Being that swimming is by far my weak point I am always looking for a chance to improve. I decided to take a short evening swim camp with Jordan Bryden. If you don't know him, he is a local pro triathlete on the ITU and Xterra circuits and is quite the swimmer. I wasnt sure how much I could take in during one evening but I was willing to try.
The night started off with just some easy warm up laps and figuring out lane speeds. After that we started out with drills. Jordan did a good job connecting the drills with various parts of the stroke. We did do alot of fin work which I have not done in the past. One thing the drills clearly proved is just how bad I am breathing to the left. I knew I wasnt good at it but it was magnified on some of the drills. Definitly one thig to work on.
We got out of the pool for some dry land exercises. The exercises themselves helped pull a few concepts together for me. I will definitely be incorporating these into my workouts. It was nice getting feed back out of the water as well as in.
Then it was back into the water for some laps and analysis. It was kind of funny swimming over top of someone looking up at you from the bottom of the pool. The feedback that Jordan gave me from this point of view was that my head was all over the place. I needed to be breathing or looking down. Another bad habit that I was pretty much aware of.
The swim portion was done at this point and we all hopped in the hot tub and watched a couple very short videos on swim technique. Once we were all warmed up and after a quick change we reviewed our individual swim videos. I had never seen my technique before so it was good to see from that vantage point. Aside from the previously mentioned flaws, the only other thing that Jordan suggested was to shorten my reach about 1 inch. I should get more power in each pull if I do this. My catch was a little lacking but I had improved alot during the course of the session. I thought my analysis was going to be a bit painful and a hit to the ego but overall he said it was actually pretty good.
Overall I did get pick up some good info from this. It will help me build on what my coach has already taught me. I have been feeling better and better about being in the pool lately. It is crazy how when you work at something you can actually see results and maybe even enjoy it a bit ;) .
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Now comes the hard part, trying to be mindful of what you want to improve. Thinking about it every stroke. Sounds like a great camp!
ReplyDeleteSounds like a great camp - swimming is so technical! He gave you a lot of pointers and things to work on, that way swimming doesn't seem quite so bad because you have something to think about :)
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