critique my swim form (video!)

I'm not a swim coach but I am a FOP swimmer...

Biggest flaw first.

After your breath, instead of just rotating your head along the axis of your spine back to an eyes down (or slightly forward position), you actually dive your head down by bending towards the bottom at your neck. Then, your right arm stroke is really funky. Your hand dives down deep towards the bottom immediately upon entry, which puts the brakes any momentum you had going. These two actions are why I think you're so deep in the water as you describe in another post. I believe that you're thinking "high elbow pull" and that's why your arm is acting that way. But it's way too early. That right hand/arm needs to cut through the water like a spear to full extension just a couple/few inches below the water line before you start the catch. (You do a much better job of this with your left arm).

Then you do a little weird thing with your hand where you rotate it thumb out, then back into position as you start your pull which you should just stop doing. Your pull actually doesn't look too bad to me and any problem with it is relatively minor at this point.

Your left arm stroke is much better and I would't worry about it one bit until you resolve the above which when you do should improve you drastically. But when looking at your left arm, rather that it slicing through the water like a spear, you're laying it on the surface of the water starting at your armpit. That slows you down and is probably due to you being deep in the water and not leading with your elbow out of the water on the recovery. You should enter the water finger tips first and all of your arm should follow in the hydrodynamic shadow of your hand. It's hard to tell from the video but at the very end of it, it appears you may have a little crossover with your left arm, again minor compared to the above.

Your kick is pretty wild which is probably just you trying to correct your main faults above. If your arm strokes are sound and your body position is parallel to the surface, you shouldn't "need" to kick at all. Your legs should just drag behind you. Of course you want to kick some for propulsion, but never to keep your feet up or correct balance issues due to other flaws in your stroke. I think swimming with that loop thing that keeps your legs/feet closer together would be good for you. It would force you to correct your main stroke flaws.

My $0.02. Again, not a swim coach.

Edited by breckview 2009-04-02 9:50 AM

i think you are emphasising your trunk and hip rotation too much, gradually twist forward instaed of turning everything at once. Try some swim drills with fins and FEEL the difference when you rotate and twist.Also your head looks too far under the water right after the catch i think because you are going too deep when your hand enters the water instead of your hand entering and turning down to grab the water. My two cents, i did this video post a while back and now i am a completely different swimmer, good idea!!