2018.10 Private Lesson Series Denise.Da

2018/11/04 – Session 2 of 3

Denise,

Well done today. I owe you the 20 minutes I spent chatting with you, thinking we started at 2:30 instead of 2:00.

We covered several topics today. I’ve list and linked few options and possible solutions to apply to your breath management while we’re are reconstructing not only the stroke but the nervous system.

Options and observations for Breath Management

• Set the tone for practice with Breathing Exercise such as 10 x 10 x 10 Drill (Continual stretch of 10 seconds holding breath, 10 seconds of steady exhale, followed by 10 more seconds of holding breath. Feel the stretch)
• Practice Diaphragmatic Breathing out of and in the water to sustain breath during short distance.
• Emphasize the Exhale
• Examine the Breathing Patterns leading up to, during and after the Flip Turn (Demo).
• Meditation and pauses can help calm the nervous system, that might otherwise be costing you quality breaths and valuable energy. To learn more on applying meditation in swimming check out this week’s podcast, Mindful Swim Meditation: Swimming As Meditation and the latest blog Stroke Training As Meditation.
• Add pauses at the midline to reset and direct the nervous system to be calm and relaxed.

Four Essential Features

The TI skills for freestyle are built on certain principles of physics and physiology that urge us to work on them in a certain order in our lessons. Those principles are first Balance, then Streamline, then synchronized Propulsion.

With these principles guiding us, there are four main features we want to see in your freestyle stroke in order to make it smooth, effective and marvelous:

1. the long, firm Torpedo Spine
2. the straight, firm, stable Skate Position
3. Send Force Forward in the Recovery Arm Swing
4. ideal Arm Switch Timing

In the first couple lessons we worked on Balance and Streamline. In today’s lesson, we built upon those two principles and set up movements for Synchronized Propulsion, starting with the Recovery Arm Swing.

Send Force Forward Thru The Recovery Swing

Today we practiced the Recovery Arm Swing – how you transition from streamline (Skate) position on one side to the other. You may view the outline for the activities we did in the Send Force Forward lesson. The Recovery Arm Swim is designated into 3 parts – the Exit, the Recovery and the Entry. We discussion the Exit and the Recovery.

I started you with the review the main focal points, then we moved to the water, and worked from the most simple drill, Swing Skate. And, from there you can gradually speed up the motion to more normal-speed whole strokes.

This month, as you practice, if you start to move through the motion faster, enough to start lifting your arm completely out of the water, still keep the fingernails brushing the surface of the water. This will give you some feedback from the water to let you know where your hand is, reminding you to let the knuckles drag, let the elbow lead the swing for the first half.

Dry Land Practice

Here are a few videos to review for further study of the Recovery Arm. All videos can be found on the Dojo under Library > Video Tutorials

• Dry Land Stroke Rehearsal for Freestyle
• Entry Arm Position Rehearsal

2019/01/06 – Lesson 3 of 3

In our session we focused on your recovery swing in order to correct the discomfort in your right shoulder.

A critical shoulder-safety piece here is to have a strong enough thrust out of the water so that the shoulders can clear the surface. This also requires that the underwater stroke be finished at just the moment the shoulders break the surface so that they can immediately use that precious, short time to sweep forward before the body plunges back in.

During the sweep, because of the way the shoulder joint is designed, the elbows and lower arms should ideally be below the shoulders, closer to the surface, or at least level, in order to lower the risk of shoulder tendon strain and injury. When the elbows are flung behind the back and arms swept forward behind the scapular plane, this increases the risk of shoulder injury. And the higher the arms go above the surface, the more you are working against gravity unnecessarily, the harder gravity will shove the body deeper on the entry.

So, keep the arm sweep close to the surface.

Coach Mat chimed in to demonstrate how to lay on the ground and practice the arm swing where you can more easily pay attention to how the muscles are working in the upper back and shoulder.

Then we did a standing rehearsal and practice the swing bending over.

You may also try standing with your back against a wall to practice swinging your arm without pulling the elbow behind the back – it will hit the wall if you do! In this standing position, remember that at the beginning of the swing, right at the exit moment, you are careful to not touch the wall with the elbow, but as the elbow swings toward the head, it needs to stay near the wall (this would correspond to the elbow climbing higher to apex at the entry position).

You will find some videos on recovery swing rehearsals on the Video Tutorial page. That one that stood out the Elbow and Over-Rotation Video Tutorial

For in water work….

Focal Points

• Let scapula slide away from spine – let muscles loosen
• Let shoulder (armpit) feel like it is opening up, on the swing
• Elbow starts low and gradually climbs toward the apex of the entry position
• ‘Swing The Bag’ – let the lower arm swing freely like it is numb and heavy

Remember the Scapula and the elbow are both sliding forward up the spine. The scapula travels slower and the elbow faster, but both arriving at their final destination at the same time.

Beware of…

• Pulling the scapula toward the spine – tightening muscles in upper back
• Dropping elbow toward the end of the swing
• Shoulder not sliding all the way forward to match the other side
• Pushing the lower arm forward, rather than letting it drag behind until last moment

Drills

• Superman with 1-Arm Swing – swing the left arm a few times, then swing the right arm a few times.
• 2-Arm switches – you may alternate arms as in a normal stroke, but pay attention to just one side on each repeat.
• Whole stroke with variable tempo – 4 strokes slow, 4 strokes medium, 4 stroke brisk

I’m interested in what your PT has to say about your shoulder joint, if you care to share.

2020/08/09 – Haag Lake Clinic

Catch Intro

You may like to read the introduction for the Catch and Hold to understand where it fits into the stroke and how it impacts the rest.

While actively swimming in the lake, we only did the 1-Arm Drill breifly. I’ve included the full drill sequence with videos links so you can observe how to build these cues into your Whole Stroke.

Drills

• Standing rehearsal with catch shape
• 1-Arm Drill (for Set The Catch)
• 1-Arm Drill with Rotation (other arm tucked at the side)
• Superman to Skate (with a weighted object in lead hand)
• Superman to Skate (no object in lead hand)
• Swing Switch (two arms) with pause at Entry moment
• Whole Stroke

Cues

There are several other ascpects of the Catch to examine and incorporate, but here are the few we touched on in the lake.

• Touch The Ball (Set the catch)
• Keep the ball close to the body
• Hold the ball and rotate body past it
• Press the ball straight toward the hip – hips rolls out of the way at last moment
• Hesitate ever so slightly after ‘Set The Catch’ in order to Load The Torso
• Pull with whole side of torso (not with shoulder), i.e. pull with the hip

The entry and extending arm is the main actor, while the catch arm is the supporting actor. Set a good catch and then focus upon sending force forward into your best Streamline Position. The better your Entry, Extension and Streamline, the farther you will slide forward on each stroke!

Additional Notes from 2020/08/08 Cues

– Arm Switch Timing, Keep the Lead arm steady until the Recovery Arm starts to take its place (Switch when the wrist punctures the surface)

– Lower Rotation Angle, just slightly off being parallel to the surface

– In the Recovery Swing, slide the Scapula up to brace the upper spine (**this was a big one for you that day)