Welcome to Feedback Friday number seven.
My name is Brenton Ford.
This is the Effortless Swimming YouTube channel,
where every Friday we bring you an analysis of someone's stroke
to help you become a better swimmer
and identify what you're doing well
and what you can improve on.
Today the athlete we're looking at
is a triathlete located over in Boulder.
And what we can see here-- and I like to look at what
they're doing well to begin with--
couple of things, number one, the head position
when he's not breathing.
Eyes are looking slightly forward of straight down,
just the top part of his head's out of the water.
That's excellent.
We can see he's got a nice cadence and turnover.
He's not over riding where he's spinning the wheels,
and he's also not going too long and too slow
where he's losing momentum.
So he's sitting at a pretty good cadence there.
One of the most evident things you
can see from the side that's going to help him improve
is if we can just improve his alignment
and get his feet a little bit closer
together, or his legs a bit closer together when he's
kicking.
And when the legs tend to splay out wide
like you can see here, nine times out of 10,
it's a counterbalance to what the arms are doing.
So when you see someone whose legs aren't kicking
small enough, then it's often what the arms
are doing out in front.
So if we look at the front view here,
you can see that on the entry, his hand direction is coming
across the center on entry, and then he's crossing the midline.
So the middle of the head.
And neck he's kind of going out a little bit too wide
and pulling underneath his body, but in a very wide position
there.
So that sort of side-to-side movement
where he comes into the center and then out too wide,
that's causing the legs to splay out the back.
And when the legs splay out the back,
it's extra drag, extra assistance.
And we want to make it like we're swimming down
a very narrow corridor.
So if we can just tighten things up a little bit, narrow things
up, so we can just fit into that smaller space
like we're swimming down a narrow corridor
or a narrow hallway, then we're going to be more efficient.
So in order to do that, we need to look at where
this is originating from.
And it originates from really the recovery--
so when the arm comes over the top--
and the entry.
So you can see here from the side how over the top,
he's probably not opening up enough
or getting the armpit or the underarm out of the water
enough in the recovery phase of the stroke.
So it starts off well, but then just
as he's starting to move past his head
with that elbow and the arm, the elbow
is probably getting a little bit low.
He's not rotating quite enough, and he's not
opening up enough through the underarm and the armpit.
So what we'd like to do there is just
make it feel like he's almost bringing the arm over more so
with his elbow and his deltoid a little bit, just
opening up a little bit more through there.
And then on the entry, you can see just
how the fingertips are facing across the body.
We want to get them facing forwards on the entry.
So if you hold your arm out, hold your hand out
where you are right now, and just practice that position.
So what I'd normally get someone to do
is I'd say go to enter the water,
see where you'd be when you go to enter the water.
And then if they are tracking across their body,
they can just look at the hand, and then just move the hand
and see that visually, and get a feel,
get a sense for how that should feel if they're
going to get their fingertips facing forwards straight out
in front of them.
So if you feel like you might be crossing over and pulling wide.
Do this out of the water.
Do it in front of a mirror.
And then you can just see where everything is going,
and then make the adjustment yourself,
if you haven't got a coach there giving you direct feedback.
So that would be the first thing.
So in the recovery over the top, you
want to get that armpit more open as it comes over the top.
So you may need to come over a little higher with the elbow,
even come over a little higher with the hand
just to open that up.
And then on the entry, we want to avoid
those fingertips tracking across the center.
We want them to face right out in front of the shoulder
and then extend straight forward out in front.
You can see from this front view,
if he's able to do that, it's going to keep everything
in line a whole lot better.
So if he can do that, then he might
find that the pull through will just naturally
come more underneath the body, as opposed
to coming out quite so wide.
But he might find that he's still just
drifting out with the hand.
So there's a number of drills that we would normally
give people to help with this that are in the Effortless Swim
membership.
So that's where we kind of do this with people
all around the world.
So if you're looking for feedback
like this for your stroke, then go to the Effortless Swim
membership.
There's a link in the description below.
And if he isn't able to sort of get
that pull through coming underneath the body
just by changing the recovery and the entry,
then he might just really need to exaggerate where
he feels he's pulling through.
So what we find when someone is making
a change to their stroke, eight times out of 10,
they often need to make it feel awkward, make it feel unusual,
and really exaggerate the movement that they're
looking to make.
Because if things feel normal, then you probably
haven't changed anything.
So it's one of those things where you just
have to put up with the discomfort and the awkwardness
of that change for a while until it starts to feel natural.
So if you're doing something that
will take quite a bit of change to actually put you
in the right position, then know that it's
going to feel quite weird and unusual.
So that's what we'd look at here for this summer.
That's where I'd start is the alignment.
If we can tighten everything up, get him swimming down
that narrow hallway, then we'd look
at a couple of other things.
But swimming really well here.
We'd just look to reduce the amount of drag
by improving the alignment that he's entering with
and pulling through with.