Enter-Catch-Push

Over the last few days, I have had the privilege of receiving some valuable feedback in my swimming. Last Friday was the last session for Ryan's 6 week stroke correction classes and he did some underwater filming and gave us some (visual) feedback on what we actually looked like as appose to what we imagined we were doing...

The dolphin-like strokes I thought I was trying to do was quickly dispelled... it was not a pretty sight.

Feedback I received from Ryan was:

• When I get lazy/tired, my hands tend to enter towards the centre line when they are suppose to enter at shoulder width in front. I must be more conscious of where the hands (and fingers) enter.
• My catch is good but needs to start earlier. I must use my elbows as a lever early and don't let the elbows drop too soon. More under-water freestyle or doggie paddling will help.
• My hands are not exiting the water too early so I am utilising the enter stroke under the water.

This morning, we had Coach Ollie at Northcote who did more filming and providing us with more feedback. During the single arm strokes, he started to film us already without us knowing. I was working on my left arm more this morning as it has always been my weak arm and so the feedback was that the stroke was good. My hands were entering correctly and my fingers were on the downstroke (catch) and then my elbows were kept high. During the 8 x 100m paddle with pull buoy and bands (one of my favorite combinations), he started to do some more filming. Feedback I received from Ollie was:

• My palms need to stay perpendicular to the horizon as much as possible - this will ensure that I am using all the resistance of the water to propel me forward. I found this helpful but hard to adopt as I would need to bend my wrist in time to enter the water fingertips (tips of paddles) first.
• Keep elbows high for longer. Due to the resistance of the paddles, at certain points of some of the strokes, I let my elbows drop to be more comfortable and this defeats the purpose of the stroke.
• Activate my back muscles more - do more band work.

Having visual feedback definitely made a difference over the last few days. I am not sure if we will receive the videos. If I do, I will post them here....only if I don't look like a pasty white whale.