(Not the) TI Club – Session 12

Coach has torn his rotator cuff. Or something. He’s convinced it’s a problem with his swimming technique, but it looks pretty good to me. I suspect it might have a wee bit more to do with the extreme body pump he was partaking in on Saturday afternoon….

Still, the TI club carries on regardless. Well, Mrs Dundeechest, Farmer J, and I carried on regardless. Everyone else had been warned off, I presume by Coach. J had almost finished when we got there, so we had a chat about this and that, and he got on with some steady state swimming, whilst I got on with session 12.

Session 12 – Swim and Nod
It’s remarkable that it takes until session 12 before any mind is paid to breathing. All the prior drills lead on to an effective breathing technique, but it’s all subterfuge: rolling like a log, rolling into sweetspot, staying well balanced, they’re all the right exercised to do to allow a good breath to be taken without ruining the hydrodynamic flow I’ve worked so hard to try to maintain. So the session starts with skating, lots of zen switch, and then onto the main event.

The swim and nod exercise is so effective. Gradually increasing the amount of body turn with each successive length, until the “breathing” motion leads to a “half goggle” position without breathing. Then simply repeat with breathing. Simples. It shows how much I over-rotate to breathe – I do it more when I’m tired, of course. I read on Terry’s blog the other day that one idea is make the chin follow the shoulder out of the water to breathe, which is what I’ve been doing. It seems to have lead to me looking too far up, and not across. Swim and nod is working to alleviate that. I am going to try to do a few lengths of alternating nodding up to the half goggle position with one stroke, then half goggle breathing the next. If you know what I mean. Well, I know what I mean.

Kids away for a fortnight from now, so swimming every day, with some running fit in somewhere. Or something.

I should also start cycling to work again from tomorrow. Or Wednesday.

Dundee-Gump

Do you remember the bit in Forrest Gump where he starts running, and just keeps on going? It was kind of like that.

Practice 9 – Overswitch.

I did all this in the outside pool at the gym, so the lengths are all a bit squiffy, but I just did it length for length – the outdoor pool is 20m, not 25, but who’s counting?

Swim an easy 2 lengths. SPL is 11.
(Fist gloves on) – all the breathing done in sweetspot for the drills.
2x skating; relaxed hands
2x skating; laser beam
2x skating; wide track
2x skating; bullseye
2x lengths; wide track focus
2x spearswitch; best skate position
2x spearswitch; trip wire
2x spearswitch; hip drive
2x spearswitch; race timing
2x lengths; smooth focus
4x Zenswitch; elbow crook
4x Zenswitch; mid forearm
4x Zenswitch; wrist
4x Zenswitch; fingers
(Fist gloves off)
2x lengths; circle the elbows
2x lengths;relaxed neck
2x lengths; wide recovery
2x lengths; early entry
2x lengths; patient lead hand
2x lengths; weight shift

At this point I was meant to do the easy, faster, even faster 50s, but when I set off on the easy 50, if felt very nice. The sun in the sky, few clouds, no wind, and the water a very comfortable 26 degrees. I just started swimming, and carried on, Gump-like.

I swam for 90 minutes. I didn’t have my pool-mate on, so I don’t have an accurate lap count, but I averaged a very consistent 38 to 40 seconds for every 2 lengths, so some quick maths leads me to, vaguely: 5,400 seconds, 40 seconds per lap, 135 laps, 40m per lap = 5.4K.

I was aware for the last 15 minutes that my form was falling off. Mainly I wasn’t able to maintain my best skating position – this was due to arm muscle fatigue, I think, but reassuringly I was able to concentrate on it for the last 15 minutes without everything else falling apart.

80 days ago I started this journey of learning to swim. And I’ve gone from 2 lengths of struggle, to 5.4K of fishlike-like swimming.

If only I’d put on some sunscreen – my back looks like a lobster…

Fist Gloves vs Paddle Gloves

Another day, another drill session. The same as last session. So this:

Easy 50 (SPL 14!)
(Fist gloves on)
2x SG (Shinji can do a length in 2 glides!, I take 4)
2x Skating – relaxed hand focus
2x Skating – laser beam focus
2x Skating – pushing through the bullseye focus
2x lengths swimming with a laser beam focus
2x multiple Spearswitch – good skating position focus
2x multiple Spearswitch – trip wire focus
2x multiple Spearswitch – hip drive focus
2x lengths swimming with a trip wire focus
4x Zenskate
4x Zenswitch – crook of elbow, wide recovery focus
4x Zenswitch – mid forearm, wide recovery focus, then trip wire focus
4x Zenswitch – wrist, wide recovery focus, then trip wire focus
4x Zenswitch – trailing ‘fingers’, wide recovery focus, trip wire focus
(Fist gloves off)
Swimming with different foci:
2x relaxed neck, looking down
2x wide relaxed recovery
2x hand enters across from the extended elbow
2x patient lead hand
2x connect the patient lead hand to the weight shift
An easy 50
A faster 50
An even faster 50 – 32 seconds, SPL 16. Not bad for a brick.
2x multiple spear switch, just to cool down.

That’s quite a lot of drilling, but once again, as ever, the improvements are immediate. I definitely feel the kaisan today.

One lady was swimming next to me in the ‘fast’ lane. She was belting up and down, 30 spl (Not that I was counting, or anything), pull buoys, and webbed gloves (!). I was wearing my fist gloves, of course. She asked about them, saying that she’d swum with clenched fists before, but hadn’t seen the gloves before. When I took the gloves off, I went more quickly,of course, so she commented “It just shows how much pull we get with our hands, doesn’t it?”. I was about to launch into the explanation of why the taking the fist gloves work, and why pushing forward is more important than pulling back…. but I saw I was fighting a losing battle, and just nodded, and set off again.

Fist gloves + zen-switch = about the most tiring thing ever, but *so* good for the timing. Definitely my favourite exercise at the moment. Definitely.

I think I ought to do another long swim, not sure when I’m going to fit it in. Perhaps I’ll know when I know, or perhaps Coach will just tell me to pull my finger out.

Session 7, Zen Switch

It transpires that we’ve not really done a technical session for well over a week, perhaps even 10 days. We’ve been practising open water techniques, sighting, actually swimming outside, and all that, but not really drilling. So, straight back into it.

Session 7, second run through it. What I learnt today – doing Zen Switch, wearing Fist Gloves and doing Two Beat Kicks all together are REALLY HARD. P-Dub suggested going back to flutter kicks during drills to concentrate on the arms. He was right, of course. So, drills with flutter kicks, and two beat kicks when swimming.

The drills were hard today, but definitely Kaisan by the end. A young girl in the local swim club practices at the same time as us on a Tuesday evening. She’s clearly ASA all the way, and she swims very well. Lots of kick boards, pull buoy, tumble turns, and sloggin up and down. Each to their own, I suppose. There is a real sense of satisfaction to be had by keeping up with her wearing the fist gloves and doing Zen switch whilst she’s swimming full stroke. I know it’s not big, or clever, but it’s satisfying.

Red Hand Gang

Another session with the fist gloves, session 7 for the first time, and this time with PW in the DL pool. Session 7 is looooooong. A lot of spear switch, and the introduction of zen switch.

A full session of an hour, with the fist gloves on is hard work, but as with wearing ski boots, taking them off feels so good! The benefits of the gloves are obvious – concentration on the rotation, the hip drive and the timing with them on, and a big catch once they’re off.

PW and I managed to clear the lane with our red gloves – a couple of folk asked PW if it was OK to join the lane, or if it was a special class….

5 50s at the end. 43 secs average, with an SPL of 16, which is the most satisfying thing. Terry Loughlin does 20 50s, and improves from 45 secs for the first 5, to 35 for the last 5. But he’s doing 50 yards, not big boy metres, like us.

Some land training at the end of the week, with an open water swim on Sunday.