There are a couple of other things going on here as well in conjunction with this, but you have to look a little closer. First of all, if you look at the above water shot, you can see that the head doesn’t just dip down, but it also dips over. This will cause a person to swim crooked faster than anything. In swimming, you have to envision yourself on a barbecue skewer. The head and body stay in a straight line just as if you had a skewer running through your head, while your body rotates on that axis to pull, kick and breathe. If your body breaks from that axis by wiggling, bending or moving your head from one side to the other, you lose efficiency and often swim crooked. That can kinda be a problem in the middle of a lake. Additionally, watch the left hand as Kent’s head takes that dive. Notice how his hand turns to the side with the pinkie finger down at the onset of the pull. It looks as if Kent is attempting to keep the entry and pull in in-line and he overcompensates for the head by dropping the elbow on the extension and turning his hand so as to keep the good rotation. The problem is that his misses the first and very powerful part of the pull because his hand is sideways. Keeping the head straight should correct most of this, but focusing on the position of the hand as the pull starts will be important in order to correct this.

Speaking of the pull, look at the right arm during the pull. The pull itself looks really good on both arms as you can see that he is getting some power out of each pull, but during that pull there are a bunch of bubbles being dragged through the water. This mostly has to do with the hand entry. His hand enters well beyond the top of his head and is therefore entering at a steep angle. If Kent were to make a shallower entry by entering a little closer to the top of his head, he can remove those bubbles and get  a better grip on the water.

Finally, I want to touch on the overall body position. From the side-view video you can see that Kent’s legs are dragging just a tad by the end of the length. This is due mainly to the effectiveness of the the kick. While the mechanics of the kick seem to be spot on, it’s the ankle flexibility that is the problem. Simple enough fix. Stretch out your ankles and you will generate more power from you kick.

The beauty here is that a couple of small adjustments will probably fix a number of issues, so there aren’t tons of things to focus on and get confused with. Hopefully straightening the head and bilateral breathing will have a domino effect and fix some of the other issues in the stroke.

Now go get in the water.

One of the first things that you notice is Sheri’s body position. You can see pretty quickly that her hips are riding a bit low in the water. Typically, this is a simple head position issue. You want to have your head lined up with the rest of your body, as opposed to having your head up, looking out in front of you. In this case though, Sheri does a pretty good job at keeping her head in the proper position. In fact, even when she turns to breathe she does a nice job at not lifting her head for air. Instead, Sheri’s poor body position is because of two different issues; she tends to swim with her chest rather high in the water and her kick is generating almost no lift.

The solution to the first part is rather easy, the second is a bit more of a challenge. Sheri needs to lower her upper body down into the water by a few inches. It’s very simple to do but will often feel awkward because it takes a while to get comfortable swimming so low in the water.  One way to make the adjustment is to push off the wall in a streamlined position,  and with no kicking or pulling, adjust your body position so that you are flat or horizontal in the water. It may take a kick or two to keep your feet on the surface once you slow down from the push off the wall, but once you find that flat position in the water, you need to use it in your regular swimming.

The next piece of this puzzle is her kick. Sheri’s kick looks to be a 4 beat crossover kick. This means that she will kick twice for every arm stroke and  that at a certain point in her kick the left leg crosses under the right. Why the crossover? If you watch, you can see that she has good body rotation when she breathes to the left, but much flatter when she rotates to the right. A good kick is typically straight down and initiates the rotation to the other side. Because her kick is weak and rotation not as strong on this side, Sheri’s left, or bottom leg tries to compensate by kicking diagnally and across her body. Hence the cross over.

The main problem with Sheri’s kick is that it is almost entirely from the knees down. She is generating no power from her hips. As I have mentioned other times, you want to kick in freestyle like you kick a ball. The hips start the kicking motion and you finish through the knee and ankle. Sheri’s hips and knees aren’t coordinating with each other, so any force that she is creating is coming from her knees and ankles.

Fixing this can be a bit more of a challenge, because the kick creates a rhythm and a timing for the whole stroke, and so changing this bad habit often feels like you are overhauling your entire stroke. I would recommend that she dedicate some serious pool time this winter to kicking, both with and without fins, and really focus on kicking a ball everytime.

The final piece of Sheri’s stroke that I want to address is a common one. Dropping her elbow. As Sheri’s arm begins the pull, you can see that it’s her elbow, not her hand or forearm that is the leading edge through the water. In fact, her forearm doesn’t get vertical until her pull is at her hips. I go into greater detail about this problem here, but in a nutshell she needs pull with her hand and forearm and not her elbow. A good drill to do to work on this is swimming with a closed fist. By removing the surface area of your hand you are forced to use your wrist and forearm to move you through the water. By doing this and focusing on where your elbow should be in relation to your forearm, you can correct the problem. Doing the pull correctly usually results in that AH HA! moment as you generate considerable more power from each stroke immediately.

Fixing bad habits in the water can be a bit frustrating, but if Sheri spends the time now making these adjustments, she will be coming out of the water faster and have used less energy. I’m sure this will be a motivator, because I know Sheri would love nothing more than to get the heck out of the water and onto something else, like the bike and the run.

Body Position: The first thing I noticed was the body position in the water. Her hips are riding a little low in the water, and this is the main reason her kick rate is so high. (See the pic below as well) She’s using her kick not for rotation or propulsion (see more on the kick here and here), but for lift. The kick is trying to keep here hips/legs high in the water. By adjusting her overall body position slightly she will save her legs from all the kicking and save gobs of energy in the process.

Pull: In watching her swim, I could tell pretty quickly that Ana drops her elbow as she pulls. It can be a little difficult to pick up if you don’t know what your looking for, so I grabbed a still shot so that you can see what I am trying to point out. As I have mentioned before, dropping your elbow is very common in all levels of athletes, and especially so as you fatigue because you can maintain your cadence. The problem is that you’re reducing the efficiency of your pull dramatically as you do this. So once we adjust the body position, we can focus on maximizing the pull. (I go into the high elbow in much greater detail here, but in a nutshell, by leading your pull through the water with your elbow, you can drastically decrease the effectiveness of your stroke. We worked on the pull a good bit while we were there and I could see some great improvement by the end of the session. In fact, if you look at the two videos posted here you can see a difference in the second video (taken towards the end of the swim).

Kick: Now that the position is corrected, we can adjust the kick itself, because if we tried to do it first, her legs would just sink or she would revert back to her old ways so that she wouldn’t sink.

Ana has a 6 beat kick, meaning that for every stroke cycle she kicks 6 times, or 3 kicks for every pull. It takes her about 15 strokes to swim (which by the way is quite good) so that means she kicks 45 times for every 25 yards, or about 7,600 times in an Ironman swim. If she can convert her swim to a 2 beat kick (more about the 2 beat kick here), she could reduce her effort by 5,100 kicks in the Ironman. That energy would be much better spent on the bike and run. Improving her kick will also improve her body rotation, which will help her pull and body position.

For those learning to swim, or even for those who’ve been swimming for a while, this might seem like I’m beating up a a good stroke. Truth is, it is a good stroke (Don’t worry Ana!) but there are some key things holding her back from getting to the next level. And for the purists out there, yes there are some other things going on, like the pitch of her hand and her entry point, (causing some of those bubbles during her pull) for example, but these are minor and simple to correct once some of the other stuff is addressed.

Clear as mud right? Got questions? Let me have it.

Oh and Sheri, don’t worry, you’re next

The starting point is the same for the beginner as it is for the Olympic swimmer: technique. Even the best take some time every year to refresh their skills in the pool, so without getting into great detail here are some quick things to remember in terms of your technique.

Body Position – Take a little time to dial in your position in the water. Ideally, you need to be flat in the water with your hips and feet just under the surface, your head not lifted and low in the water. Most of us swim with our heads too high in the water and as a result our hips and feet drop. Kicking in a streamlined position without fins is a great way to find your position. Push off the wall in a streamlined position and adjust your body so that you are level in the water. By shifting where your head/shoulders rest in the water will largely determine how high in the water your hips/feet will be. Once you get yourself in the correct position it will only take a minimal kick(even for those who are poor at kicking) to keep the position and make forward progress. If you find yourself having trouble keeping your feet up, try lowering your head in the water a little more. A few 25′s to start your workout should do the trick.

Streamline – Your ability to reduce your resistance and maximize your glide/distance per stroke is at the core of a good stroke. The more streamlined you can get, the more efficient you become. This is one of the biggest problems I have seen among triathletes, because getting streamlined requires some flexibility, something triathletes just don’t have. The best way to get a good streamline is to stretch. Anytime. Anywhere. Watching the game? Stretch those lats for a few minutes. Sitting in the office? Stretch those triceps out briefly. When you’re in the water, you need to be pushing off every wall in a streamlined position. Remember, the position you’re in with both hands above your head pushing off the wall is essentially the same position as when you fully extend each hand in front of you while swimming. So if you can’t hold a good streamline with both hands together, your stroke won’t be very efficient either.

Pull – Dozens of drills to choose from here so I’ll keep it short, but you need to focus on a clean entry and a high elbow as you pull through the water. Dropping your elbow, or leading the pull with your elbow greatly reduces the effectiveness of your pull.

Rotation – Most of us swim through the water very flat. Ideally your entire body (except your head) should rotate from one side to the other to promote a deeper and more effective pull, better streamline/glide, and reduce the strain on your shoulders. Again, there are dozens of drills out there so I won’t go into great detail here, but this is an excellent time to work on your body rotation. Word of warning: All too often I see people practicing these drills at great length but are unable to apply them to their actual stroke. Don’t spent 20 minutes kicking on your side just to go back to your flat, regular swimming. Be sure to apply the skill.

So you’re focusing on your technique and are knocking out a few drills every workout. Is that it? Nope. Far from it. This next part is what’s going to make you a stronger swimmer, whether your technique improves or not. What’s the trick? It’s really quite simple and it’s something that poor swimmers miss all the time. It’s called swimming, and more swimming, and when your done with that, it’s time to swim some more.

The seemingly big secret to swimming (I say it’s a secret because I never hear anyone talk about it in tri circles) is that you need to swim a lot in order to get better. Just like running and cycling, volume is a major key to improvement. For some reason this gets lost on triathletes. Usually this is because they hate to swim and would rather put in more miles on the bike or run.

Lets use running as a quick example. If you want to improve your running to that of your competitors and you are running 12 miles a week and your competition is running 25 miles per week, what is the first thing you need to do? You got it. Start running more.Exact same thing applies here, but for some reason everyone falls back on the old “I just need to work on my technique” argument. If you are swimming 2,000 yards per week and you want to get out of the water with the people swimming 10,000 yards per week, I got news for you. Technique is not the main problem. In fact, by doing more volume you will find that your stroke will improve without a bunch of drill work. Your body will naturally find a more efficient stroke just through practice.

Don’t worry, “Go Swim More” isn’t my only message here. You also need to mix up the strokes and learn to do flip turns. I know, the classic response to this is “Well, I only swim freestyle in races and there are no flip turns in open water”. While this is correct, the truth is that it’s easier to just swim freestyle and continue without flip turns. The other strokes can be very difficult, and doing an open turn allows for an extra breath and a short pause every 25 yards. By swimming some other strokes occasionally you are able to strengthen the supporting muscles that aid in a proper stroke. When those muscles fatigue and ultimately fail, your stroke starts to fall apart, like your elbow dropping during a pull, which reduces the effectiveness of your freestyle. Swimming the other strokes can also help prevent injury and promote flexibility. Butterfly and breastroke build up the shoulders and the breastroke kick can help build up the muscles around the knee, something that comes in handy on the bike and run. I’m not suggesting you get carried away here. A few hundred yards of non freestyle is all that’s needed. I regards to the flip turn, you need to get comfortable doing these on every turn. It keeps the workout and workload constant and cuts out that extra breath. As an added bonus, you’ll look like an athlete training for something and not a lap swimmer.

With, technique, volume, other strokes, and flip turns, creating the proper swim workout cocktail is not always easy, so is joining a swim team the best way to go? Yes and no. If you are new to swimming, have trouble getting enough volume in, or tend to swim nonstop, then I would recommend giving the local group a try. They will be able to show you how to structure a workout and give you tips on your stroke. If however, you have been swimming for a while and are comfortable putting together workouts, it might be easier to do your own thing. Either way, if you decide to put some focus on your swim, even for just a few weeks, I think you will be surprised with how fast you will see the results.

Happy Swimming.