Swim Critique Thread. Post Your Videos

Fair… Although I also struggle with regular swimming…haha

Adult Onset Swimming…

It is really hard to learn to swim well as an adult. It can absolutely be done, but it takes patience and a lot of pool time.

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I think that this commonly-thrown-about sentiment is actually a misattribution of the problem. It’s not necessarily an age thing…The things that kids have going for them: 1) swim team kids get in the pool every day 2) they don’t set artificial limits for themselves (their assumption is that they CAN learn to swim, so they are open to it) 3) they do lots of drills 4) they have swim coaches/instructors correcting form and structuring workouts

Try all of those 4 things and see if you don’t progress quickly :slight_smile: and yes, lots of pool time!!

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I would add, as grown ups, we know how fragile life is, and that water is very dangerous. Kids do things that we wouldn’t dare to try… Most kids are fearless and will try anything… That’s why I think learning to swim as a kid is imperative…

In any case, my local master team will resume tomorrow. Already signed up… It’s just for a month tho… I already talked to the coach and we will be doing some private lessons soon. Because even though I may think I’m correcting my position, unless there is someone watching me, I have no idea if I’m actually making progress

Completely agree. Plus we have very little patience. We want things right away whereas kids have timeline of many years of all the stuff you said about them.

Most kids have no concept of time, so they are not on the clock. They get it when they get it.

I know its just a matter of time before my 8yo lose that. And that make me sad.

:+1:

Im not a “swim team kid” Id never even heard of swim teams when I was a kid, but I swam once a week with school and had one summer leisure swimming everyday, then stopped swimming around age 13.

Scroll forward twenty four years, that first 25m was very difficult! My swim times didnt improve at all in my first year, so I listened to the experts and swam as regularly as I could, read about technique, watched videos of what good swimming looks like.

It worked.

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Hey all swimers…

My Masters Coach has been telling me i should get different fins.
I am currently using what i was told is the gold standard of swim fins. The one everyone has on their swim bag…
The FINIS Zoomers Gold.
He doesn’t like them. He told me that I would get more on the training from longer fins…

Whats the consensus when it come to short vs long fins for tri training?

I’ve been told short fins.
Ultimately I don’t think it matters for triathletes

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What’s the objective for using fins? One guess would be that short fins might help with kicking, while long fins take the focus off kicking so you can work on your stroke…ultimately, I think fins are super fun but a bit silly as a primary training tool, so I’m not sure that it matters :upside_down_face:

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Here is my official “crap swimmer” feedback on fins…

My understanding is that longer fins will help develop ankle flexibility (or at least that is theory). Since triathletes have crap ankle flexibility (gello!), this could be beneficial. (I have never used long fins, so can’t speak to this).

Zoomers, for me at least, allow me to slow my kick and focus on my stroke. I can swim with a two-beat kick vs. a 6-beat. It also helps me significantly improve my body position in the water. I feel like I am “on top” of the water, strong arched lower back vs. plowing through the water.

Using fins on a recovery swim after a race is awesome. Long lazy strokes and no stress on the legs.

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I use the fins mostly for drills. Like side kicking drills and such.
I seldom use them for regular swimming unless the workout calls for it. (Some times we use them as the workout repetitions progresses)

The coach point is that with short fins I have to kick too much and takes away from the point of the drills.

I barely kick with short fins and my speed still increases significantly. Same with drills (Statue of Liberty, etc.)

That’s exactly what I use it for. I don’t want to take forever in my drills. The arms on side chest down drill without fins takes 3:30+ for each 100.

Ain’t nobody got time for that!

exactly! :rofl: