Out of water Swimming

Took some time today to do some out of water butterfly with my group. It was like fish out of water. They felt so silly and had trouble with this exercise. I think that I need to do more of this on occasion. I was able to point out some flaws, as they were to go slow motion, and I tried to pause them at moments on flaws. The big one I knew for some of them. I have some who still have a hard time timing out the butterfly breathe. This is one of those repetition things. Some of the swimmers know when they are supposed to breathe, and they still can't make the change, or have made the change until they get back to a race.

The other big thing was how many dropped their elbows and brought them into the body to finish the pull. I moved their elbows to a more powerful position and had them continue through the stroke motion. Then I had them repeat a few times trying to not drop the elbows.

In Water, we continue to repeat this message of not dropping the elbows. On land, I showed them what it looks like and how I want them to do it. In water I could see some of the swimmers make improvements, but we need more repetition of the position of power. As the practice went on, many reverted back, and I continued to remind them about those pesky elbows. I sound like a broken record sometimes at practice, as I repeat myself over and over and over again, hoping that they caught it one of those many times that I said it.

Out of water swimming, is part of my new goal of trying to improve our underwater pulls to create more propulsion, and less time on stroke and recoveries that is a smaller importance to overall speed of swimming. If you all you watch is over the water, then you are missing the real important part of swimming fast.