I love your videos and the way you explain how to correct particular ways of swimming, but most of all, by far I looooove that you are not asking or insisting that we subscribe or give a thumbs up up to any of your videos. For me it’s a breath of fresh air and by that it shows the confidence you have in yourself for what you teach. Bravo my friend I really respect you and your work. Great job! Keep up the great work. I really improved my swimming, because of you. All the way from the other side, Canada 😀
'Positive Mental Attitude' helps everyone of us in an effortless swimming &/living, wherever, in and out of the Water (the Aussie pronunciation : ) I mimic it [Wa:tar] everyday.
I'm a 58 year old bloke and have only been swimming laps for about 9 months. I do 1500m sessions because for me that's a real effort. But after watching only 3 or 4 of your vids on correcting the basics of a good style....I took 3 mins 40 off my PB (to 31.10) the very next session....and I also did it quite easily. For a 58 YO noob like me, it's made me really enthusiastic & I'm walkin around with a real head wobble. Lol. It's one thing to watch somone and sort of understand it, but it's another thing entirely to listen to someone & then actually take what they say & do it in the pool. I find that you have that knack. Now I'm a regular watcher & can't wait to fine tune my thrashing about even more. I might even change up my $4.28 TEMU goggles for some good ones. So thanks for the advice young fella. I really appreciate your vids.
This is fabulous thank you. I’ve been following your channel this year. Was a competitive swimmer as a kid and now I’m 75, still love to swim. Had difficult back surgery 6 years ago for paralysis, doing very well now and back in the pool with focus on technique as always. I’ve used your coaching (I”m in California) & my stroke count is down from 21 to 18, with fins 16 for 25 yards. I’m still around 1:45-1:50 for 100 but I’m not trying to go faster. As I get stronger again and more precise, I know I can get it down. Just for fun. Thank you SO SO MUCH for these fabulous videos. You have no idea how much they mean to me and to many of us. ❤
Another good video. 62 year old learning to swim since June. I am using stroke count to measure my technique. Less strokes per length = better technique. Doing about 18 strokes per 25m length and slowly improving.
When you said, "If you're between 1.30 and 1.45, you should work on it." I immediately thought it would be very helpful to learn more about these rules about when to learn what.
I see quite a few regular lap swimmers moving slowly. They swim. They can breathe. Some even swim hard. But they move slowly. You hit the problems right on. They tend to drop the arm. They don’t rotate even when the pull reaches to the hip (quite a few don’t even complete the pull). I had the same problems. Now I have them minimized. I am working on being consistent and commit to do right subconsciously.
Many thanks for the vedio...... I can say my observation from concept of mechanics... Rotation in the water by hips need to transfer this energy to let body move forward.... It is like a blade of fan if it is not with proper profile it will not push fluid of water forward....... Now same thing happen... The arm under water when reach to shoulder or little higher need to anchor... Need be fixed as a support.. And front arm push forward... Then rotation of hips try to push arm back... But because resistance of water is higher (= arm anchored)... So this moment comes from hipps with pushing force from front arm will push body forward... See front view of coach Shinjh Tackeuch Ti master coach.... See how body roll very smoothly and Transfer rotational moment by hips to force push body forward.... Another simple example clarify this issue.. Put body on horizontal chair same as extend right arm to front and left arm at shoulder put any obstruction try to roll your body... You find obstruction with left arm and extend right arm push your body forward... This exactly what happen in the water... Max effective hip rotation will occur when we transfer max rotation power from hips to move forward... All the Best Mecheil Edwar...
I like your new background, but I benefit more when the footage of the Swimmer is full screen rather than minimized above your shoulder. Full screen helps us view the model stroke better on our phones. Thanks!
A question.. Love these vids - but I've always struggled with the concept of how your driving arm 'slips' or 'grips' the water. In terms of simple physics and Newtonian action & reaction - the level of thrust generated depends solely on your arm/paddle area and the speed at which you move it surely ? (ie you can't vary the amount of slip and grip)
Yeah, I've heard the descriptions in this video before, and it's never made any sense to me, either. It's certainly necessary that the arm has to pull back - as you say, it's simple physics (it's the entire purpose of the arms in free). I'm suspicious that coaches are actually misled on this. Better/faster swimmers of course tend to hold a more streamline position, so I think that's the real reason why faster swimmers tend to pull the water less with each stroke (assuming they're at the same speed): with better aerodynamics, swimmers need less force to overcome the drag. It also still makes sense that this works at faster speeds: A person whose hand exits the water 15cm behind where they started pulling when at a slow speed, could potentially still hold this same principal at a higher speed because their arms must exit the water faster, so the pull happens faster, meaning greater force. (Just to hammer the point home, you physically need to increase your stroke count as the speed increases - if your body's moving at 2m/s, then your arm (as soon as it starts pulling/leaving the aerodynamic position) has to move back faster than 2m/s compared to your body, otherwise it's pushing the water forwards instead of backwards). If I am right on this, then I think I could also explain the conflation with this rotating, "putting your body's weight onto the pull" - I suspect that what really goes on here when people get this action right is that they balance their body correctly with the pull of the stroke, which requires this leaning. So, if we imagine we're viewing a person from the side swimming to the left, each time they pull the water, the water pushes back - this creates a clockwise torque on the body, pushing down the legs! So I think when people say "lean into the stroke" they probably actually mean tip your body forwards (anti-clockwise, in our mental visual of the swimmer) at the same time, balancing out the torque during the pull. I think what people notice here is that they're more aerodynamic when they do this, leading to less displacement of water for each stroke at comparable speeds. Except I think people don't always know exactly how they got faster, and have misinterpreted it, leading to the wrong advice. Also, you'd use your shoulder and back muscles differently doing it this way, so possibly you're body's just better at pushing from that position, too - It's possible that this is the dominant reason, not the torque.
As a beginner swimmer, I was always confused whenever i heard the term “slippage” in videos. You explained it so well here. “Arm is moving, but the body is not traveling very much.” I get it now! I’m excited to try and feel this in my next swim sessions. By the end of the video, you mentioned that if we’re at 2:00-2:20/100m, this may not be the best think to be working on. I’m actually at that pace as of now. Do you have advise on what could be a better focus point at my level? Thank you!
Great video as always Brenton wondering if you have one for swimmers who are at around the sub 110 mark and want to get down to under a minute I know it’s a big ask the best I’ve done is 1.04 but I’m getting old now (59)and time is running out 😂
Great content on this channel but not sure the physics of this makes sense. I think it's more likely that better overall technique is leading to faster body movement through the water which creates "the appearance that the arm is more anchored", and it sort-of is, because it's moving backwards less due to the overall forward movement per-stroke being greater.
I think one thing I see most commonly in the pool is that people are not using body rotation properly. This is far worse with back stroke than freestyle. Rotation does two things. One, it gets the top side shoulder out of the water for less drag. Two, it allows you to use a longer lever from your spine to your finger tips. This is what happens if you use just your shoulder to throw a ball, or rotate from your body/spine to throw and the ball goes a lot farther. I am a big fan of the catch up drill. As near as I can tell, it is all about linking the body rotation and kicking together. Side note, the over arm side stroke I swim uses the 'dog paddle' drill for the under side arm, and the top side arm is doing freestyle. Another note, I have found that a slightly concave palm will pull more water than a flat palm. There are reasons for the paddle board paddles and racing skulls paddles being concave.
🏊Great Content and Tips as always. Thank you! It helps me a lot as an absolute beginner in swimming. What Software do you use for your analysis and paintings?
Thanks, Brenton. This is timely advice for me. I was having this problem of slipping through the water and really felt frustrated despite having a decent catch. While I agree with everything, I may add another thing to the mix: lats engagement. As someone who never learned to swim as a kid, this awareness made a difference. After the catch, I think of it as if squeezing an orange stuck between my triceps and lats (not armpit). It did make a difference. I'm keen to hear your thoughts. Thank you!
What has had some positive effect for me is to push my shoulder forward, that is to "reach" with the shoulder as much as with the arm. If I do it right before engaging the catch, when the arm is already straight, then I get a nice stretch in the lats (like a pretensioned spring) and I get better connection during the pull, i.e. it's easier to not drop the elbow. For me it's important to only push the shoulder forward just before the start of the catch, otherwise that tension uses too much energy. Can you visualize what I'm describing?
@@allydea I’ve got very protracted shoulders and I find what you’re describing kinda work for me too. I tend to have a higher stroke rate with shorter strokes. For me these long gliding pool strokes is futile to strive for .
Brenton, I appreciate the video but I think it is unclear what actually changes when someone tries to "move past their arm". Is it that they maintain a higher extent of muscular tension in their shoulder? Do they avoid pulling too hard from the lat too early in the stroke? Can you elaborate please?
I am Slow in Swimming - avg. 2:20/100m when swimming 1-2 km total. I would like to improve my time to under 2 min per 100m when swimming 2000m in a row. How often per week would You recommend to go swimming in Order to See an improvement? And After how many weeks an improvement is visible?
I’m in the target demographic for this video. Good swimmer, years of experience, can’t get faster. But this video is confusing. First, it never actually shows what a hand slipping through the water is or looks like. So we can’t see if the proposed solutions address the specific problem. Then the video shifts into the battle of paradigms: does the arm pass by the body, or does the body pass by the arm. Which is doing the work: the arm or the torso? And it ends with basically the solution of a hip-driven stroke. But the drills don’t match that and the use of fins really clouds where the propulsion is actually coming from. And it has nothing to do with your hand slipping. Please do more videos for “good” swimmers. So much out there for newbies. We’re trying to improve, too.
You can totaly feel the slip on the one hand freestyle drill without the fins, you barely move forward. When you can develope motion and hold on that drill and leave the fins off then you have progress. Theres gonna be also big differences by L/R sides.
I can feel my body accelerating when I perform a good pull. Not sure if that's really positive, maybe I'm relying too much on my shoulders' strength. 🤔
Visualize how the shoulder muscles work. For example, when training on fitness equipment in the gym, there are three main movements to train the shoulders. Front raises, side raises and butterfly reverses. None of these movements take place in the water when swimming in front crawl. Well, maybe the back shoulder works a little, but not completely, because the angle to the torso is too small for that. Mainly the latismus muscle works and initially even the pectoral muscles. So the idea that you rely too much on the shoulder muscles can't be true, because the direction of work of the shoulder muscles doesn't match.
Beautifully explained 👍🏼 Now off to the pool for 2k of slippin’ 😂 I find this to be INCREDIBLY hard to execute with my poor mobility. Still, grinding on.. I’ll get something working in the end 😊
@@TheSlowMethod I think it's your cruise speed, i.e. the speed you could maintain "indefinitely" without feeling a buildup of fatigue. E.g. last week I did something unusual for me, where I swam with no target distance in mind. Ended up with 3.4k before the time was up and I needed to get out. My pace was 1:44, which is pretty slow compared to what I can do over 100m or 400m. But @120bpm I never felt like I would need to stop soon. My technique was obviously not the best I can do and I'm sure I was taking shortcuts, but if I needed to place myself in one of Brett's tables, I would label myself as a 1:44 - 1:42 swimmer.
I love your videos and the way you explain how to correct particular ways of swimming, but most of all, by far I looooove that you are not asking or insisting that we subscribe or give a thumbs up up to any of your videos. For me it’s a breath of fresh air and by that it shows the confidence you have in yourself for what you teach. Bravo my friend I really respect you and your work. Great job! Keep up the great work. I really improved my swimming, because of you. All the way from the other side, Canada 😀
'Positive Mental Attitude' helps everyone of us in an effortless swimming &/living, wherever, in and out of the Water (the Aussie pronunciation : ) I mimic it [Wa:tar] everyday.
I'm a 58 year old bloke and have only been swimming laps for about 9 months. I do 1500m sessions because for me that's a real effort. But after watching only 3 or 4 of your vids on correcting the basics of a good style....I took 3 mins 40 off my PB (to 31.10) the very next session....and I also did it quite easily. For a 58 YO noob like me, it's made me really enthusiastic & I'm walkin around with a real head wobble. Lol.
It's one thing to watch somone and sort of understand it, but it's another thing entirely to listen to someone & then actually take what they say & do it in the pool. I find that you have that knack. Now I'm a regular watcher & can't wait to fine tune my thrashing about even more. I might even change up my $4.28 TEMU goggles for some good ones. So thanks for the advice young fella. I really appreciate your vids.
Thank you!
Always the best swimming advice on RUclips.
This is fabulous thank you. I’ve been following your channel this year. Was a competitive swimmer as a kid and now I’m 75, still love to swim. Had difficult back surgery 6 years ago for paralysis, doing very well now and back in the pool with focus on technique as always. I’ve used your coaching (I”m in California) & my stroke count is down from 21 to 18, with fins 16 for 25 yards. I’m still around 1:45-1:50 for 100 but I’m not trying to go faster. As I get stronger again and more precise, I know I can get it down. Just for fun. Thank you SO SO MUCH for these fabulous videos. You have no idea how much they mean to me and to many of us. ❤
Another good video. 62 year old learning to swim since June. I am using stroke count to measure my technique. Less strokes per length = better technique. Doing about 18 strokes per 25m length and slowly improving.
Just too good! Fabulous explanation to really make a difference to our speed and understanding of the stroke. A huge thanks. Best regards
When you said, "If you're between 1.30 and 1.45, you should work on it." I immediately thought it would be very helpful to learn more about these rules about when to learn what.
yes!
💯
Exactly my thought - so if i’m around 2:00 mark what should i focus on?
@@marcinkoprowski916 Exactly my question as well.
Same here! 😊
I see quite a few regular lap swimmers moving slowly. They swim. They can breathe. Some even swim hard. But they move slowly. You hit the problems right on. They tend to drop the arm. They don’t rotate even when the pull reaches to the hip (quite a few don’t even complete the pull). I had the same problems. Now I have them minimized. I am working on being consistent and commit to do right subconsciously.
Nice! I like the way she rotates her hips along with the same arm that is stretching in front. It does feel connected.
Thanks a lot for all your efforts in explaining.Best regards from Syria.
I really like your explanation at the end of the video where you say whether or not this pointer will apply to a given swimmer.
Ill be doing this drill tomorrow morning. Awesome, thanks Brenton.
The most insightful video from you yet! Incredible. Thank you.
Many thanks for the vedio......
I can say my observation from concept of mechanics...
Rotation in the water by hips need to transfer this energy to let body move forward....
It is like a blade of fan if it is not with proper profile it will not push fluid of water forward.......
Now same thing happen... The arm under water when reach to shoulder or little higher need to anchor... Need be fixed as a support.. And front arm push forward... Then rotation of hips try to push arm back... But because resistance of water is higher (= arm anchored)... So this moment comes from hipps with pushing force from front arm will push body forward...
See front view of coach Shinjh Tackeuch Ti master coach.... See how body roll very smoothly and Transfer rotational moment by hips to force push body forward....
Another simple example clarify this issue..
Put body on horizontal chair same as extend right arm to front and left arm at shoulder put any obstruction try to roll your body... You find obstruction with left arm and extend right arm push your body forward...
This exactly what happen in the water...
Max effective hip rotation will occur when we transfer max rotation power from hips to move forward...
All the Best
Mecheil Edwar...
Wonderful explanation of a complex idea! Thank you so much 🤙🏽
Perfect explanation ❤
Thanks - great pictures to visualise on
Makes Sense. Same approach as among elite canoeists (Canadian boat).
Great time, mate, thank you!!🫶🏼
so useful!!!!!!!!! thanks
I like your new background, but I benefit more when the footage of the Swimmer is full screen rather than minimized above your shoulder. Full screen helps us view the model stroke better on our phones. Thanks!
A question.. Love these vids - but I've always struggled with the concept of how your driving arm 'slips' or 'grips' the water. In terms of simple physics and Newtonian action & reaction - the level of thrust generated depends solely on your arm/paddle area and the speed at which you move it surely ? (ie you can't vary the amount of slip and grip)
Yeah, I've heard the descriptions in this video before, and it's never made any sense to me, either.
It's certainly necessary that the arm has to pull back - as you say, it's simple physics (it's the entire purpose of the arms in free). I'm suspicious that coaches are actually misled on this. Better/faster swimmers of course tend to hold a more streamline position, so I think that's the real reason why faster swimmers tend to pull the water less with each stroke (assuming they're at the same speed): with better aerodynamics, swimmers need less force to overcome the drag. It also still makes sense that this works at faster speeds: A person whose hand exits the water 15cm behind where they started pulling when at a slow speed, could potentially still hold this same principal at a higher speed because their arms must exit the water faster, so the pull happens faster, meaning greater force. (Just to hammer the point home, you physically need to increase your stroke count as the speed increases - if your body's moving at 2m/s, then your arm (as soon as it starts pulling/leaving the aerodynamic position) has to move back faster than 2m/s compared to your body, otherwise it's pushing the water forwards instead of backwards).
If I am right on this, then I think I could also explain the conflation with this rotating, "putting your body's weight onto the pull" - I suspect that what really goes on here when people get this action right is that they balance their body correctly with the pull of the stroke, which requires this leaning. So, if we imagine we're viewing a person from the side swimming to the left, each time they pull the water, the water pushes back - this creates a clockwise torque on the body, pushing down the legs! So I think when people say "lean into the stroke" they probably actually mean tip your body forwards (anti-clockwise, in our mental visual of the swimmer) at the same time, balancing out the torque during the pull. I think what people notice here is that they're more aerodynamic when they do this, leading to less displacement of water for each stroke at comparable speeds. Except I think people don't always know exactly how they got faster, and have misinterpreted it, leading to the wrong advice. Also, you'd use your shoulder and back muscles differently doing it this way, so possibly you're body's just better at pushing from that position, too - It's possible that this is the dominant reason, not the torque.
Thanks!
Thank you!
Brilliant !!!
As a beginner swimmer, I was always confused whenever i heard the term “slippage” in videos. You explained it so well here. “Arm is moving, but the body is not traveling very much.” I get it now! I’m excited to try and feel this in my next swim sessions.
By the end of the video, you mentioned that if we’re at 2:00-2:20/100m, this may not be the best think to be working on. I’m actually at that pace as of now. Do you have advise on what could be a better focus point at my level? Thank you!
Great video as always Brenton wondering if you have one for swimmers who are at around the sub 110 mark and want to get down to under a minute I know it’s a big ask the best I’ve done is 1.04 but I’m getting old now (59)and time is running out 😂
Might be worth looking at strength, developing your kick and incorporating resistance training in the water
Cam McEvoy has some good stuff on this
Great content on this channel but not sure the physics of this makes sense. I think it's more likely that better overall technique is leading to faster body movement through the water which creates "the appearance that the arm is more anchored", and it sort-of is, because it's moving backwards less due to the overall forward movement per-stroke being greater.
Very good. So glad I discovered your channel. Times are already improving. Do you have a breastroke 101. I'm let down by this. Chee6👍
I think one thing I see most commonly in the pool is that people are not using body rotation properly. This is far worse with back stroke than freestyle. Rotation does two things. One, it gets the top side shoulder out of the water for less drag. Two, it allows you to use a longer lever from your spine to your finger tips. This is what happens if you use just your shoulder to throw a ball, or rotate from your body/spine to throw and the ball goes a lot farther. I am a big fan of the catch up drill. As near as I can tell, it is all about linking the body rotation and kicking together. Side note, the over arm side stroke I swim uses the 'dog paddle' drill for the under side arm, and the top side arm is doing freestyle. Another note, I have found that a slightly concave palm will pull more water than a flat palm. There are reasons for the paddle board paddles and racing skulls paddles being concave.
🏊Great Content and Tips as always. Thank you! It helps me a lot as an absolute beginner in swimming.
What Software do you use for your analysis and paintings?
Skillest
Great video, I'm at 1min 50sec per 100mr, is it still a good drill for me ? I've plateaued and like to improve....help
Thanks, Brenton. This is timely advice for me. I was having this problem of slipping through the water and really felt frustrated despite having a decent catch. While I agree with everything, I may add another thing to the mix: lats engagement. As someone who never learned to swim as a kid, this awareness made a difference. After the catch, I think of it as if squeezing an orange stuck between my triceps and lats (not armpit). It did make a difference. I'm keen to hear your thoughts. Thank you!
What has had some positive effect for me is to push my shoulder forward, that is to "reach" with the shoulder as much as with the arm. If I do it right before engaging the catch, when the arm is already straight, then I get a nice stretch in the lats (like a pretensioned spring) and I get better connection during the pull, i.e. it's easier to not drop the elbow.
For me it's important to only push the shoulder forward just before the start of the catch, otherwise that tension uses too much energy.
Can you visualize what I'm describing?
@@allydea I’ve got very protracted shoulders and I find what you’re describing kinda work for me too. I tend to have a higher stroke rate with shorter strokes. For me these long gliding pool strokes is futile to strive for .
Brenton, I appreciate the video but I think it is unclear what actually changes when someone tries to "move past their arm". Is it that they maintain a higher extent of muscular tension in their shoulder? Do they avoid pulling too hard from the lat too early in the stroke? Can you elaborate please?
I am Slow in Swimming - avg. 2:20/100m when swimming 1-2 km total. I would like to improve my time to under 2 min per 100m when swimming 2000m in a row. How often per week would You recommend to go swimming in Order to See an improvement? And After how many weeks an improvement is visible?
I’m in the target demographic for this video. Good swimmer, years of experience, can’t get faster. But this video is confusing. First, it never actually shows what a hand slipping through the water is or looks like. So we can’t see if the proposed solutions address the specific problem. Then the video shifts into the battle of paradigms: does the arm pass by the body, or does the body pass by the arm. Which is doing the work: the arm or the torso? And it ends with basically the solution of a hip-driven stroke. But the drills don’t match that and the use of fins really clouds where the propulsion is actually coming from. And it has nothing to do with your hand slipping. Please do more videos for “good” swimmers. So much out there for newbies. We’re trying to improve, too.
You can totaly feel the slip on the one hand freestyle drill without the fins, you barely move forward. When you can develope motion and hold on that drill and leave the fins off then you have progress. Theres gonna be also big differences by L/R sides.
My best is 19 strokes per 25 meters pool.
This explains my struggle. I’m moving my arm a lot rather than using my body
I can feel my body accelerating when I perform a good pull. Not sure if that's really positive, maybe I'm relying too much on my shoulders' strength. 🤔
Visualize how the shoulder muscles work. For example, when training on fitness equipment in the gym, there are three main movements to train the shoulders. Front raises, side raises and butterfly reverses. None of these movements take place in the water when swimming in front crawl. Well, maybe the back shoulder works a little, but not completely, because the angle to the torso is too small for that. Mainly the latismus muscle works and initially even the pectoral muscles. So the idea that you rely too much on the shoulder muscles can't be true, because the direction of work of the shoulder muscles doesn't match.
Great explanation! Thank you! This now begs the question, which muscles really take the burden on the anchoring?
Beautifully explained 👍🏼 Now off to the pool for 2k of slippin’ 😂 I find this to be INCREDIBLY hard to execute with my poor mobility. Still, grinding on.. I’ll get something working in the end 😊
When you take o about a time/100m, what distance do we base it on?
Meaning is it our zone 2 or is it max speed on 100m?
@@TheSlowMethod I think it's your cruise speed, i.e. the speed you could maintain "indefinitely" without feeling a buildup of fatigue.
E.g. last week I did something unusual for me, where I swam with no target distance in mind. Ended up with 3.4k before the time was up and I needed to get out. My pace was 1:44, which is pretty slow compared to what I can do over 100m or 400m. But @120bpm I never felt like I would need to stop soon. My technique was obviously not the best I can do and I'm sure I was taking shortcuts, but if I needed to place myself in one of Brett's tables, I would label myself as a 1:44 - 1:42 swimmer.
@@TheSlowMethod Btw, what is your definition of Zone 2? On my Garmin "zone 2" is called "easy" and it's just below "aerobic" and just above "warmup".
@@allydea thanks!
@@allydea I see it as 180bpm - age
wait, so what is a good thing to work on when im around 2:15 min (per 100m/1km distance)
There’s a link in the description for that.
❤
😍