Tonights tirathlon swim session was an interesting descending set. It was interesting not so much for what the main set was (500, 400, ... 100) but because I decided to FOCUS on just one thing. Most tri-swims I focus on a number of elements (not all at the same time! but different components of my stroke on different sets). But tonight I concentrated on just one thing for pretty much the who 2K set.

We swam as a threesome - Tim first, me second and Nicola third at five second intervals. Tim's a bit quicker than me (a lot if we're racing) so it was good to have someone setting a reasonable pace, and not having to be concerned with that. So what I focused on was getting a vertical forearm/early catch at the front of my stroke. I know I was concentrating on this because quite often the wall arrived before I was ready to turn!
Why did I focus on this? Well a few weeks ago one of the best swimmers I've ever swum with (during a Swim Fit session in Stockport) said that I drop my elbow too early in my stroke. This came as a bit of a shock, because I didn't think I did, and as far as the "general population" goes I don't. But as far as good swimmers go - I surely do. So I decided that when Swim Fit's over for summer, I'd devote a far amount of my summer swimming to trying to learn this skill. I haven't started yet, but tonight offered a good opportunity.

So breathing one-sided for each 100M I concentrated on the breathing side's arm for the duration of the hundred - trying to drop my wrist and hand whilst rolling slightly with my shoulder to allow my elbow to be significantly higher than my wrist. And only when I was in that position start to engage my core body and rotate/pull. If you watch any good long distance swimmer (Hackett and Thorpe are two really good examples) you see that they get into this high-elbow/vertical forearm position _very_ early in their stroke - their arm's in this position _way_ in front of their heads. Now typically my stroke has this high elbow/vertical forearm position much later in my stroke (probably somewhere between my head and shoulder) and as a consequence they get at least 2-3 feet(?) more propulsive traction per stroke.

I'll talk more about this in a later post, as I experiment more with this idea. But it was hard work and really made the session fly by!

Warm Up:
20 x 25 on 30

Main set:
1 x 500 RI 1:00
1 x 400 RI 1:00
1 x 300 RI 1:00
1 x 200 RI 1:00
1 x 100 RI 1:00

Warm down:
10 x 50 on 1:00 (25 drill, 25 swim)