My friend Sam is in the Army. He works hard, he’s been to war, and he’s a pretty tough guy. He knows how to get the job done. He really wants to be a faster swimmer. He can run sub 7 minute miles for a long, long time, but he’s stuck in his swimming at around 1:23/100 as his PR and struggles to maintain 1:30s for distance swims. AT least that’s how Sam used to be.
Because Army guys think everything has to be hard, Sam was trying too hard in the water. Pulling to hard, stroking too hard and believe it or not, recovering his arm too hard!!
Sam came to Pittsburgh where we spent 2 hours in the pool working on his technique. I put together a video of his lesson below, and compressed the 2 hour lesson into an 8 minute video (pretty good, huh?)
About 10 days after this lesson I got an email from Sam.
SUBJECT: You aren’t supposed to get FASTER at altitude, are you?
Suzanne!
I basically took two weeks off of swimming, aside from our little 2 hour
coaching session this past week.I was SO AFRAID to get into the pool, because I thought I would be so slow,
because I have taken 2 weeks off swimming, AND I am at altitude (Yesterday I was
hurting on the bike).Anyway, on my 100 yd set, I broke my PR with a time of 1:17! And I tied my
PR in the 200 yds with a time of 2:52, and I wasn’t even really pushing it!You are AWESOME!
Sam
🙂 I still smile when I re-read this email. This is why I love coaching.
I LIVE for these emails.
Anyway, here is Sam’s lesson, I hope you can learn something. Please leave me a comment with your questions and I’ll do my best to answer them!
Thank you so much for sharing this. My swim leg is definitely back of the pack, and I’m really appreciative for any advice that can help improve my stroke efficiency. I’ve done three sprint tir’s in the past 2 years, and I’ve set a goal to do an olympic distance next year, and even a 70.3 in 2014. The swim is certainly my barrier to both at this point. Please keep the advice coming!
Let us know how it goes next time you get in the pool!
Suzanne,
Loved this video. I have many of the same issues with stroke mechanics. Think I will have to find a TI seminar to attend.