Bookmark

I'm calling this my bookmark workout. I ended the workout with the focus for my next practice already set.

I didn't really do any drills this time with swimming. I used focal points instead. I am finding that releasing my head (at least at first) is becoming a natural part of my stroke. This is my first focal point with everything because I find that until I release/relax my head the rest of it isn't going to come together. That came pretty naturally today. And when my stroke didn't feel right it's where I put my focus again. The other thing that I focused on was keeping that hip and hand moving at the same speed. I find that I tend to want to drive my hand into the water instead of allowing it to extend with my roll. I focused on feeling like my hand was moving forward throughout my stroke and that felt just about right. It definitely made me think about staying tall in the water and extended from fingers to toes.

I swam for 15 minutes and found myself losing my focus as I marked my own speed by the others around me. Bad idea. When I do this I lose my nice relaxed stroke and get short and choppy again. So when I found myself doing this I focused on being smoother and being much more relaxed than the person I was "competing" against. Here is what I found when I did that. They slowed down and I didn't. I kept my smooth relaxed, effortless stroke while they ran out of gas. So over the short haul they were faster but over the long haul I was either faster or most certainly expended much less energy than they did covering the same distance.

I ended the practice with focus 25's. I focused on increasing my spl and increasing my comfort and ease with what I had practiced and found the next focal point for myself. Once I found that point I got out.

So my next focal point is my catch. I drop my elbow periodically especially when I breathe sometimes but consistently I do not set myself up for a good catch/grip on the water. This will tie into the hip drive focus as well and keeping the timing together so it's a good progression from here.