- [Man] Morning draniacs, I am shellshocked,
did a race paced run in the pain cave,
with heat in the pain cave, and hills.
That did not go well, now, follow that up with a swim,
with a high performance kits, I don't anticipate I'm going
to feel good after this.
We got super interesting before and after video to look at
where Brenton Forb, the guy that runs the effortless
swimming youtube channel, is comparing one year of progress
with my swim stroke, it's really, really, subtle changes
but he points out why I can't look at my swim stroke
and be like oh yeah that is better, but he's able to look
at it and be like,
this is better,
way better, than I'm going to feel after a swim
(upbeat music)
(techno music)
that was a bloodbath
did not go well, but you know who ran for 20 minutes.
This guy.
Remember a couple weeks ago when she said that her health
goal for coming back from lime was to run for 20 minutes,
2 weeks, 1 week
- [Woman] That's all it takes I guess
- [Man] What's the next goal?
Iron man, get announced by Mike Riley before I do,
- [Woman] Unless they cancel the swimming part
(excited screams)
- [Man] So a year ago I did a swim analysis where Brent,
the guy that runs Effortless Swimming, go check it out
fantastic youtube channel.
He reviewed my swim stroke, put it up on his channel,
and then we talked about, on my channel here, how I'm going
to move forward, and it was largely, tower 26 workouts,
with Brent, from Effortless Swimming's kinda guidance
on what drills to do during warm up,
that improved my swimming by about 7% in between June last
year and January this year.
So, we thought that because that video went so well,
everyone really liked it, I really enjoyed getting faster,
we'd review where I've come from and where I'm at now,
and how to move forward.
So ill go through some of the big points that Brent
identified but a link to his full video which is almost
a half hour long, that includes all of the drills I need to
move forward, at the end of the video.
The first thing he identified and mentioned in the video
was that my arm alignment is better.
- From this top angle there's 2 things that stand out to me
the first thing is the alignment, this is something we
mentioned a little bit earlier
there was a little bit of cross over if we look at this
before one up top, a little bit of cross over on this
left arm, on that before shot, on this after shot you'll
see he's doing a better job it stays just outside the line,
of the center.
Which is good, I don't mind if people come in a little bit
towards that line, as long as it doesn't cross the center
that's really what we want to aim for
- So what was happening last year was with this hand I was
kind of reaching out and letting my hand go out,
with this hand there was a little bit of cross over
kind of into my head, and then id have to come back
and pull it out, now what I've been working on with Jerry
with tower 26, is hand channel swimming, you want the edge
of your head to the edge of your shoulder to be where your
hand enters, pulls and pushes through, so lots and lots
of drills with that, next thing that Brent identifies
was that my kick is closer to the surface,
and that isn't what you think it would be at, not about
improving your kick.
- Look how much higher that leg has come from the hip line,
as in how much it's lifted up above the hip line compared to
the one at the top, so it doesn't actually come above that
hip line so if we draw a straight line through here, that
quad, that top half of the leg, actually sits below it,
but now you'll see here that he actually lifts up,
he's working that up kick a bit more and that heel
comes out of the water, a bit more.
He's going to have so much more from that higher leg lift
in the up kick because it just gives him a bit more room
to then have an effective down kick,
so he can essentially get more of a whip down with the foot
and get more propulsion from it
- And that is 100% a result of all the tower 26 work with
kick, and kick, and kick, and kick.
And it's not about improving your propulsion with the kick
it's about improving your body alignment
and that is something that Brent talked about in that video,
that my body position and my stability is just,
way better as a result of that kick, and that was the next
thing that he talked about is that my stability is just
better I'm just not as jerky, I'm not as flopping around,
he says it fancier with his accent
- Because of this more effective kick,
there's better stability through the kick,
so it's not as jerky overall.
- And the last thing he described is how this hand
has changed
- On a few of these strokes he was going down too deep
and we saw this angle here that was 129 degrees,
we want this to be roughly 100 to 120,
in this phase of the stroke,
so he was going down a little bit too deep,
and from this side we saw he was dropping the elbow,
a little bit through this part of the stroke.
On this right hand side line, you'll see that the arm
is on most of these pull throughs so at 1:10, smack bang
in the middle of that 100 to 120, that's really good,
on that top shot, so you can see the angle is 153, on this
one a little less so, 170, alright so 153 compared
to 170, which just indicates there's a little bit less of
a drop of the elbow and that will just mean,
that this part of the arm is angled a little bit better
to press back against the water, compared to this one,
that was mostly pressing down, pressing back a little bit
- I want to show you some footage that I've got from
Lucy Charles, underwater this is something that I took in
Lanzarote when we were producing the how to swim with Lucy
Charles masterclass, and she has I think one of the most
forceful catches and pull throughs that I've ever seen,
granted I'm a triathlete, not a swimmer, so, take that
with a grain of salt,
so related to all that, here, I've got some footage of
Lucy Charles back in Lanzarote when we were producing the
how to swim with Lucy Charles masterclass,
and I think that she's got one of the best swim catches out
there, granted I'm a triathlete,
and triathletes aren't known for being awesome swimmers,
Lucy is so lets learn from her, I want to show you how
powerful, look at that, so she enters the water,
and instantly,
her elbow pops up and she's got that nice vertical forearm,
and what I want to show you here is look right here again
on the other side, same thing vertical forearm,
but look at this from the side because that's what makes a
big difference here,
so she enters, here, that arm is vertical, and boom,
right there she has all that forearm, to act as surface
area to push water back, and look at what happens to that
other arm, because we've got a good shot of something there,
elbow goes up,
we got that vertical forearm,
and that vertical forearm stays vertical, all the way to
her hips, so even right there, she has the entire hand
and forearm that's surface area that's pushing water back
right up until the point that she can't extend anymore
without being vertical, look like it's pushing, pushing,
pushing, pushing, pushing, and
now, right before her hand exits her water, is when her
palm finally isn't, pushing water straight back,
basically just as soon as she's about to exit,
that's how you break course records.
How can I move forward and what does Brent recommend for how
I can swim as fast as Lucy Charles,
should just take a couple weeks I bet.
First thing, I got an issue with this arm here, only when
I breathe to the right
- This left arm on the strokes that you don't breathe,
so I think you might normally breathe your right side,
when you don't breathe on that right hand side if you look
at this left arm there's not really a thing that I should be
looking to change, in terms of the catch with this arm here,
so from here, through to here, that is really, really good,
now, on the straights where you do breathe to that side,
it's just slightly different,
so this angle with the arm, it's
147 roughly, and it's just down a little bit too deep a
little bit too straight, the ideal place you want to get to
and which you would be on those non breathing strokes,
would be about here 105 maybe 110.
- So what I've been doing with that is I've actually been
working on some drills that brent had in his video,
and I'm also concentrating on okay when I'm breathing to the
left, how does this arm feel,
and then I'm thinking about okay, simulating the exact same
feeling as I'm breathing to the right.
I wonder if any footage this morning shows
if there's actually a change.
Next thing, right arm, remember how I talked about how
that was an improvement.
Well, it's not all fine and dandy with that arm.
- On that right hand side, there's room to do 2 things,
reach out a little bit more in this phase of the stroke,
rotate the hips and shoulders a little bit more,
so essentially just think of reach and rotation,
that is going to allow you to be stronger in that
catch phase, get a little bit more distance with it as well,
but it really just allows you to engage more of the muscles
through the shoulder once you are reach out
a little bit more.
- So I'm only working on one thing at a time right now,
I think the highest return on investment I can get is
making sure that this arm has the best propulsion that I can
evening that out, whether I'm breathing to the right or left
so I'm not really focused on this so much
and getting that reach and rotation, but I am trying to make
sure that I'm getting a bit more rotation,
and not really focusing on too many things at one time.
Related to that, he actually said even though this arm has
an improvement it still has an issue that I had last year.
- The hand just goes a little bit too deep from here to here
so the hand is still traveling downwards, or deeper,
from there, to there, what id encourage you to do
is get that right hand to begin moving upwards, towards
the hips, so move shallower, so if we look at this path
of the hand, gets to here it's still just going down,
then it starts to come up, so at the back here, while you're
definitely finishing better than you were,
you're at full extension here so it was getting
a little bit stuck, so you're finishing better,
it's still just a bit too deep through this last part
of the stroke
- So again, on that I'm not really focused on anything too
terribly much with that because really you can only focus
on one thing at a time, in 2 to 3 month chunks,
but when I start getting that, more focus on the reach
and rotation, I will largely be able to set that arm a
little bit higher and hopefully that fixes it.
But, heres one of the big things that I can think about.
- Increasing the stroke length, and also being somewhat more
aggressive and assertive with the stroke, with the rotation
and there's an element there, of letting it go,
what I mean by that is we the hand comes over you enter,
and you reach forwards, there's some control there,
but there's also that point of just letting things go,
and you get this really nice flow and rhythm in the stroke,
now that comes with time and experience, and lots and lots
of laps in the pool and time put into that,
and you can already see some of this is really starting to
come in very nicely in the stroke and that's going to be
one of the things that I believe is worth focusing on
over the next 6-12 months
- So as far as that goes, when I start doing my race pace
intervals, I'm just really thinking about letting it fly,
because my technique, if I'm just focused on the mechanics
of good technique I don't know if I'm going to be swimming
that fast, but if I just let it fly, and be aggressive with
it I imagine my technique won't be too terribly off,
and it's probably not going to be as different,
as I think it feels, and gradually, it will increase
my stroke rate, and get rid of that stiffness
and mechanical feeling you might see my stroke have.
So, thanks to Brent from Effortless Swimming I will say
go and take a look at his video right up here
where he discusses how I'm going to move forward,
the full video that he's got
and then the video down here has last years analysis
so you can compare the drills that I got last year,
with the drills that I got this year, apply them to you,
see how they work
thanks Brent, I want to get another 7% faster next year,
that would be awesome, later traniacs.