I threw this on my blog as well, but I wanted to see if anyone out there has had success in improving their swimming form without going to a coach. I would certainly like to go to a coach, but as things stand now, it would be extremely difficult at best.
Anyway, just wondering if anybody has found articles, websites, books, whatever - that has made a difference in their swim times. Hopefully by next season (or early next year), I'll have a better schedule to arrange for some real coaching. In the meantime, I would like to try and take at least 2-3 minutes off of my time by the end of the year. I can remain fairly competitive on the bike, and I know what I need to do to improve my run, but the swim is killing me!!
You've all provided a lot of great advice in the past, so I thought I'd throw this one out as well.
Thanks!!
Armour
Total newbie here but...
I've only just learned swimming about 3 months ago, and am not sure of your background in swimming,but I thought I'd try to offer up some help anyway! Not having access to a swim coach and not knowing anything, I started from the ground up using Total Immersion's freestyle made easy DVD (suggested by a tri coach). I found it very helpful to learn and do all of the drills, and I'm not fast, but have made improvements on my efficiency and effort required by using this. I was able to actually learn to swim with it, and increase the distance I can swim without fatigue fairly quickly for a novice, and found the drills extremely helpful. I apologize if this is much more basic than what you're looking for, but it really helped me immensely.
Best wishes!
I'm looking for the exact same thing
Hi, I'm all for your idea on trying to get your swim-level up without a coach.
I'm in a simular situation, lack of time & few options make it hard to see a coach to provide help.
It's a though road though ...
In previous discussions, a lot of people seem to turn to Total Immersion ... seems pretty good.
It's just very important not to start off with a wrong technique & balance in the water. If you've trained on your own for a year without guidance, you're bound to make (small) mistakes, & it'll be very difficult to get those worked out later!
I'll be looking at this post regularly, as I too need some extra help ...
Not much usefull info here, other than the T-Immersion-thing seems very popular ....
Thanks for the recommendation on the Total Immersion. I think I'll give that a shot. I've actually been swimming for most of my life and was only somewhat trained at an early age off and on at summer camps. So, for the better part of the last 25 years, I've been taking tips here and there. The problem is that in all that time, I've never really had a reason to swim competitively - only for staying in shape. I'm sure I've developed some bad habits that will be tough to break, but anything is worth trying at this point!
I'll keep this alive, particularly if I find something that works. Thanks again for the tip!!
Armour
Improved swimw/out coach
Hey I have had quite a bit of sucess on my own in improving my form. I started out SLOW, like my first 1/4 mile swim was like 12:30. Anyways I have improved my form and time! I used Total immersion, local swim coaches, aquatics director at the Y I work out at, Tri-fuel.com folks and memebers, and a swim tape a friend loaned me from like the late 80's lol! Do not be afraid to ask questions that is a big help, sometimes just a little technique tweek can really make a difference. But all of them helped I think it is important to get a nice smooth form and a good breathing patttern. Somebody posted earlier about Body position, that is huge, look around and search the forums a bit I think you will be surprised at the stuff you learn just on this website! I wish you success!
Keep on Tri-ing,
Eric
Back when I was getting certified to be a WSI(technical term for swim teacher) we had a book that broke down all the stroke, analyzed sections of each motion (power, recovery), and had a troubleshooter that gave different solutions to problems in a persons stroke. So maybe getting some WSI literature would be benificial. Sorry I don't have more details, its been a few years, but I'd thought I would throw out that suggestion.
I have just made some huge strides in my swimming times in just the last couple months. I just started swimming again in April. I hadn't really swum since high school ... 9 years ago. I've gone from a 7:30 400 to a consistent 6:00 400. When I first got back into swimming I was doing long practices and just tiring myself out. I had been on swim team, so I thought my stroke was decent. It's amazing how much you forget. After my third tri in two months, my times showed a pretty clear signal that my swim times were holding me back.
I decided I needed to relearn the basics. I started simple and bought The Triathlete's Guide to Swim Training. I switched to more freqent short practices of about 30 minutes with one longer 3000m practice each week. I swim 4-5 days a week, but most of those sessions are almost all drills. It has made a huge difference in relatively short time. I would say that almost all my time gains occured in less than 3 weeks. Now I feel like I have a solid base to build on and I can work on the details. I've got the 6 kick, the arm drop, and the rotation down pat. I am still really working on getting body positioning and breathing just so.My problem is that I still revert a bit on long practices. When everything comes together it feels great. I think frequent time in the water without worrying about simply putting in the distance is what will make the difference. With swimming you have to make yourself stop and take a break when your stroke starts to fall apart. The way I see it. all those laps of poor technique are doing more harm than good.