Jumped into the lap pool last night for the first time in almost a week, which is a long time for me. Since a now-healed leg injury in May I’ve swum three to four times a week.
I’m working the drills from Total Immersion Swimming and like any new thing, it’s sometimes frustrating going.
Not last night: last night I “got it” for the first time. I had a good stretch of 4-5 laps where I KNOW I looked and felt just like the dude in the videos: Arm entry was smooth, my elbow didn’t make a ker-spashing cannon-ball sound next to my ear as it entered the water, and I glided between strokes. Even my breathing felt smoother and less desperate.
I took about a 40 minute session with lots of breaks and no real goals, other than to work my weaknesses. I’d do a skate drill, then move to switch. If that went well, I’d move to continuous switch.
I worked out my breathing problem: I discovered that I was pulling my lead arm to soon in an effort to breath sooner, but what I was really doing was removing my stability for taking the breath. Holding the arm in place for just a beat longer made a huge difference. Plus it acts as a stabilizer for my other hand entering the water, and that reduced the elbow-sploosh.