At this point, the smartest thing to do would probably be to just quit swimming altogether and take up pure running/biking, or even duathlon. I'm however, a stubborn one, when it comes to challenges, and the bigger the challenge, the harder I'll attack it.
Most swimmers will tell you "it's all technique." This is largely true - the huge resistance of moving through water means that you will gain far more in speed by reducing drag in the water than expending more energy to overpower the resistance. So naturally, it's expected that I should have some serious flaws in my swim stroke that are causing me to swim so slowly. I have taken technique very seriously in the past 4-5 months, and have read large amounts swimming advice on the web, as well as watched virtually every online video of instructional swimming as well as competitive freestyle swimming. I think I have the entire 2 minute youtube clip of Grant Hackett swimming the 1500m at world-record pace memorized frame-by-frame!
Clearly, though, my self-instruction has hit a roadblock. Thus, I signed up for a private swim lesson through the regional aquatic organization. My coach would be a woman open water swim champion with triathlon experience - more than good enough to analyze my meagre technique. For sure, this would be better than the cheesy YMCA lesson I took while I was at Washington DC earlier this year, which I learned absolutely nothing from because the instructor attached so many flotation devices to me that I could barely move.
The lesson took place at Loyola Marymount college in Marina Del Rey. It's a lovely campus situated on a hill overlooking the entire beach towns. It's idyllic and serene, which was quite a contrast to the typical LA frenzy. I really enjoyed just driving through the small campus, and wish I could have stayed there longer.
I met up with the instructor, warned her about my horrific swim performances, and then set out on my typical fast (for me) swim pace that I usually hold for 14 x 100m repeats. When I finished, she had a very puzzled look on her face, and asked me, "is that your all-out pace?" Apparently, she expected me to much slower, as she said, "that was actually pretty fast!" While a pat on the back is always nice, I was immediately worried that she wouldn't be able to offer me any tips to improve, since I clearly am NOT a fast swimmer.
Fortunately, she slowed me down and analyzed my stroke, giving me some very helpful tips that I am sure will significantly improve my speed. These were:
1. A more "compact" stroke recovery. I was swinging my arm way out to the side when I pulled it out of the water. This was a big change in my technique that I could feel immediately.
2. Pulling my hand out of the water at an earlier point, by my hip rather than my thigh. This greatly assists #1 above, and is non-intuitive, as I had guessed that a longer stroke was always better. This was also a big change in my technique.
3. Extending my reach further before plunging the hand into the water
4. Keeping a straight wrist.
5. Improving my "catch" of the water by not letting the elbow sink.
6. Streamlining my breathing. I'm taking too long to return my head to forward position after the breath.
I have experimented with almost all of these fairly extensively due to my self-training, and thus I was able to at least demonstrate an essentially corrected stroke nearly instantly for all of them as the motions were not completely foreign. My instructor was pleasantly surprised, and told me that I'm lucky because I must be a "natural" in the water, as I look very smooth and picked up her suggestions instantaneously. I quickly corrected her in this statement, telling her that I'm anything BUT a natural in the water, and that I did a lot of work in the past few months cleaning up my technique just to get to this point. I'm always amused with how easy it is to confuse dedicated work with natural talent if you're not aware of how much training someone has done to get to that point.
By the end of the swim lesson, I felt that I had made some real progress with my stroke, and most importantly, had several good technique-related improvements to change in the next few weeks. I felt that the coach's analysis was dead-on, and was well worth the $70 (pricey, I know) fee. I expect to be swimming at a slower overall pace until I lock these changes into my natural swim stroke, but once they're incorporated, I'll be ready for some faster swimming.
Another important benefit of this swim was that I got the green light from the coach to be doing interval and endurance swim training. My base technique is apparently largely correct, with no serious flaws, and thus there is no problem with increasing intensity in workouts. (With poor technique, you would just be reinforcing bad technique.) She strongly encouraged me to swim in a masters group to be around faster swimmers, and I will try and get myself into a local one if my schedule permits.
The only downside of this swim lesson, was that there was no magic correction that would instantly give me a lot of speed. I was hoping that there would be a big flaw that once fixed, would give me a chance at instantly jumping up several notches in race placement, but it seems that my weak swimming probably has less to do with erroneous technique and much more to do with lack of hours in the pool and lack of high-intensity training. That's something I intend to fix,, and I've been in the pool 5 days per week for the past 2 weeks, and will be planning on maintaining this regimen through the LA Triathlon in September, if not longer.
To conclude, I'll share some "pat-myself on the back" comments I received from the swim coach today during the lesson. None of these change the reality that I am indeed a terrible swimmer placing 2nd to last in my AG in my last 2 triathlons, but it's nice to see that maybe in the pool, I'm not as bad as I am in open water:
After seeing my first 100meters: "Ok, there are things that we can fix, but let me tell you, that is NOT slow. You're actually pretty fast."
On my crappy race placements: "That doesn't make any sense to me. I train a good number of triathletes, and honestly, you're the fastest one I've ever had take a lesson. And a lot of these people do pretty well on the swim portion of the triathlon. Are you racing in the PRO division?" (That one made me laugh out loud - she asked it with a straight face, I kid you not!)
On my base technique: "You actually have a really good basic stroke. Your balance is really good, your body rotation is exactly right, and your pull is good. If you took another lesson, we'd be fine tuning things, but no big changes for sure."
After the lesson: "I wish I had more experienced athletes come for swim lessons. It's so much more enjoyable when people actually pick up the advice you're giving them and don't just keep doing the same mistakes over and over. I'd do this all the time if that were the case."
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