I was back in the pool bright and early this morning for my swim technique class. I really love going to the class because I feel I learn something every time. (I'm not only referring to the two classes with this group, but the other classes of Jen's I've been to.)
Today was all about getting more on our side with each stroke. Oh, and of course practicing the flipturn. haha. I'm afraid there is no way I can avoid learning it now!!
We did a few hundred meters of warmup, then did 200 m of one arm kick (staying on one side with arm extended and kicking). Next was 200 m of one arm swimming. Yup, that's right, only using one arm for the stroke. I love this drill, it's a lot of fun and not as hard as it sounds. Honest!! haha.
After that it was 600 m of front stroke to put to practice staying on our sides, gliding, etc. Oh, and the flipturn. I was definitley on my side a lot more. Jen pointed out that I was turning my head a bit to much when I was taking a breath. I've been trying to work on that as I know I do it. Likely has something to do with trying to get air rather than water in my lungs. LOL. You know, that old survival instinct...
I have to, grudgingly, admit it...I'm kind of figuring out the flipturn. FINE! I will agree with Jen...it does make swimming a bit more efficient. I say 'bit' because I'm still doing it wrong most of the times so end up surfacing and gasping for air, then having to try and get swimming. When it works though....it really works!
To finish off our swimming we first did 100 m of backstroke, which I discovered I'm pretty good at! Oh, except that I splash a lot. Not a great thing when you have your mouth open so you can breath. Cough, gasp, sputter!
Lastly, and most disappointingly, we did 100 m of breaststroke! AAAAGHHH! I was going nowhere with it. Jen was killing herself laughing at us...because apparantly we were all doing the same thing. Well, all except Daniella. She is a born swimmer!! I'm not sure of her background, but she makes it all look super easy - and fast, haha. But back to the rest of us mortals....apparantly we were all reaching ahead and pushing the water under us towards the back (as we should). However, then we were all pushing our arms forward to get them ahead again. This, unfortunately, was driving us all BACKWARDS. haha. So there were six of us doing this funny 'move forward a lot', 'move backward a bit' type of swimming. No wonder it took me FOREVER to get a lap done!
Just another reason people shouldn't do the breaststroke....it just doesn't work! LOL.
I've watched people doing breast stroke and I just don't get it. Somehow they make it work for them, but all I do is warm up the water.
ReplyDeleteThere's lots of people that do tumble turns while I'm doing my laps, and my non-tumble turn is faster. Plus I need that breath.