The Only Way to Break 200 per 100m in Swimming (Stroke Analysis)

You can't fix what you can't see. Most swimmers think they know what their stroke looks like, but what you feel in the water and what actually happens in the water are two completely different things. That's why your progress feels unnoticeable and slow, even if you're training consistently. I'm Dasha, a former swimmer and a coach, and in today's video I will be breaking down the stroke of one of my students, Naomi. I'll tell you what's good in her stroke, what needs adjustments, and which drills will make the biggest difference in her stroke. And if you want your stroke to be analyzed as well, the link is down below. Let's go! Hello, hello, Endurance ID swimmers. Welcome back to another video stroke breakdown where I analyze your stroke, tell you what's working, what doesn't work, and what you need to do first to get better and to get to your perfect stroke in swimming. And today I'm analyzing the stroke of one of my students, Naomi. I have different footage underwater, above the water, and from footage, so we'll be able to see everything. To start with, I just want to say that she sits really high in the water, which is great and that's an ideal position for many swimmers. You want your hips, you want your legs, and your whole body to be really flat and on the top of the water, which you can see that she has here. And another thing that I want to emphasize, which is really great, is that arc form and that arc position, what I'm talking about all the time, where you start your stroke and you're going into that recovery and you're starting the catch. You're going into that arc shape. You're first starting with your fingertips, then you're going with your wrist, and only then with your elbow. You're not slapping the water or throwing your arm all the way in the water. You're going in gradually and you're having that glide and from there you're going to have that high elbow catch, which Naomi does have. She has a really nice recovery as you see here. The only thing from above the water that I want to emphasize that we should work on is that this arm, it's the left arm, you can see that she has to close the arm because currently it's open like that. When you have your arm like that and you're trying to pull, the water just goes through your fingers. What you really don't want to do in freestyle, you don't want to have your hand like this, you don't want to have your hand like this, you know, really, really tense. What you really want to do is you want to have it relaxed but still together. Some space between your fingers, it's fine, just not too much. That's your perfect position in freestyle that you're able to grab water and press that water all the way back in your catch, in your pull and all the way through your stroke and freestyle. That's what we really want to do here. We want to close that hand, which is actually interesting because the other hand is totally fine. It enters really nicely. You can see that this arm, the right hand is totally fine. So what I want you to do is I want you to think about this hand, your right hand and try to do exact same with that other hand. You can try to do a single arm freestyle drill to just focus on that arm and closing the arm specifically. What you also can do is you can put on paddles that can also help you to really, you know, understand that pushing and pressing power on the water and as you're pulling. So that's the first thing that Naomi want to work on is closing that left hand as you're swimming. Now let's move to the underwater footage where we can see lots of interesting things. The first thing that I want to emphasize here is in swimming we want to work on that perfect catch and the catch is the most important thing because the way you set up your catch will determine how good of a pull and how good of the back of your pull you're going to have and how much water you actually can pull. In swimming the ideal catch position is you're starting from the high elbow with your arm really close to your face. And from here you really want to form that high elbow position early on. The ideal thing here is that you're going to enter the water with your hand and as soon as you glide through the water you're going to point those fingertips down and from there it's actually going to be really easy to get that elbow straight up yeah. So as you enter the water as you glide in the water you're going to point those fingers down and form that high elbow position. Why high elbow position is very important because from this position from high elbow from here it's really easy to push off of that water yeah you're going to press that water and then pull it all the way back and that's exactly how you move in freestyle. If you don't form a high elbow catch straight as you enter yeah without waiting till the mid of your pull or without pulling with your arms straight if you don't form a high elbow catch you're not going to be able to pull a lot of water and you're not going to be able to move forward. She is pulling the water fine but she's forming that high elbow catch really late and in the almost in the mid pull so as she starts and she glides in she pulls with the straight arm up until here and from here it's actually really difficult to form that high elbow catch and that's what we call a dropped elbow in freestyle and when you have dropped elbow in freestyle instead of pointing your fingers down and then having that high elbow power triangle you're going to really bring that elbow really close to your body from here it's really difficult to have that powerful pull and the powerful back of your pull and as you see here all the way here all the way here still there is no high elbow form yet the arm is almost straight and if your arm is straight at this point from here it's really difficult to almost like bend that elbow all the way so you're like compromising your catch and it's really you can actually even get shoulder injuries because you're like you know you're pushing off of not from your lats you're not having the pull from your lats but you're pulling with this position you know it's it's actually can even injure your um injure your shoulders so what we really want to do as you enter the water and as you start that glide I want you to think about okay I start the glide and I point my fingers down and as I point my fingers I have that high elbow form straight away and from here I'm pulling all the way back so and a great drill for this specific mistake is the dog paddle drill it's one of my favorite drills what you're gonna do is you're going to swim your regular freestyle but instead of taking your arms for the recovery meaning taking your arms out of the water for this phase what you're gonna do is you're gonna keep all your movement underwater for this you can wear snorkel so you could um you know take out breathing and don't worry about it and just focus on your pull and catch and that can help you to then take it to your um regular freestyle and you can because of that high elbow catch your whole stroke will feel much more powerful because you already sit great in the water your breathing is great your feel of the water is to be honest really really great what you really want to do is you want to fix that catch so you're able to pull more water as you swim in freestyle another thing that I want you to think about and it it is a little bit more advanced but still it can help you a lot in your stroke and let's watch it in the regular speed as you swim you can see that the breathing side and the breathing arm pulls a little better and has at least a bit of that high elbow catch yeah and a bit of that like pulling back and that other opposite arm the non-breathing side yeah you can see that as you start to breathe here as you start to breathe you're gonna see that this arm goes all the way down with the straight arm like all up until here and because you're breathing on the side takes you a little longer only here you're putting your see it you're putting your head back almost when that other arm is finishing the stroke yeah ideal side breathing timing what you really want to think is you take a breath to the side you take a breath you put your face in the water and you're almost able to see that other catch with this arm and in this situation because you take a little longer to breathe on the side you can see that your head is just going back in the water and this arm is almost finished the pull yeah and because you see from here it it's supposed to be like that power triangle position with the high elbow but you're not able to get into that position because you're fully rotated on the side because of that side breathing so what i want you to think about because primarily you're breathing on to this side and this arm the other the breathing side arm is fine but that opposite arm is actually the the catch is compromised because you're not able to get in that position to get in that high elbow position so what i want you to do is every time you do a side breath i want you to really think about the timing and as you side breathe you're gonna side breathe really quickly then put your face back in the water and only then you're gonna form that high elbow catch so every time you side breathe think about it as a really fast and quick side breath and only then you're because from this position imagine like now you're supposed to have that high elbow catch but it's impossible because it's really difficult to put your shoulder in this position so you're able in this rotated position to get that high elbow catch and the last thing that i want you to really focus on in your swim is your kick your kick technically looks great you kick from your then going into your knee and finishing with your foot really nice beautiful and light kick what i just want you to think of is to slow down your kick a little bit because if you look at the full stroke like if it would be to take just your kicking it would be fine if you would do just the kick drill let's say four times 25 kick this kick is perfect if you swim freestyle this kind of kick especially for open water triathlon yeah for longer distances in comparison with your arm stroke this is just too much of a kick cadence of your kick is a little too high for the arm stroke cadence if that makes sense you can see it it's in the normal speed it's not not a slow motion so you can see that that's a little too fast yeah so one more time you can see that here your arm stroke is great but for that kind of arm stroke i think this kick is a little too fast so what you really want to do is you want to reduce the cadence get it a little lower and and the ways you can do this is uh you can put the pull buoy between your legs and kick while using the pull buoy normally we use pull buoy to practice um the upper body strength and to work on your upper body but in this case what i want you to do is i want you to still put the pull buoy between your legs and kick just a little slower yes still keep the kick let's say a two beat kick or a four beat kick and just reduce the number of kick you do per stroke i think that would help you a lot to understand that you don't need that much of a kick and the reason you don't need that much of a kick is because leg muscles are the biggest muscles in your body and they require a lot of oxygen to maintain in the open water especially if you swim in the wetsuit you just don't need that much of using your legs simply because you're not going to get that much in return you'd rather really improve your pull and work on your upper body than to turn on your legs and kick with crazy because in the open water you just don't need that much legs yeah you need legs for stability for balance and just to keep your body on float and horizontal and flat so that's another thing this is not terrible yet your kick is still great you kick amazing from your hip going into your knee as i said and finishing with your foot you just need to reduce a little the cadence of your kick the number of kicks you do per arm stroke another thing that you can do is you can because naturally when we put on fins we don't kick that fast because of the amount of water we need to move in the fins yeah because you're increasing that foot surface that you're kicking it with right now so it's not going to be as fast as you as you kick without the fins so these are the things that i want you to work on your breathing timing and that straight arm of the non-breathing side your high elbow catch that power triangle as we call it straight away early on as you glide in the water pointing your fingers down and having that high elbow position early on and your kick still keep the same technique just make sure that you reduce the number of kick these are all the things that i think you can work on if you guys want your stroke to be broken down the link is down below and i'll see you in the next one bye bye