Self-Review of Swim Technique (Result: NEED MORE EARLY VERTICAL FOREARM)

I was looking back at some old videos of me swimming and looking at a more recent one that a friend took for me (below).

I was hoping to have some more videos of 2014 while I was in Hawaii but unfortunately I can’t find them. Will have to double-check with the missus!

A quick review of the improvements:

• Stroke rate has gradually increased a lot over the years
• Head position has improved in that it is more steady in the water (I used to dunk it down deep below the water after every breath). It’s still not perfect but has improved.
• Looking quite flat in the water with legs following in the shadow of my body.
• Less of an over-glide at the front of the stroke

A few points of improvement:

My index finger splays out from my left hand on a fairly regular basis. I had never noticed this before. This should be a fairly easy change to make. I’m not sure if it’s improve my speed though. My thumb points out away from my other fingers when I swim but I’ve been told by a few reputable swim coaches that this is not an issue and many pros do.

One other note on the previous image is that it looks almost like my elbow is dropping a tiny bit but it’s too close to call so I’m not going to worry about it here. Generally when I see videos of myself swimming it isn’t an issue.

However, one key area of improvement where I think I can make an improvement is to improve my catch and get a vertical forearm much earlier in the cycle. The next two shots show my arm 45 degrees downwards with not even a hint of a bend in the elbow.

  

There is a slight hint of an elbow bend in the following shot but I believe if I can get the early vertical forearm (EVF) incorporated into my stroke I’ll be catching more water at the front end of the stroke and able to recruit my bigger lat muscles in the stroke more then my shoulders which still do a lot of work. I had been given this feedback by Daniel Viera at Full Throttle Endurance a while back and in my head had thought it had improved, but this goes to show I need to improve on that still..

I forget who the first screenshot is, but the second is of Rebecca Addlington. Here’s a link to Sun Yang who also has an amazing early vertical forearm.