I couldn't download the video or get it to play either...

Oh, its quicktime format. I figured by now everyone had itunes, and thus quicktime. I'll upload to youtube.

Okay, I updloaded it to youtube, and changed the link above. Thanks for taking the time to look, guys.

Okay, here's my impressions. It's hard to tell completely because we're only seeing one camera angle here. It would be more helpful to also see from the front to see what your arms are doing underwater and if you're crossing your center line.

But from what I can see:

Arms: You have almost no glide to your stroke. This is probably the biggest thing you can do to gain efficiency. My suggestion is to swim a drill called "Catch-up". When you swim this drill, after you put your stroking hand into the water, you hold it there until your next hand enters the water and touches it. Here's a good video of this drill:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/2005/catchup.mpg

When you've got the hang of that, you can progress to "almost catch-up" or "3/4 catch-up", which is where you let your stroking hand almost catch up before you start your next stroke:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/2005/34catchup.mpg

Your final stroke will look a lot like "almost catch-up". You want to find the place where you get the most glide without sacrificing speed (in other words, you don't want to glide to the point where your speed is bleeding off, but you want to get as much glide as you can from the power of your stroke). A good way to visualize it is if you've ever seen a good cross-country skier, where they're going kick,glide.....kick, glide....kick, glide... That's the rhythm you're looking for: stroke, glide....stroke, glide....stroke, glide....

Some things that might come up for you when you're working on this: breathing might get more difficult. Some people rely on pushing down on the water in order to get their head up to breathe. If this is the case for you, catch-up will be difficult, and your hand in front of you will "want" to move before the other hand catches up when you're breathing. You will have to learn to rotate your head to breathe instead of pushing up to breathe. I can't tell if this is the case for you just from this video, but it's something to be aware of.

That takes me on to your breathing: you're over-rotating when you breathe, which is visible by the fact that your left elbow crosses over the center line of your back and your left hip rotates all the way out of the water when you breathe to the left. You want your elbows to mostly track in a straight line, not rotate over your back. Instead, turn just your head to breathe by looking under your arm toward your back elbow. That will give you enough of a head turn to get air, but not so much that you over-rotate your body. Look at this video of Alexandr Popov, and that will give you a good idea of what a head turn should look like: http://www.nyhoff.net/swimcity/Crawl-SwimcityMediaCentre-AlexPopovTraining.mpg Also, look at his elbow tracking.

As for your kick, it looks reasonable, but probably too deep. You want to keep your feet boiling the surface of the water, and in the top 8 inches. If you're going too deep, you might also be bending your knees too much. A slight knee-bend is fine, but too much and you start dragging your own legs downward. Ideally, your kick comes from your hips, with a slight bend of the knees and unleashes the power into your feet which should be very loose from the ankles on down. Your feet also look like they are rotating too much, due to the over-rotation of your body. Your feet should rotate a bit, but should not face the walls. Make sure your hips are not turning to face the walls (see the other thread in this forum called "Total Immersion Sweet Spot" for more discussion of this), but are staying relatively level in the water.

So in summary, the things I would concentrate most on:

1. Getting glide. Do the catch-up drill and almost catch-up. A lot. Until you feel like you're gliding more.

2. Over-rotation. Power should come from your torso, not the rotation of your whole body. Especially when you breathe, make sure you are not over-rotating

3. Kick depth: keep it shallow, don't over-bend knees. Your kick should not be a huge part of your propulsion, especially for distance swimming.

Hope that's helpful!

Thanks for the great comments. The things I will now work on are:

Catch up drill (I have done this a little bit, but didn't really get what I was supposed to learn from it, and will make it a focal point of my drilling, to get me some of that glide)

Not over rotating by looking under my arm at my back elbow to breath

Make my elbow higher (I had a drill where I was supposed to drag my fingers through the water, which obviously didn't take.

Thanks again for the input, its so hard for me to look at myself and know what I'm doing wrong. (If I knew what was wrong, why would I be doing it, right??)

George,

In Mexico till April? I'm going to have to plan my life so that when I retire I can spend half the year in a tropical paradise.

Thanks for changing the format. I looked at it an concur with everything IronMom said.

One other comment based on my own chronic stroke problem - make sure that when your arm is extended in the water you don't let your elbow drop. Think of your hand pointing down toward the bottom of the pool instead of thinking about it being parallel to the pool bottom. Then, when you set your catch you will pull more water with your forearm. Make sure you pull all the way through (knock the bee off your hip with your thumb).

Good luck!

Thanks, I'm glad it was helpful to you! It's what I do as work (swim coaching, mainly triathletes), and I'm off to the pool in a few minutes to do just that.:) Best of luck in your training!

I work on bilateral breathing some, but not very consistently. One of the problems I have is focus. I have a hard time focusing on just one aspect at a time. I'll look into the video. I have the book, but you can't really see what is going on with it.

I swim at Gold's Gym, (the nearest YMCA is about 60 miles from where I work) but I may be able to find some type of coaching in town. Thanks for the advice.

I have a swim workout today, and will focus on gliding, doing the catch up exercise you described. In the back of my mind I'll have my rotation, but mostly I'll try and glide.

Wow, I focused on catch up swimming and a little with leading at the elbow, trying to keep elbows high throughout, and I worked some muscles in my abdomen and lower back that I'm not used to using.

My lap times were noticeably faster, though I wasn't able to maintain the speed, due to difficulty breathing. I tend to drop my legs down when I take a breath, especially since I'm not rolling as far as I was.

The pool I swim at is a golds gym, no lifeguard, but I do occasionally talk to swimmers who look better than I feel, if that makes any sense. Sometimes I get good advice, I feel like and sometimes not as much. There are some local coaches that I could probably visit here in the next little while to get me on the right track.

Update: I've been working on not over-rotating, and its really sped things up for me. I also bought a snorkel, and have been using it to allow me to focus on the swim other than breathing, and I think it has helped me lock in some good technique and body position. I find I notice a lot more when my head and shoulder drop, and I can also tell better when my legs drop as a result of my breathing, compared to when I don't have to breathe.

I've also been doing the catch up drill, and its dropped my stroke count way down, to between 12-14. I think once I work on it a bit more, and get it to the 3/4 catch up, I'll be right around 14, which seems reasonable to me. If I can put all this together, I think I'll be coming out of the water in the top 10-15 in my races this year, which would make me very happy.