Sunday, March 22, 2009

Underwater Stroke Analysis

I've always wanted to do a swim clinic with underwater videotaping but didn't want to spend the moolah. Nor did I want to go to a different coach 1x and then return to my master's program without a good plan for reinforcing what I learned.

UCSD masters offered this exact swim clinic at a greatly reduced price for members. It was an answer to my dreams. I got 2 hours with Sickie. There were 6 people total in the class. We swam, were videotaped, met for our analysis, got back in the pool and worked on drills, were videotaped again, and then met a 2nd time to go over what to work on at home. I was pooped in the end (didn't want to go ride 50 miles, but I did) but very satisfied.

Here's a clip of my stroke (before working on it). Apparently, my body position is good but I enter too early/steep. My left arm is also wide (I think I enter too narrow and then go wide to compensate--can't see in this video but can from the top). Finally, my pull is too wide as well (my hand should be right under my shoulder). Explains why my left shoulder has been aching a bit! I'm excited to work on my stroke!

6 comments:

teacherwoman said...

Sounds like a great experience!

Grey Beard said...

Do you modify your stroke or technique in salt water or heavy surf?

Wes said...

That's good stuff. It's amazing what seeing yourself swim will do for your technique...

Sherry said...

Stroke analysis is awesome! I learned SO much from the one that I had done in February. :o)

hstryk said...

Your stroke analysis clinic looks a lot better than the one I did! We paid $30 for analysis of one length, and though it was cheap, and nice that they showed me what I was doing wrong and emailed me the observations, it wasn't more than that. I would have loved to be able to work on it and get another video done. Plus 2 hours is a lot better than a mere hour to work on my stroke.

Also, my video's codec was messed up and I couldn't upload it to my blog :( Lame.

SM said...

Thats really cool!! I need to do one!