Thursday, December 16, 2010

Swim little fishy

I've been attending a swim clinic hosted by the local Tri Club, San Diego Tri Club, who by the way is the largest tri club in the world at over 2,700 members in San Diego County. They are all run from volunteers and have an amazing calendar of events every single day to learn about the swim-bike-run components of the triathlon.

It's an amazing set of benefits for $60 per year, and each swim session is $2.50 if you buy the set of 10 sessions. You can't go to your local swimming baths at that price, let alone an Olympic swimming pool of 50 meters (man that's long) as well as having expert coach swimmers teaching small groups techniques.

I don't claim to be a great swimmer, I learnt to swim as a kid by playing in a pool and the ocean. I can move my arms and legs to keep me above water, but never learnt a standard stroke. That could be a benefit for me this year as I don't have to un-learn something ingrained in my head. But we'll see.

The past 3 sessions have been quite different - keeping the variety of this activity up. I have many more of these in my future.

Session 1: Coach Trevor taught us about sculling, the movement of the hands and position of the arms in the water. We practiced many techniques juts focused on this. Little swimming, lots of technique.

Session 2: Coach Sergio (and his 2 side coaches) told us to swim. Every 1-2 laps we would have individual critique of our performance. Breathe more often (every 2 or 3 strokes) as your body needs the air. Keep your head facing down during the stroke, only a side turn and not a lift when you need air. The  extra push of the arm out front using your core for extra speed and efficiency rather than trying to spin your arms faster. This was an awesome class in that you walked away with a good workout (close to 1 mile swim) and also personalized understanding of what you have to learn.

Session 3: This was a technique focused class with 4 coaches that rotated. They each focused on a particular aspect of swimming. Head position, use of your Core, an efficient Kick, and Arms. We got to practice drills focused on each piece for 15 minutes each.

The last coach singled me out - but not in a good way! He said I was not breathing at the right time. I was taking a breath too early, before my arms had reached the maximum glide position out front. I took another lap and thought I ha improved but he called me out again! This time he said "I'll video you with my iPhone" and off I went. When I saw that video....well let's say reality sucks! I have this internal image that I look and feel like a little fishy in the ocean, gliding around. But instead I see a manatee huffing and puffing. And the breath / arm pattern was way off. I'm glad to have seen this video...recommend it as a tip for others to see what they do. But allow for an ego hit!

I searched for a video to try and watch "what should be done" and found this video of Ian Thorpe, an Australian swimmer that has many gold medals from the Olympics and World Championships.
This video is like a work of art to see the gliding motion of the arms, the minimal use of legs (want to save those for the bike and run), and the breathing occurring at the peak of the extended arm. The video states this is from an extended video called "beneath the suit'" that is available for sale (if you wanted to know)

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