translating pull bouy speed

woody1

im talking about freestyle / front crawl stroke here in case its not clear

i swim twice a week with a coached group ( triathlon group ) 5 lanes 5 levels of ability i am generally either in lane 3 leading it out or lane 4 getting dragged along



except when on pull bouy and hand paddles drills then im swimming over everybody i paid no heed till last week i just thought i was a bit more used to it than others in my lane but the coach put me in with the fastest lane and i was well able to keep up with them and probably faster than some of them

but without the toys im absolutely at my limit trying to keep up with them on their slow stuff

i have a long and slow stroke looking at others swimming around me i would guess they are taking 3 strokes for every 2 i do maybe my stroke just suits the paddles

anyway after all that what im getting at is with there being such a difference between my swimming with and without , is there any way to translate pull bouy stroke speed back to ordinary stroke speed ..

does anything stand out that would be slowing me down.. body position ? drag ? not getting enough of a catch ? all of the above

WeeBushy

A pull buoy lifts you body and legs giving you a nice flat, horizontal position in the water, reducing drag. Paddles will (fairly obviously) increase the surface area for pulling, making you faster and thus keep your body in a more streamline position as well. There is a huge difference between swimming with and without toys.

By the sounds of it you have poor body position in the water which the toys overcome, allowing you swim much faster. Without them you are struggling to overcome it yourself, and swimming much slower as a result. Improving body position is where you are going to see the greatest improvements I would think.

Poor positioning in the water can be caused by numerous things, a few off the top of my head:
Weak kick
Not kicking at all
Looking too far forward
Lifting your head too high when breathing
Poor body roll
Chest/stomach sagging
Catch phase pushing down instead of back

Without seeing you swim it's hard to say what is causing it, so if I were you I would get your coach to have a look and give you some feedback. You could have a look on youtube at some videos as well and see if anything obvious sticks out to you, but this is hard to do and often not that accurate. People's perception of how they swim compared to how they actually swim is usually very different. So I would rely mostly on what your coach/an experienced swimmer in your group has by way of feedback.

Relying too heavily on your toys is definitely a bad thing, especially if you do have poor body positioning. They can help you understand what a good position in the water feels like, but they're not going to make you actually achieve and maintain it. I would use them sparingly and for a specific purpose if I were you. There's an argument to be made for not using them at all, but that might be going too far, people seem to like toys.

For what it's worth I only use a buoy to allow a nice slow active recovery, for specific drills or very occasionally if I'm absolutely gassed to get a few more sets in.

woody1

cheers yeah ive seen a video of myself albeit it was maybe 3 years ago and perception was very different to reality legs probably drag a bit alright

but il have all those points in my head for the next while and see can i notice anything specific

same as you i only use the pull bouy when its in the coached set or if i want to get a bit more done and dont have the energy for it

WeeBushy

woody1 wrote: »

cheers yeah ive seen a video of myself albeit it was maybe 3 years ago and perception was very different to reality legs probably drag a bit alright

but il have all those points in my head for the next while and see can i notice anything specific

same as you i only use the pull bouy when its in the coached set or if i want to get a bit more done and dont have the energy for it

Good luck with it, let us know how you get on!

Might be worth revisiting the video to get a fresh idea of what you might be doing, even if it is a little old. Analyse a few of the things I've suggested and see if there's anything you can spot that's going array. If it's on youtube I'd be happy to have a look at it for you.