Swimming – A Timeline from early 2012 to end 2013 (2014 and 2015 to come later)

I never really swam much before signing up to my first ironman which was Wales in Sept 2012. In order to conquer my fear of open water and to feel good about being able to do the distance I went on a swimtrek holiday to the British Virgin Islands.

Here’s a snippet from that trip.

I’ve paused it at one point and it is plain to see that I’m doing virtually a catch-up. If you check out Mr Smooth you’ll see that the catch at the front portion of my stroke is very late which creates a huge deadspot in the stroke. This leads to a loss of momentum on every stroke which means I’m constantly putting my effort in to get my body moving through the water again. An extreme analogy would be one of pushing a car. It takes a lot of effort to get the momentum going but once you’re in motion it takes relatively little effort to keep it going.

The other issue is that my kick is creating loads of drag and little propulsion. I bend my knee so much that I guess I was imaging kicking a football rather than imaging it being a tail that cuts through the water creating extra propulsion like the tail of a fish.

One good thing is that my hips are relatively high in the water however. Often this is an issue for adult onset swimmers but it’s the one thing I seemed to have picked up early. Now onto another potential bad point. I’m breathing every fourth stoke. This is a long time to not get a fresh breath of air and was going to be a limiter on the intensity that I could sustain as I wouldn’t get enough oxygen into the lungs.

6 months after this point I did the Ironman Wales swim in 1:08 although I’m 99% sure the course was short that year! Subsequently while back in London I went to see Julian and get a swim smooth session. Unfortunately I can’t find the super high res video with his commentary so I just have the stroke recording.

My turnover rate had increased and my speed had improved but the issues from above were still present. Additionally there is a NEW one! My head is sooo low that I’m having to really turn my head really really far to get my mouth above the surface of the water. This also has the impact of limiting the future increases in turnover rate as I’m spending lots of time trying to get to air.

This video was done a month or two after the swim smooth session. My stroke rhythm is starting to get better at this point. The dead spots have been reduced drastically. In the previous video you can almost see me come to a full stop after each stroke and you can see that after Julian’s advice this has improved somewhat. Additionally the kick has become a much nicer flutter kick although I developed an odd rhythm where I’d do two little flutter kicks (flutter kick tips here). Although my head position improved a bit it was still quite deep in the water which you can see from the video below. The very back of my head is now poking out of the water but this still leaves me quite far to turn. Tips on head position here

Generally the stroke is getting better but there are still improvements. For instance you can see that I I finish my stroke early not benefiting from the extra momentum my triceps can provide if I complete the elbow extension before exiting the water. Tips the exit of freestyle here

Here’s a later video of me swimming at an expo in an endless pool. You can see the head position has improved a lot and the stroke has much more rhythm. The stroke is still a bit short however. There are a few spots where the rhythm is completely disjointed but this due to trying to avoid the jet. On a side note Endless Pools are a lot of fun and I would definitely buy one if I had the space for it. If I ever move out to the suburbs I’m pretty sure I’ll get one.

I don’t have any videos from 2014, but am planning to video my stroke again this week if possible and figured it would be good to review where I was. I’m definitely faster now but it’ll be interested in seeing how the technique has improved versus the increased speed just being fitness related. All comments welcome!!