~Matts 'arcing' question

diablo said:

Quoted message said:

I actually have a relavant post that may get us onto something a bit more

productive though. What should I be looking for in my stroke that would continuosly >make me arc in
one direction or another, I.E. always into the lane line to my right? Feel free to reply in a
differnet thread.

you mean if you pushed off in the middle of the lane and swam with your eyes closed, you'd end up
swimming into the lane rope to your right? if so, i would probably say you have a strength
imbalance on your left side.

I've usually seen it in backstrokers who have done free for years breathing only on one
side...essentially they develop a power stroke when they breathe to the right/left...this longer
deeper pivoting stroke makes one side stronger than the other.

its obvious when you flip them over because backstroke they haven't developed the muscles involved
in the pull the same way, so the muscles on one side are more developed, add that to a weak kicker
(backstroke kick is less effective at stablising lateral deviation than free kick), and you get
them ending up against the lane line.

its not a serious problem (i had a girl get 5th at NCAA's in the 2bk and she does it) - to fix it,
breathe bilaterally on your freestyle, and ditch the power stroke..it'll feel horrible, but its
your decision. as a coach, i wouldn't try and fix it. when you try and swim fast, it won't manifest
itself as much.

again, i'm answering this blind - knowing my luck i probably missed completely - go on - tell me
you breathe bilaterally anyway 😄

hope that helped though.

steve

No I believe your right on. I've been working on my bilateral breathing, but it's just so
damn awkward and uncomfortable. Basically sucks. But it is as I suspected. I also am
obviously muscularly imbalanced as I'm very dominantly right handed adn am probably creating
significantly more force on that side, thus pulling me into the right lane. As you mentioned
its not a major deal, except when I get into open water swims of tri's. I'm the guy that
always adds a few hunfred yards to swim and end up carring on a few conversations with the
guy in the kayak.

~Matt

"Larry Weisenthal" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Rather than completely retooling what may well be a fundamentally good

stroke

Quoted message said:

(by bilateral breathing), an alternative approach is to focus attention on improving the weak
side. This doesn't necessarily mean training it to

make it

Quoted message said:

stronger, although this will obviously help...though it will take a very

long

Quoted message said:

time...was it Scott who talked about bilateral javelin throwing?

My own suggestion is not to go the bilateral breathing route. Instead, concentrate on optimizing
the position of the weak sided hand and forearm

and

Quoted message said:

concentrate on improving the body assist to the weak side. If you breathe

to

Quoted message said:

the strong side, which is most usual, you will probably be rolling more to

that

Quoted message said:

side. If not, do so, or exaggerate the assymetry of your roll. Many

elite

Quoted message said:

swimmers do precisely this. If you roll more to your strong side, you

will be

Quoted message said:

in a position to get more of your body into assisting your weak side (as

there

Quoted message said:

is a greater body roll in returning to the neutral position and therefore driving the weak side
hand and forearm backward).

This is something which you can do right away, without retooling your

stroke in

Quoted message said:

a radical fashion and without building up the strength and endurance on

your

Quoted message said:

weak side. You might just try it and see how it feels and see if it

helps.

I would definately suggest trying this, although i don't believe its any easier a correction to make
than bilateral breathing is. a swimmers own perception of something as subtle as the degree of body
roll is notoriously poor, and without direction by a coach who understands how to manage
over-corrective drills, you could cause more problems.

By advocating more body roll, you're essentially unbalancing the stroke. Unless you're very
experienced and have an excellent stroke to begin with, accentuating body roll in freestyle may
cause problems, including, but not limited to, excessive lateral deviation due to an altered weak
side limb track, and also the greater velocity with which you're rolling back to horizontal may
affect the position of the entry of that recovering hand.

However, a great suggestion, but you'll probably need someone who knows whats up to watch and be
your eyes. Also, i don't know how doing that would be any more of a reworking than bilateral
breathing, bilateral breathing is a technique you should be considering anyway, not just a
corrective measure. Might wanna do some drills with a paddle on your weak side hand too. By doing
this, you should see strength gains within 7-10 days.

But again, lets not get over-prepared to scale Mount Molehill here. You mentioned you're an open
water swimmer...looking up once in a while to see where you're at probably won't hurt that 3K time
too much 😉

steve

(Larry Weisenthal) said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I also am obviously muscularly imbalanced as I'm very

dominantly right handed adn am probably creating significantly more force on that side, thus
pulling me into the right lane.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

As you mentioned its not a major deal, except when I get into

open water swims of tri's. I'm the guy that always adds a few hunfred yards to swim and end up
carring on a few conversations with the guy in the kayak<<

Maglischo's 2nd book noted that every swimmer ever measured applies unequal force vectors, right vs
left. Maglischo stated that swimmers would be faster if they evened out their force vectors.

There are two ways to achieve this...increase the power and/or efficiency on the weak side or
[censored] it on the strong side.

I think that bilateral breathing is basically a cop out in this respect, if what it does is to
[censored] the strong side force vectors.

Rather than completely retooling what may well be a fundamentally good stroke (by bilateral
breathing), an alternative approach is to focus attention on improving the weak side. This doesn't
necessarily mean training it to make it stronger, although this will obviously help...though it
will take a very long time...was it Scott who talked about bilateral javelin throwing?

My own suggestion is not to go the bilateral breathing route. Instead, concentrate on optimizing
the position of the weak sided hand and forearm and concentrate on improving the body assist to the
weak side. If you breathe to the strong side, which is most usual, you will probably be rolling
more to that side. If not, do so, or exaggerate the assymetry of your roll. Many elite swimmers do
precisely this. If you roll more to your strong side, you will be in a position to get more of your
body into assisting your weak side (as there is a greater body roll in returning to the neutral
position and therefore driving the weak side hand and forearm backward).

Well, Going by what I've been told by others.

1) I roll alot, significantly more than most other swimmers. So much so I've been told by a coupel
masters coaches to "not roll so much"
2) I breath right ad my right is dominate.
3) I believe I roll to teh right more than I roll to left already.

A few issues that I think are contributing to my uneven force vectors, AKA lousy stroke.

4)When I breath I have a tendancy to drop the arm on the leading hand, left hand/weak side
pushing down rather than back. I do this because I'm pushing down to try and get a decent
breath. I know I do this and have been working for some time to get around it, but have been
unsuccessfull to date. I'm a sinker and without some form of upward propulsion I will not get a
breath. Even with the semi up propulsion from the forward arm I barely break teh waters surface
when I go to breath.
5) I think I may actually, not sure how, have an uneven cadence, spending more time on the
strong side stroke than on the weak side stroke. Could be I'm not doing a long or full of
a stroke on the weak side.

Quoted message said:

This is something which you can do right away, without retooling your stroke in a radical fashion
and without building up the strength and endurance on your weak side. You might just try it and see
how it feels and see if it helps.

I will see what happens....

~Matt

Quoted message said:

- Larry .

diablo said:

"Larry Weisenthal" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Rather than completely retooling what may well be a fundamentally good

stroke

Quoted message said:

(by bilateral breathing), an alternative approach is to focus attention on improving the weak
side. This doesn't necessarily mean training it to

make it

Quoted message said:

stronger, although this will obviously help...though it will take a very

long

Quoted message said:

time...was it Scott who talked about bilateral javelin throwing?

My own suggestion is not to go the bilateral breathing route. Instead, concentrate on optimizing
the position of the weak sided hand and forearm

and

Quoted message said:

concentrate on improving the body assist to the weak side. If you breathe

to

Quoted message said:

the strong side, which is most usual, you will probably be rolling more to

that

Quoted message said:

side. If not, do so, or exaggerate the assymetry of your roll. Many

elite

Quoted message said:

swimmers do precisely this. If you roll more to your strong side, you

will be

Quoted message said:

in a position to get more of your body into assisting your weak side (as

there

Quoted message said:

is a greater body roll in returning to the neutral position and therefore driving the weak side
hand and forearm backward).

This is something which you can do right away, without retooling your

stroke in

Quoted message said:

a radical fashion and without building up the strength and endurance on

your

Quoted message said:

weak side. You might just try it and see how it feels and see if it

helps.

I would definately suggest trying this, although i don't believe its any easier a correction to
make than bilateral breathing is. a swimmers own perception of something as subtle as the degree of
body roll is notoriously poor, and without direction by a coach who understands how to manage
over-corrective drills, you could cause more problems.

Funny thing that perception thing. Last year they video taped us in Masters class. The coach
kept telling me to reach further to left or shoulder width etc. He kept saying I was
reaching over my head and enter the water in front of my head instead of out aways. Try as I
might I never fixed it as it "felt" like I was doing as he was telling
me. After he showed me the video tape adn I actually saw my ridiculous stroke I had a much better
Idea of what to work on.

Quoted message said:

By advocating more body roll, you're essentially unbalancing the stroke. Unless you're very
experienced and have an excellent stroke to begin with, accentuating body roll in freestyle may
cause problems, including, but not limited to, excessive lateral deviation due to an altered weak
side limb track, and also the greater velocity with which you're rolling back to horizontal may
affect the position of the entry of that recovering hand.

Is this a fancy way of saying "fish tailing". If so yes I've experianced that. Trying to
emphasize rolling to the weak side does cause soem "fish tailing" unless I'm extremely
concienc of rolling aroudn the axis.

Quoted message said:

However, a great suggestion, but you'll probably need someone who knows whats up to watch and be
your eyes. Also, i don't know how doing that would be any more of a reworking than bilateral
breathing, bilateral breathing is a technique you should be considering anyway, not just a
corrective measure. Might wanna do some drills with a paddle on your weak side hand too. By doing
this, you should see strength gains within 7-10 days.

But again, lets not get over-prepared to scale Mount Molehill here. You mentioned you're an open
water swimmer...looking up once in a while to see where you're at probably won't hurt that 3K time
too much 😉

Well if it were once in a while I would not be so concerned. To give you an idea of the
magnitude of my problem. On almost every lap I start on the left lane rope and end up
bumping the right lane rope, yes with eyes open. About the only way I can stay in the center
is to consciously make direction changes while going down lane. If left to my own devices in
the open water I'd probbaly hit a 50 yd circle fairly accurately. This number would get
smaller as I fatigued until I could swim circles in a fairly large hot tub. My last race was
in Lake Michingan. The final leg of the race was against the current and the swells were
coming in perpindicular to our bodies. That in combination with my stroke problems and being
tired created a situation that had me nearly 90 degrees off course after 6 strokes. I ended
up swimming the last 1/4 mile or so sighting nearly every other stroke.

~Matt

Quoted message said:

steve

<MJuric> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 19:56:37 GMT, "diablo" <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Funny thing that perception thing. Last year they video taped us in Masters class. The coach kept
telling me to reach further to left or shoulder width etc. He kept saying I was reaching over my
head and enter the water in front of my head instead of out aways. Try as I might I never fixed it
as it "felt" like I was doing as he was telling
me. After he showed me the video tape adn I actually saw my ridiculous stroke I had a much better
Idea of what to work on.

you need to get the feel for the over-correction. you should feel the entry to be WAY TOO WIDE, like
as though its a whole foot wide of your shoulder line...then, it'll be on your shoulder. It needs to
feel MUCH more exagerrated for it to be where the coach wants it. As my mentor said, if you want "1,
ask for 10".

Quoted message said:

Is this a fancy way of saying "fish tailing". If so yes I've experianced that. Trying to emphasize
rolling to the weak side does cause soem "fish tailing" unless I'm extremely concienc of rolling
aroudn the axis.

sorry, yes, lateral deviation is fish-tailing. see the above statement on the over-correction, and
that should fix it. also, when you're drilling (see below) wear fins/zoomers. the strengthened leg
kick should help you prevent this also.

Quoted message said:

Well if it were once in a while I would not be so concerned. To give you an idea of the magnitude
of my problem. On almost every lap I start on the left lane rope and end up bumping the right lane
rope, yes with eyes open. About the only way I can stay in the center is to consciously make
direction changes while going down lane. If left to my own devices in the open water I'd probbaly
hit a 50 yd circle fairly accurately. This number would get smaller as I fatigued until I could
swim circles in a fairly large hot tub.

i take it the lane is a standard 7-8ft lane? if so, in a 25 (?) this is a serious problem you need
to remedy. The above correction drill, done with fins for a 25 for a set of about 500 yards should
help you get the feel for this. its all in the feel. you'll need to have someone watch and make sure
that hand entry is on your shoulderline or even just outside while you're adapting - all you have to
do is get used to it. the entry you described (just infront of the head) would definately be a cause
of this if you're a one sided breather (power stroker). If you still find you're moving, and you
shouldn't be, you can try it with a small stroke paddle on the weak side to highlight a strength
deficiency.

steve

diablo said:

<MJuric> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 19:56:37 GMT, "diablo" <[email hidden]> wrote:

Quoted message said:

Funny thing that perception thing. Last year they video taped us in Masters class. The coach kept
telling me to reach further to left or shoulder width etc. He kept saying I was reaching over my
head and enter the water in front of my head instead of out aways. Try as I might I never fixed
it as it "felt" like I was doing as he was telling
me. After he showed me the video tape adn I actually saw my ridiculous stroke I had a much better
Idea of what to work on.

you need to get the feel for the over-correction. you should feel the entry to be WAY TOO WIDE,
like as though its a whole foot wide of your shoulder line...then, it'll be on your shoulder. It
needs to feel MUCH more exagerrated for it to be where the coach wants it. As my mentor said, if
you want "1, ask for 10".

This is VERY difficult, as you have already mentioned, without the watchfull eye of a coach.
I've been toying with the idea of searching a coach out. I guess I should just bite the
bullet and get one.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Is this a fancy way of saying "fish tailing". If so yes I've experianced that. Trying to
emphasize rolling to the weak side does cause soem "fish tailing" unless I'm extremely concienc
of rolling aroudn the axis.

Holy [censored] did I write this? Free agent is great but I'm afraid I'm gonna have to get
something with a spell checker...

Quoted message said:

sorry, yes, lateral deviation is fish-tailing. see the above statement on the over-correction, and
that should fix it. also, when you're drilling (see below) wear fins/zoomers. the strengthened leg
kick should help you prevent this also.

Am I missing something? Here you say see below and below you say see above.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Well if it were once in a while I would not be so concerned. To give you an idea of the magnitude
of my problem. On almost every lap I start on the left lane rope and end up bumping the right
lane rope, yes with eyes open. About the only way I can stay in the center is to consciously make
direction changes while going down lane. If left to my own devices in the open water I'd probbaly
hit a 50 yd circle fairly accurately. This number would get smaller as I fatigued until I could
swim circles in a fairly large hot tub.

i take it the lane is a standard 7-8ft lane? if so, in a 25 (?) this is a serious problem you need
to remedy.

Yes and yes. Another issue is it seems to be getting worse the stronger of a swimmer I become. I
would assume that is because I'm training one side more than the other so the disparity is
getting larger.

Quoted message said:

The above correction drill,

See what I mean? I don't see a correction drill. One would be appreciated though.

Quoted message said:

done with fins for a 25 for a set of about 500 yards should help you get the feel for this. its all
in the feel. you'll need to have someone watch and make sure that hand entry is on your
shoulderline or even just outside while you're adapting - all you have to do is get used to it. the
entry you described (just infront of the head) would definately be a cause of this if you're a one
sided breather (power stroker). If you still find you're moving, and you shouldn't be, you can try
it with a small stroke paddle on the weak side to highlight a strength deficiency.

This would be an interesting experiment none the less. Having a paddle on my weak side,
assuming this made me go straigt woudl indicate that it is an anchor or power problem and
not some "spinal alignment" problem.

~Matt

Quoted message said:

steve

On 29 Oct 2003 19:26:55 GMT, [email hidden] (Larry Weisenthal) wrote:

<Snip>

Quoted message said:

My own suggestion is not to go the bilateral breathing route. Instead, concentrate on optimizing
the position of the weak sided hand and forearm and concentrate on improving the body assist to the
weak side. If you breathe to the strong side, which is most usual, you will probably be rolling
more to that side. If not, do so, or exaggerate the assymetry of your roll. Many elite swimmers do
precisely this. If you roll more to your strong side, you will be in a position to get more of your
body into assisting your weak side (as there is a greater body roll in returning to the neutral
position and therefore driving the weak side hand and forearm backward).

I actually messed with this in the pool tonight. When on a non breathing cycle I can tell my
roll angle is similar, via visually locating my arms while looking down. Unfortunely I don't
have that capabilty when in a breathing cycle. So what I did was try and over exagerate the
roll while breathing. It seemed to have a bit of an effect as I no longer started my pull as
early and it seemed to cause a much more forcefull rolling and stroking to that side than
usual. However I have no idea how far I was rolling before and after and the "feel" I was
getting could have been just because it was a "new sensation" I will have to do further
experimentation to see if it actually straightens me out.

~Matt

Quoted message said:

This is something which you can do right away, without retooling your stroke in a radical fashion
and without building up the strength and endurance on your weak side. You might just try it and see
how it feels and see if it helps.

- Larry .

(Larry Weisenthal) said:

The other part of it...besides the exaggerated roll...is to make certain that your hand (most
important) and forearm (slightly less important...meaning 1st get the hand perfect and then, only
secondarily, make the forearm perfect) are in perfect position. What you do is to just ignore your
strong side...let it take care of itself...and think only of your weak side (most people are doing
well to concentrate on only one thing at a time).; You want that weak side hand (and, secondarily,
forearm) perfectly positioned to be (mostly passively) pushed backward by your body as it returns
from its exaggerated breathing side roll back to the neutral position (where your head has returned
to looking down at the bottom of the pool). What you are trying to do is to optimally harness the
power of your body as it returns to the neutral position to drive your weak side hand and forearm
backwards, with the hand and forearm having the strongest possible purchase on the water.

Yes this will take some effort on my part. Could be that lack of concentration, paying more
attention to breathing, head postition while breathing etc, is partially responsible for thr
imbalance in the first place. While stroking with the non breathing arm I concentrate on
pulling with that arm mostly or something related to tp pulling. While breathing I have a
tendancy of concentrating on breathing, not that thats important or anything. As you stated
very difficult to be aware of breathing, head position, and something else.

~Matt