Posts Tagged ‘swim skills’
First Strokes Beginner Freestyle Swim Program
First Stroke Beginner Freestyle program for the beginner/ novice swimmer, who needs to build a more confident relationship with the water, improve their basic swimming skills and movement pattern awareness.
The program will help you relax and enjoy being in the water. You will work through a set of progressive drills that move towards constructing an easy basic freestyle stroke and be able to confidently swim your first 15-25m You’ll then be ready for Total Immersion Level 1.0 Effortless Endurance program.
Program 1: Sat 5, 12, 19 Jan 9.30 – 10.10 am: and Sat 2, 9, 16 Feb 10.45 – 11.25 am
6 x 40 min sessions
Program 2: Sat 5, 12, 19 Jan. 10.15 – 10.55 am and Sat 2, 9, 16 Feb 11.30 am – 12.10 pm
6 x 40 min sessions
Practice leads to Improvement!
Practice leads to improvement if the practice environment is conducive learning and embedding new muscle memory. The video clip below shows one of our Total Immersion Ultra Efficient Freestyle groups practicing their skills that were set for homework!
Over this 3 week TI Level 1.0 program, swimmers are given a progressive sequence of skills and drills, based on the TI Balance, Streamline, Propel model.
In the previous week to this video clip, we had gone through the focal points for recovery arm mechanics, and whole stroke timing. Participants were given clear practice goals for the week and came back to impress the Coach.
Practice Tips for you!
- Practice over short distance’s
- Keep effort level low
- Keep the pace slow
- Take breathing out of the equation, add it in later
- Do not practice struggle, stand up, refresh your focus, and start again
First Strokes Beginner Freestyle
First Strokes Swimming Program will transform how you feel in the water as a novice swimmer.
Program Dates:
Sat 3, 10, 17, 24 Feb; and Sat 3, 10, 17, 24 Mar
8 x 40 min sessions
Program 1: 10.40 – 11.20 am
This is a swimming program for the beginner swimmer, who needs to build a more confident relationship with the water, improve their basic swimming skills and movement pattern awareness.
The program will help you relax and enjoy being in the water. You will work through a set of progressive drills that move towards constructing an easy basic freestyle stroke and be able to confidently swim your first 10m – 25m! You’ll then be ready for Total Immersion Level 1.0 Effortless Endurance program.
Total Immersion™ Level 1.0 Freestyle Program – 1 place left!
Sunday 27 August, 2017, 10 am - 5 pm. Pool and classroom delivery
Improve your swimming technique and develop efficient sustainable freestyle with the Total Immersion™ Effortless Endurance Freestyle Program. This is a freestyle program for swimmers who want to correct their stroke for better efficiency and performance through balance, streamlining and propulsion. Effortless Endurance will leave you with greater skills, a higher swimming IQ and, most important, a specific plan to make ongoing improvements.
Swimming Control and Stability
Swimming with control, stability and balance, are key for an adult onset swimmer to capture as early as possible in a lesson sequence; they obviously serve as the foundation on which to build a solid and efficient stroke.
Without movement control and, understanding how to stabilise the body in a very unstable medium (water), a swimmer will continue to make extremely inefficient movement patterns.
Generally moving limbs through the water, yet not propelling the body forwards – which is our aim.
What a difference 40 minutes makes! Observe the video below.
The lower clip – the swimmer’s initial video. Typical upper body and lower body disconnected movements, typified by high head, low hips and legs, rapid windmilling arms – the obvious response to sinking legs!! Somewhat erratic leg movements that are merely counter balancing all of the instability.
After a single lesson and a week’s focussed practice. The swimmer is beginning to connect differently with the water. Movements are calmer, slower. Head position has improved, there by raising hips, there is a gentle and controlled torso rotation, allowing for a different arm recovery and entry depth.
The swimmer reports typical internal feedback cues at this early stage feeling that the swims are
- it feels easier
- it feels smoother
- it feels more powerful (easier to generate more power)
Great work on session 1 of 5!
Internal and external feedback cues for swimming progress
How do I know my swimming is improving?
Whilst coaching swimmers, I am often asked the question – how do I know I am improving when practicing?
As Total Immersion coaches, we encourage our swimmers to become aware of internal and external cues, for feedback. Initially, we encourage swimmers to tap into ‘internal’ cues for feedback, improving a swimmers ‘proprioception’. This is an awareness of the ability to sense feedback related to body position, movement, balance.
It soon becomes apparent to the swimmer, what the optimal movements are, that create balance, stability, streamlining and propulsion.
Hone your proprioceptive skills and ask yourself if a practice
- feels easier
- feels smoother
- feels more stable
- feels more powerful (easier to generate more power)
- I travel further will less effort
- I didn’t get out of breath
- I have no pain or feeling of restriction eg. in the neck, upper back and shoulder
As the swimmer progresses through the initial stages of imprinting new muscle memory, into a more autonomous phase with full stroke becoming well imprinted, fluid and consistent; a variety of external feedback cues are coached and added to the swimmers tool kit. External feedback cues involve measurement of a number of metrics.
- Distance swum without stopping increases
- Stroke length improves (counting strokes per length)
- Stroke length does not deteriorate over longer distances
- Stroke length does not deteriorate over small increase’s in tempo
- My time improves
- I can take less rest interval and maintain consistent spl and time for a given distance
Practice well, practice with purpose and pick up on your proprioception!
First Strokes Beginner Program
This is a swimming program for the beginner swimmer, who needs to build a more confident relationship with the water, improve their basic swimming skills and awareness in water. The program will help you relax and enjoy being in the water. You will work through a set of progressive drills that move you towards constructing an easy freestyle stroke and be able to confidently swim your first 10m – 25m!
First Strokes Swimming Program will transform how you feel in the water as a novice swimmer.
What a drag! Understanding one of the biggest hurdles in your swimming
Start of the session 1 video analysis shows typical drag force affecting the swimmers progress
Swimming analysis video 2 shows the swimmer with improved balance and reduced drag after only 30 minutes
Do you want to swim more efficiently, faster or further, but find your stroke too exhausting, unsustainable or deteriorates over time?
Probably the biggest issue for adult learner, improver and even advanced swimmers, in some cases, is the 'drag' effect, created by sinking hips and legs.
- Reduce your 'drag' and you will:
- improve your times
- improve your swimming efficiency/ decrease the amount of energy needed to complete a swim
- swim longer distance's without stopping
- be more likely to stay in your aerobic energy zone
- increase your stroke length (decrease my strokes per length)
2. What causes 'drag'?
The position of your centre of gravity when horizontal - is in your sternum!!!! Think about it! No wonder our back ends sink, with the weight distributed mostly in the torso and legs. But we add to this dilemma with
- Head position - too high
- Arm entry position - too high, flat and reaching
- Rigidity and tension throughout the body, inhibiting fluid relaxed movement patterns
- Lack of engagement through core stabiliser muscles causing a sagging torso, and hyper extended spine
- Kick mechanics that include too much flexion at the knee
- Less that optimal forwards propulsion, relative to the needs of our body mass and weight distribution. If we're not moving our bodies forwards, (only moving our arms through the water), there is lack of an upthrust force, that gives some lift to the legs. This is often over looked by many coaches.
Optimal propulsion is indicated by your stroke length. If a swimmer has a good stroke length ( optimal SPL ) and is converting a around 60-70% of their wingspan into forward propulsion - I bet you, their legs won't be sinking (assuming correct head and arm entry position). However, a swimmer who is converting under 50% of their wingspan, and exhibiting 'windmilling' arms (high SPL) is more likely to have the challenge of drag. Improve your efficiency and you will reduce your drag!!
Get coached this season and learn how to problem solve these fundamental swimming problems. Simple, effective skills and drills that improve your swimming