Category Archives: Swimming

Product Review: Speedo IM Tech Paddles

By tjfry | April 11, 2011

Like most people I’m a creature of habit,  so trying a new hand paddle was a bit odd to me since I have been loyal to Strokemakers for so many years. But when Speedo came out with their IM Tech Paddle designed to be used on all four strokes, I had to give em a try. One of the big problems with hand paddles is that they’re effective for freestyle and rather awkward when you try and use them for the other strokes, and figured the same would be true with these.

 The first thing that catches your attention with the IM Tech Paddle is it’s shape. the shape is a little different than other paddles as it has a curved kidney been look to them, rather than the typical mishapen oval of other paddles. The purpose of the shape is so that each stroke will benefit from the paddle. During freestyle you wear the paddle as shown in the picture and  breaststroke you would switch hands. Initially I tried the paddles using freestyle and noticed immediately the difference between my Strokemakers and the IM Paddle. Swimming freestyle with these paddles was odd initally because of the way the paddles directed my hand through the water. it took 100 or so of getting used to before I started getting comfortable swimming freestyle. Once I adjusted it was very comfortable. I also noticed that my pace was not quite as brisk with these paddles, but I must admit that I use a pretty large hand paddle (Strokemaker Blue) so I was expecting a difference.  The gold in these paddles though are in the ability to swim other three strokes. when I reversed the paddles and swam breaststroke and backstroke I immediately saw what they were intended for. Typically in breaststroke for someone to train with paddles they have to use a traditional paddle and size down a couple sizes so that they can control their stroke more effectively, but with these paddles I found that my stroke was very natural right from the start. So I was able to get up and work the stroke right away. No adjustments, no awkwardness, no nothing. I put them on and starting working. Same with back and fly. It was a very natural feel and I could work the pull right away.

After a few hundred yards of swimming with these paddles I found them really enjoyable during all four strokes. The downside?   Not much. The way you fasten your hand to the paddle is similar to most all other hand paddles using rubber tubing to strap your wrists and fingers to the paddle, but one thing different with this paddle is that the rubber tubing doubles back on itself. This created a minor problem for me as it forced my fingers to separate in order to accomodate the extra tubing and started to irritate by the end of my swim. This is not a big deal though as you as you can cut down and adjust the rubber tubing to fit your personal preferences (something I didn’t do), and you shouldn’t be wearing them for an entire workout anyway. Overall I found these paddles to be an asset to my equipment bag and have left them there (something I don’t normally do). I’ve also added them to my regular workout rotation. If you are looking for something different to train all four of your strokes or are needing to focus some attention on your pull, I would highly recommend these. Enjoy your workout.

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Rip’s Stroke

By tjfry | April 8, 2011

I need to first apologize for the long delay in getting some of the swim analysis posts up. For some reason, I was no longer able to embed videos here and ….blah blah blah. You get the idea. I got it fixed. Now onto Rip’s swimming.

Rip is an accomplished athlete but hitting the pool is a more recent endeavor. In watching him hop in the pool and go, a few things popped out at me right away. First off I noticed that Rip crosses the centerline of his body when his hand enters the water. This is more exaggerated when he breathes. Its pretty easy to see in this first video.

Pay attention to his right arm as it enters the water. Ideally, you never want your hand to cross over the top of your head. Imagine a skewer going through the top of your head and extending straight down through your body. With that as your guide, you never want your hand to cross that skewer and come over to the other side of your body. This will immediately cause you to swim crooked, among other things. So if you cross over with your right arm, you will most likely swim off to the left. If both arms cross, you get a bit of a wormlike stroke. An easy tell is if you see someone wiggle their behind back and forth as they swim. The fix is simple enough. Point where you want to go. Yep. That’s it. You can look up drills online til you’re blue in the face, but it really just boils down to pointing, or positioning your hand, so that it lines up with the direction you want to go. So as your hand enters the water, make sure your hand is pointing to the cross at the other end of the pool.

The next thing that I saw was very common if you read this site much. That is, Rip is dropping his elbow when he pulls. By dropping his elbow, he is losing a large amount of surface area that you use to pull, leaving each pull rather ineffective. This is a tougher problem to fix as this type of habit gets pretty well ingrained in your muscle memory. Additonally, as you get tired, you naturally begin to drop your elbow in order to keep the cadence consistent.

What Rip needs to do to fix this is a few things. First of all, the pull needs to be deeper. Try and get away from bending your elbow at 90 degrees and more like 10 degrees. A deeper pull and straighter arm will fix some of the issue almost immediately. Next try swimming while making a fist. If you lose the surface area of your hand, you will be forced to get though the water using your forearms as your “paddle”. This will bring your elbows up higher so that your forearms have a clear shot at the water. Takes a bit of work, but the results will be substantial.

Finally, I noticed this once we left the pool and I started looking at the video. It was pretty obvious, but I missed it at the pool b/c I am looking at a number of different things all at once as someone swims across the pool. That’s why video is so great!

OK, So take a look at Rip’s arm cycle. Notice how his arms are almost always opposite of each other, like a windmill. This causes a gap in his stroke in which the pulling arm is behind him and the recovery arm is still up in the air.  With no arm in front helping to streamline and no arm pulling, your freestyle will hit the brakes in a frickin hurry. The fix is what some people call front quadrant swimming. In other words, most of the power and all the the streamlining happen from roughly the chest up. so as one arm pulls, the other arm should be gliding, which helps to maximize that pull. The common drill used to practice this is called ‘catch up’ drill. In catch up, that hand that is gliding doesn’t begin to pull until the other hand literally ‘catches up’ and touches the gliding hand. Like playing tag with your hands. It’s going to feel very strange at first, but you will start to notice that you are gliding more and that it takes fewer strokes to get across the pool. And less strokes across the pool allows you to take all that energy you just saved and apply it to the pull. Once you get that down? Duh… Winning!

Happy Training.

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Ironman Texas Practice Swim

By tjfry | February 21, 2011

It’s official! Swim Shops of the Southwest, in conjunction with TYR,  is proud to sponsor the Ironman Texas and CB&I Triathlon practice swim. The  swim will be on April 30th and start at 7am. The course is a 1.2 mile swim that will roughly mimic the first section of the Ironman swim (get there early and swim it twice if you want). Because Ironman Texas is a point to point swim with the last .5 miles in the Waterway canal, they will not be setting up the exact course for you to follow. And lets be honest folks, if you need practice swimming in a canal that has concrete bulkheads on each side, then you have more swim issues than a practice swim can fix. They will however, have the first section of the swim for everyone to swim, and that is the South/North section in the main body of the lake. Cost is $35 if you are not competing in CB&I. (CB&I participants will have their 500 meter course marked to swim as well. Cost is $5 for those entered in the CB&I sprint triathlon).

First Ironman? Never started swimming with 2500 people all at once? Scared out of your mind? Let me help. I will be there putting on a swim clinic to help you get through the most intimidating part of the Ironman. We will go over all sorts of things, from the mass start to navigating tips, pacing, conditions, and strategies to get you to Town Green Park and off on your bike.

Swim Shops will also be on hand with the WTC legal #1 selling TYR Torque, goggles tri gear, and anything else you might need.

Try not to miss it because THIS IS YOUR ONLY CHANCE TO SWIM IN LAKE WOODLANDS BEFORE RACE DAY. Lake Woodlands is a private lake that doesn’t allow swimming. If you try to swim the lake on your own you will be arrested. Trust me on this one. I’ve lived here for 30 years, and they are serious when they say “No Trespassing”.

To sign up for the clinic or the swim, go to:http://activenet11.active.com/wcscparksandrec/ and search “triathlon”

Open water swim 2011 flyer

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John’s Stroke

By tjfry | January 21, 2011

 

I met with John over at FINS a couple of weeks ago to look over his stroke. A couple of things caught my eye right away.

First and foremost, take a look at John’s kick. As he finishes breathing and begins to rotate, you can see a big scissor kick. This isn’t all that uncommon. The reason for it is not the fundamentals of his kick, but rather the over rotation of his body when he turns to get a breath. Many of you have heard the phrase “rotate from your hips” or “rotate from your core” . Well, this is true, but only part of the story. When you swing a bat or a golf club, the power of that swing is not really coming from your arms so much as it is your core. The hips rotate first and the bat/club follow. When you try and make that statement in swimming though, you leave out one MAJOR piece of the puzzle. That is, when you swing a bat/club and rotate from the hips, your feet are firmly planted on the ground. This allows you to twist. In the water, you are floating in the water and not planted to anything, so the only way you can twist, or rotate, is to kick. So if your kick is lousy, there’s a really good chance your rotation is too.

In John’s case, his over-rotation is the cause of the big scissor kick as the only way he can get all the way back over. Conversely, he doesn’t rotate much to the other side so there isn’t a need for the giant kick. That’s why he doesn’t scissor on the other side. So what’s the fix? How do you fix this kick? Answer: breathing. This is one of those knee-bone connected to the thigh-bone answers. The kick is caused by the over rotation. The over rotation is only on the side that he breathes. So to break the chain, John needs to fix how he breathes. By breathing every third stroke, John will balance his stroke out, and by that I mean that the actions of each side of his body will mirror each other.

In the first 25 that he swam breathing every 3, his scissor kick was reduced by 50%.

So what else?

In the next clip, John’s right arm is extending and gliding (and therefore pulling) different from his left arm. Watch as the right arm drives toward the bottom of the pool and the left arm extends further out and more horizontal before the pull/catch begins. This also happens to be caused by the overrotation that I just discussed. By entering and extending downwards when he should be extending out, John misses all the benefits of a glide as well as the most powerful part of his pull. Some call this front quadrant swimming. From the point at which your hand enters the water and extends out horizontal to the pool bottom to the point in which the arm is perpendicular to the pool bottom is where you generate the most power. By extending downward, in say, a 4 o’clock position, John has just eliminated a huge chunk of power, not to mention the lack of glide that is created. The other problem that this creates is crooked swimming, which will be a major headache come raceday.

 The fix is simple. Point where you want to go. In addition to bilateral breathing to balance his stroke out, if John simply points where he wants to go the problem will correct. In this case, he should point to the wall at the other end with his hand as it enters the water.

Lastly, is the kick itself. For John, I think the fundamentals of his kick are pretty sound (except for the scissor kick of course). It starts at the hip, moves through the knee and finishes through the ankle/toes. The problem is the flexibility. I know I probably sound like a broken record here, but in order to realize the power that your kick is producing, the ankles have to be flexible enough to produce that final snap. So my best advice here is to stretch and kick with fins. A little flexibility will go a long ways.

Now go sit on your ankles.

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