Was not feeling the eye of the tiger this morning. But I dragged myself to the pool, focusing once again on my pitiful stroke technique. Lots of zipperswitch, freestyle, IM drills and fin work. I’m starting to realize my years in the weight room have not done me any favors in the pool. It’s been an effort to stretch out my stroke. I’m statically stretching tons and concentrating a bunch on good mechanics. And things maybe are starting to come together I feel. Today I was focused on relaxing my movements, not something I practiced with the weights, and getting a good stretch at the top of my latissimus, just below and behind my shoulder, at the end of my freestyle catch after my leading hand enters the water. Some points for me to remember regarding freestyle:
- extend to air – stretch out your entire body to get a breath at the surface
- elbows high in recovery phase – roll to the side, elbow bent at 90 degrees
- break elbow catch – elbow stays level with the shoulder during the catch phase, sets up to pull with hand and whole forearm surface, utilizing the latissimus to pull – do not lead with the elbow, do not tuck it in
- butt high – roll hips back
today’s numbers:
- 200m free
- 6 x 100m zipperswitch/free @ 3:00, alternating zipperswitch drills and free stroke every 25m
- coming in between 1:55 – 2:05
- 8 x 50m IM drill @ 1:30, alternating the IM strokes
- coming in between :35 – :55
- 400m short fin kick drill
