulling still not in the right direction and the flick of the forearm upwards to surface is a pain to watch. ;p

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Ebnu:

Right arm extension streamline position is perfect. However, both arm pulls is not right (look below for your pull's mistake) and that diminished the streamline position's advantage. When there is no propulsion, there will be no forward movements.

Plantar flexion of feet is not too good.

Streamlining when breathing is a problem as you tend to crunch up your body when you're breathing. Imagine doing a side ab crunch. This is a sign that you need to lift your body high to breathe.

The relaxation at the end of pulls are exaggerated just like vincent. The art of doing nothing has yet to be mastered (but of course this is just one lesson).

Left arm recovery is overreaching to the Front AND the center. The forearm is contacting the water surface before entry causing an upward lift instead of reducing drag with a fingertip entry.

The sudden jerk of recovery into the water signifies a sudden tension followed by a sudden try to relieve that tension. It should be tensionless ALL THE WAY.

The Pull:
First of all, You're pulling with just one speed all the way. There should be a deceleration in arm speed then followed by a progressive acceleration through the pull. The scale of acceleration and deceleration is amplified or minimized by the speed and effort your swim.

There is a catch phase where you bring your forearm-wrist-palm-fingertips in a straight vertical line. The elbow is flexed and beside the forehead or further out (as "early" in the pull as possible try to get into this state).

This position allows you to hold onto the water with the early vertical forearm before you progressive up the speed of pushing the vertical forearm-wrist-palm-fingertips towards the rear.

There is little to no force used here to get to this forearm position.

If there is too much force used to get to the early vertical forearm, it will cause a sudden and forceful deceleration due to the amount of surface area exposed to the front.

I like to describe it as sneak into that position fast without disrupting the water too much.. As the molecules have been disturbed by your movement, you then pause it there for a 0.3second or so.. so the water molecules to go back into its undisturbed bonded together form before pushing it backwards to gain more feel of a solid push just like against the wall.

That is the correct way to pull.

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Moo:

Your mind obviously shut off during this lap of swim. It is only expected of you to shut off as you're only a child and there is way too much to concentrate on.

First of all there is No glide. What happened to staying on the side in a streamlined position?

I believe keeping the head dow helps a lot in your swim thats why you remembered that into your skin and kept your head really deep. It helped your buttock to float very well but thats about all. Your legs are sinking without your conscious effort of pulling your body long and straight from fingertips to toes.

Your left hand pull is crossing all the way to the centerline.

Pulling is not right, I doubt your swim team coach taught you anything like that. So read up on what I typed for your dad above. Come to me if you need help.

Right arm entry after breathing went too deep into the water. The deeper you go, the higher you have to climb to get back up, so why not just stay on the surface???

The only thing I am gonna add to this bunch of nagging is to swim with a disciplined mind to put technique first before anything else. Power included.
Because the resistance is exponentially increasing as you apply more fast. I.E the faster you get, the more resistance you get. Momentum helps but only that much.


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Mari:

Two things caused you swim with not much improvement. The push phase after your catch is not right as you jerked and pitched the palm wrongly after you got into that early vertical forearm position.

Your pull are solely from your arms and not using your core at all. That disconnection between your core and your arms caused the pull to be very very low in propulsion.

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Lawrence:

There is an improvement in the crossing center pull for your right arm but not in your left arm.

The crossing center started when you breathe and the START of your left arm pull. When you finished breathign and look backdown to the water the pull is already half way done and thus it looked like you did not cross the center.

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In a nut shell, resistance wins force in water. No matter how strong you are, can be, water always win because it is 1000x denser than air.

We see easily if we're stripped down to our bare minimal force (slow swim with exaggerated glide), KH emerges as the fastest swimmer of the group despite only picking up swimming 6 months back.

If we think about this as a controlled experiment. The amount of force can vary according to individual but as the amount of force increases, the resistance increases exponentially. So the only factor that has increasing benefits and advantage is stroke techniques as it reduces drag instead of increasing force (and drag).

At the end of the day, you can use sheer force will get you a 30seconds 50m, I've been there done that to achieve a 29seconds swim with a sub-par stroke.. but you won't be able to get through that barrier if not for a technique change or a huge progress in your gym training (i was squatting 145kg and benching 120kg at that time of when i do 29sec).

Final Verdict: Technique :1 Force :0

Cheers
KK

ps-
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