Day 27: Clinic and Feeling it again

Yesterday was the clinic with Laurie. A couple take aways are:

• The depth of your hand should be where your hand is when you raise both of your arms; like the daVinci man


• Engage the abs more


• Skating on armpit-- feel the full rotation

Today I swam and tried to figure out what it is that I want to be doing:

• I want to keep my lead hand moving forward


• Slow down the pull/catch in the water to really grab the water which actually allows me to move further than pulling faster through the water and allowing the water to give/fall away. I need to keep my grip on the water. If I move my hand too fast I not only lose my grip but I also end up disconnecting the power of the rotation from the catch.

Today I concentrated on spearing my hand beyond my grip. Where I ended up rotated a little further than I have before, not so much in my shoulders are the rotation in my hip. I also learned to not "push" my hand forward and force my shoulders up but to leave them more relaxed and let my head "hang" between my shoulder.

The other thing I found that worked was not trying to stay on a single track but as if I am swimming down one side of the track and then another. I guess a cross between cross country skiing and skating. Again this caused me to feel a bit more like I was on my armpit. Its not like having wider tracks with my arms but more that I am making sure I stay in the track and don't slide in and out of it.

I was able to hold this focus for 10 minutes. I never felt tired and felt like I was maintaining my body position well throughout. I never felt like I slid back into my old stroke. I admit I didn't do flip turns as I haven't figured out how to come out of those and quickly get back into the right position. That will come and I want the extra breath on the turn right now. I maintained 15 strokes per length for the whole 10 minutes. I didn't use the tempo trainer because when I use that I find I can't hold my farm as well for that length of time yet because I lose my focus because I am concentrating on the beat.

After that I did some 25's trying to increase the speed without increasing my stroke. I did 14 SPL until I hit > 1.33. I held 15 up to 1.18. Pretty good I think really. I found that by increasing the tempo that I became more efficient and ended up extending my body line further and swam taller and that I really had to focus on my breathing and keeping it in line with everything else.