I'm curious, Paul.
Did your swimming coach focus on drag and hydrodynamics?
While driving to the harbor to go fishing a few days ago, I was listening to a program discussing some psychological concepts....God knows why.
In any case they were discussing the way people deal with resistance in their lives; most apply more power whereas changing approach to achieve less resistance is undervalued.....or something like that, whatever. They used bullets as a primary example but, interestingly, also high level swimming where they implied much coaching is done to reduce drag rather than increase power. A little less resistance produced gains equivalent to much more power. The applicability to fly casting immediately came to mind.
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Swimming
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Paul Arden
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Re: Swimming
Hi George,
Yes I think just about everything in swimming comes down to either drag or propulsion.
To give you a bit of history, I can swim and joined a swim club in Noosa Australia 25 years ago. But never had proper stroke analysis. Done a fair few triathlons but never been very fast at all and swimming has always been my poorest discipline. I did go out of my way to get the Bronze Medallion life saving cert a couple of years ago, in case someone fell overboard and I wasn’t playing a fish.
It really is very focussed on triathlon, which I want and she is a triathlete/ professional swim coach. I need to get out of that water feeling 100% because it’s really just the warm up.
She took video from the side, the side subsurface, from the front subsurface and from directly above. I’ve only ever seen side on and front above the water. I have a few major faults. I’m arching my back, my left hand is over reaching and entering too far in front. My right hand enters well but travels up on the catch (?), my back is curved when rotating and I was only breathing to one side, and then out through my mouth and not nose. My HR is not relaxed at all!
Really, I can gain a lot of speed very quickly. It’s like bingo. I’m so much more relaxed in the water now (when I forget about snakehead and concentrate on technique).
My fastest IM swim was 1.22. My current pace is about 1.40. But I reckon I can get this down below 1.10 (I hope anyway) and come out the water feeling fresh. I can just see so much room for improvement. And I have til October. I am now bilateral and I’ve never been able to do this. I was likening bilateral breathing today to learning the double haul. It’s life changing (in our respective disciplines!).
So yes, short answer: absolutely; head down, bum up, small kicks, pointed feet, enter the hand straight but rotate the body, reaching forward so your body position is like a speed boat. Easy to write, easy to think you’re doing it, somewhat surprising to see how far away you are from what you think you are doing… just like flycasting.
I see a lot of similarities as a coach. As Nick Winkleman says, “it’s all just teaching movement”. We look at what someone is doing, we have a process to make changes and then we create drills to make specific changes. I’d love to say that I can do that on my own in swimming, but the last 27 years tells me otherwise. I’ve made more progress in one lesson than I have in the last 20 years.
I’m now thinking what else should I get coached in I’m getting a professional bike fit on my next trip down. £200. It had better be good! 
Cheers, Paul
Yes I think just about everything in swimming comes down to either drag or propulsion.
To give you a bit of history, I can swim and joined a swim club in Noosa Australia 25 years ago. But never had proper stroke analysis. Done a fair few triathlons but never been very fast at all and swimming has always been my poorest discipline. I did go out of my way to get the Bronze Medallion life saving cert a couple of years ago, in case someone fell overboard and I wasn’t playing a fish.
It really is very focussed on triathlon, which I want and she is a triathlete/ professional swim coach. I need to get out of that water feeling 100% because it’s really just the warm up.
She took video from the side, the side subsurface, from the front subsurface and from directly above. I’ve only ever seen side on and front above the water. I have a few major faults. I’m arching my back, my left hand is over reaching and entering too far in front. My right hand enters well but travels up on the catch (?), my back is curved when rotating and I was only breathing to one side, and then out through my mouth and not nose. My HR is not relaxed at all!
Really, I can gain a lot of speed very quickly. It’s like bingo. I’m so much more relaxed in the water now (when I forget about snakehead and concentrate on technique).
My fastest IM swim was 1.22. My current pace is about 1.40. But I reckon I can get this down below 1.10 (I hope anyway) and come out the water feeling fresh. I can just see so much room for improvement. And I have til October. I am now bilateral and I’ve never been able to do this. I was likening bilateral breathing today to learning the double haul. It’s life changing (in our respective disciplines!).
So yes, short answer: absolutely; head down, bum up, small kicks, pointed feet, enter the hand straight but rotate the body, reaching forward so your body position is like a speed boat. Easy to write, easy to think you’re doing it, somewhat surprising to see how far away you are from what you think you are doing… just like flycasting.
I see a lot of similarities as a coach. As Nick Winkleman says, “it’s all just teaching movement”. We look at what someone is doing, we have a process to make changes and then we create drills to make specific changes. I’d love to say that I can do that on my own in swimming, but the last 27 years tells me otherwise. I’ve made more progress in one lesson than I have in the last 20 years.
I’m now thinking what else should I get coached in
I’m getting a professional bike fit on my next trip down. £200. It had better be good! Cheers, Paul