Why am I doing that drill?

Hi Athletes!

I recently did a swim clinic with USMS.  I have to tell you that not only did it help my stroke and speed a bit, but it helped me to understand WHY I've been doing those drills!  For a person like me, knowing what I'm supposed to think about when I do a drill is important.  Doing a drill incorrectly or just doing it and not getting any improvement frustrates me.

So, I thought I'd share what I learned about the swim drills we do all the time.  These were done in the order listed to reinforce the learning from each with the subsequent drill.
The USMS stroke clinic was great because we had the coaches who had just gone through the training the day before at each lane and we got immediate feedback from them after every length.  We were in the pool for four hours that day.  Two hours were dedicated to Freestyle, the remaining two hours were for Breaststroke, Backstroke, and Butterfly.

I improved my swimming for all four strokes and felt like I knew what I needed to focus on for improving my freestyle swimming for Triathlon.  It was a lot of fun  I hope these help you to improve your stroke!

1. One goggle in, One goggle out

This is to focus you on good body position and breathing.
Swim as normal and when you breathe, make sure only one goggle is above the water.  If you have two goggles out, your head is lifting up and your legs will drop, losing momentum.  Keeping momentum, once you have developed it, is very important for smoother, faster swimming.  Keep your eyes open to know if you have one or two goggles out.  Caution: don't over-rotate!

2. Rhythm Drill
This is to focus you on proper breathing timing.
Swim with one arm forward, the other along the body.  The forward arm is the stroking arm.  Breathe only on the side opposite the stroking arm. Rotate the head keeping one goggle underwater when you breathe.  Keep body position neutral.  Practice breathing as the stroking arm pulls backward, recovering faster than the arm recovers.

3. Top Hat Drill

This is to focus you on proper head position.
Using a hand paddle, put the paddle in the tip-top of your head and try to swim normally without losing the paddle.  You may use flippers if you like and just use your arms in a  torpedo position to practice keeping the paddle on the top of the head.  Then add stroking to see if you can keep it there for a full length.  Keep a high elbow during the pull phase underwater.

 4. Head Tap Drill
This is to focus on breath timing.

While swimming freestyle, during recovery of the stroke, before putting the hand in the water again, touch/tap the head.  Your hand should be tapping the head after the breath cycle is done and the head is down in the water.  If you are breathing when the head tap occurs, you are breathing too long or too late.

5. Verticle Kicking Drill
This is to focus the kick on both sides of the kick, up and down.
Treading water upright in the water, keep the ankles floppy and work on getting a push from both directions of the kick.  If you are having trouble staying afloat, you are not kicking with both directions of the kick.

6. Streamline Drill

This is to focus you on your body position and learn how to streamline your body.
Stand on the pool deck and raise your hands above your head.  Place both hands one on top of the other and squeeze your elbows to your head.  Pull yourself up very tall, trying to get 2 more inches of height.  You should have your arms slightly behind your ears and your shoulder blades pulled together.  This is the best streamline position. Now get into the lane, and push off getting into this same streamline position for the push-off. Get your body tight very quickly to get the farthest distance from the push.  See have far you can coast in this position after the push-off.

7. Catch Up Drill

This is to focus on body alignment and breath timing, delaying the stroke slightly to get a glide benefit before the pull.
Push off in streamline position and glide before you begin your stroke.  When you do begin the stroke, leave the front arm out front until the stroking arm recovers to the streamline position, then begin the next stroke.  Keep your body long throughout the swim, working to reduce the number of strokes per length by 2-3.
Note: triathletes practice this for open water swimming to protect the head and goggles from stray kicks and slaps from other triathletes swimming closely during racing.

8. Paddle and Fist Drills
This is to focus your attention on catching water on the stroke with your whole arm.

Grab a paddle with the straps facing away from the hand.  Grab at the bottom of the paddle and hold it against the wrist.  Swim using the paddles in this position focusing on pulling water with the whole arm, using the paddle to feel the catch at the forearm.  Next, swim with the hand in a fist focusing on high elbow catch to get the whole arm nearly 90 degrees to the direction of the swim early, pulling through with the arm.   After two lengths with paddles and fists, swim half a length with fists and then open your hand and swim the balance of the length with open hands.  Notice if you are using the whole arm for the catch now.

9. Stroke Count Challenge
This is to focus your attention on swimming long, easy strokes.
Using what you have learned from all these drills, swim a length and count strokes using no fins or paddles.  From the first length count, swim 4 more lengths, trying to reduce the strokes per length by 1 each time.  Notice what worked.
Keep your body streamlined, tight and your stroke focused on high elbow and full arm catch to get more propulsive force.  Keep your ankles loose and get the full propulsion from both sides of the kick.

Being more efficient in your stroke, more streamlined and getting a better kick can really be helpful for older athletes.  As strength declines, efficiency can make up for that loss in many ways.  Getting a good body position with a neutral head is the first thing to work on because nothing is efficient without good body position!

My life as a female athlete..you can be one too at any age.

Hi Athletes, 

Women in Sport

 Women in sport have been limited in opportunities and limited in encouragement and limited by public opinion.  I've seen changes that have helped more women become athletes at younger ages than ever before.  I see young fit, athletic women enjoying that awesome feeling of being in the best shape of your life and competing with the joy this can bring.  Giving women choices and encouraging women should not be a special thing.  It should be as equal and open as it is for men. Ask yourself why shouldn't women be competitive and athletic?  USAT and Ironman activities to support women in the sport are great, but still not quite enough.

The History of Women Athletes before Title IX

I reflect on how things have changed as I have aged.  It's been an interesting ride through several sports for me.  In 9th grade in high school, I joined the gymnastics team.  One of four choices for women in sports in my high school  Gymnastics, Basketball, Volleyball or Track.  I had always suffered from low blood sugar and I think perhaps I had some gluten or sugar issues because each day I'd get sick about 10 AM if I had eaten cereal, which was often.  I wasn't very good at any sport and I was very skinny and uncoordinated.   I often had trouble with my endurance.  I was almost always last to be chosen for any team throughout grade school and high school.  

Gymnastics 
However, gymnastics came around about the time I began to mature and over time I began to fill out and my metabolism began to normalize a bit with exercise.  I was eating more protein and I was able to avoid cereal in the mornings as I could make my own choices for oatmeal or peanut butter toast.  In Gymnastics I gained flexibility, strength, and tone.  I was on the gym team in college for a couple of years but still not very good.  Although, practice 4 days a week for 2 hours did a lot for my flexibility, strength, and tone and taught me how to be an athlete.  

In that day and age, the years of 1972-1976, women were still not encouraged to be athletes and most exercises for women were diet and shape focused rather than endurance and fitness.  I ended up with a very muscular physique that was not "in style" back then but I felt great and was interested in continuing to feel that way.  In both high school and college, the women's gym teams had to use the periphery of the gym because the male basketball players were "more important"  We rarely had the gym to ourselves.  Women basketball players had to train at 5 AM because that was the only time the gym was available...read that the only time the men weren't using it.  

In the next few years, I had to quit the team because my education required that I go out of town every other semester for cooperative education on the way to my masters in engineering.  Once I left college I sought out ways to exercise again.  I joined the local Y and coached the girl's gymnastics team for a time and began training to be a judge in gymnastics but lost interest because I was no longer able to do gymnastics myself.  

Body Building
About that time I read a book by a woman named Lisa Lyon. 



From Wikipedia: Born in Los Angeles, California in 1953. Lisa Lyon studied art at the University of California at Los Angeles. There she became accomplished in the Japanese art of fencing, kendo, but found herself lacking sufficient upper body strength so she began weight training. This eventually led her into bodybuilding.[1]

Lyon entered and won the first International Federation of BodyBuilders Women’s World Pro Bodybuilding Championship in Los Angeles on June 16, 1979. This was the only bodybuilding competition of her career. She appeared in many magazines and on television talk shows, promoting bodybuilding for women. She also wrote a book on weight training for women titled Lisa Lyon’s Body Magic (ISBN 0-553-01296-7), which was published in 1981.[1]

Her stats as taken on October 1980:[2] Bust 37A, Waist 24", Hips 35", Height 5' 4", Weight 120 lbs, Hair Color brunette. At the time, she could dead-lift 225 pounds, bench-press 120 pounds, and squat 265 pounds.[3]

In 1980, she was one of the only women in this sport.  This type of physique received a LOT of negative reactions and when I began lifting I was advised that I would ruin my body and would become very unattractive as a result.  I ignored this advice. 

She wrote a book and I began to go to the weight room to lift weights from reading her books.  I also tried to join the master swim group but was terrible.  The best I did was swim breaststroke and at the first meet, I swallowed a ton of water and thought I was going to drown.  That was the end of that endeavor.  However, because of the gymnastics, I had a lot of upper body strength and weight lifting was easy.  After I would lift I would stretch to keep my flexibility and one of the men in the weight room started talking to me.  I turned out he was the martial arts instructor at the Y and he tried for months to get me involved in his classes.  I resisted until he offered to teach me for free for a month if I would attend.  I finally agreed.

Martial Arts

Once I began this sport a whole world opened up for me.  The instructor was correct.  I was a natural at this sport.  I began to train seriously not long after while still lifting weights.  As I got stronger and moved up through the ranks I was also competing more and more and winning almost all competitions I entered.  I began to consider what was possible for me in the sport.  I won the state championship in 1983.  I was getting a lot of flack from all sides, my work, my family, and my friends who advised me that this sport was not a real sport, that I was ruining my body, etc. The idea at that time was still that women didn't sweat and I was training 2 hours every night after work coming home soaking wet from my own sweat.  This was not "ladylike"  I was one of 2 female instructors in the school and of the students, there were about 5% females.  

This was not a place where women were flocking for classes.  

In the 1980s women were dressing up in cute outfits and doing cardio light with Jane Fonda.  I was beating up men and women every week in a ring.  I took my championship and despite needing my blackbelt (I was one rank below black at that point) I went to the national championship with a borrowed black belt from the master.  I didn't win but had I won I would not have been allowed to compete in the PanAm games anyway since the black belt was required.  I was excited however and in 1983 the Olympic Committee was planning for Tae Kwon Do to be an exhibition sport in 1986.  I was planning to train for the Olympics.  I achieved my 1st-degree black belt and I began to box with a golden glove boxer and spent most of my waking hours training or competing.  Then disaster struck.  I fell through a catwalk at work because someone had left a part of the catwalk out leaving a hole for someone to step through.  This injured my back L1, L2 and L3 were herniated and the pain became unbearable over time.  I had to leave the sport.  

I knew a guy in 1982 who was training for Kona Ironman.  He did go and I was inspired and added Ironman to my list of things I wanted to do eventually.  At the time I was otherwise focused, however, and in Ohio, I did know anyone else doing triathlons at that time.  

Body Building again

I went back to bodybuilding and spent a lot of time at Gold's Gym; the local hyper male steroid pumped gym. ( I have a lifetime membership at Golds from those days)  I had a partner for my training and she was about 5'4" and her body was pumped up pretty quickly.  Turns out it's much harder to build muscles with longer limbs. I never competed in this sport but spent a couple years at this sport until the back pain caused me to leave it as well. 

Yoga

After years as a tough competitor in sports that required hard effort, going to yoga seemed like nothing.  But because the back pain had nearly sidelined any activity at all, yoga was my only possible choice.  I was having trouble sitting for longer than 15 minutes and sleep was difficult.  I would take quite a while to stand up from sitting and the pain was never completely gone.  Another physical disaster struck me from my work next.  I was poisoned by Nutrasweet at the factory and this caused me to have CFS.  I was unable to work and went on disability.  After feeling sorry for myself for about  5 for months, I decided to just do what I could.  I went to a yoga class and after six weeks, the back pain was gone.  I still had CFS with all the problems; migraines, constant fatigue, loss of appetite, mental confusion, dyslexia issues, light sensitivity, and depression.  However, solving the back pain was a positive step.  I went back to school for my doctorate (tough at any time but try it with severe CFS!) and didn't exercise for quite a few years.  In fact, I got married, had a baby and started a very demanding new job, was the breadwinner for the family and put my husband through college.  We moved to KY and I began teaching yoga at the YWCA, donating the payments back to the Y for 8 years.  

When my daughter was about 6, I was feeling better and joined a local martial arts school 

Martial Arts

Back in martial arts, I wanted to gain my 2nd degree.  While I did manage to do this, I saw that competition in Tae Kwon Do had changed quite a bit from a focus on finesse, strategy and kicks to simply landing as many physically shocking punches as possible.  I tried to compete but even when I won I was beaten up pretty badly and I realized I was not interested in the competition and couldn't sustain that level of damage to my body and function professionally any longer.  I trained regularly and enjoyed it but the loss of competition was sad for me.  The sport was still not a place for many women.  

However the idea of what a woman's physique should be had changed.  Healthy, fit and muscular women were gaining acceptance.  Also, women's sports were becoming more interesting to the public.  The Olympics with women in Tae Kwon Do had introduced really tough female athletes to the world and younger women wanted to be like them.  Title IV was also beginning to have an effect with more women athletes graduating from college seeking ways to continue to be athletic.  

Divorce and just exercising

Once I received my 2nd-degree black belt, life began to get really tough.  Divorce and a new job took up a lot of my attention and I was unable to do more than about 1/2 hour every few days at the gym.  This extended to long after the divorce and eventually a new job in Chicago.  

Triathlon

In 2010, I saw a sign that offered to train me for the Chicago Triathlon if I would fundraise for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago.  I was overweight, stressed out, depressed and not entirely sure I could do it, but my brother had died of AIDS in 1986 and I wanted to honor his memory.  I had figured the dream to do an ironman was long gone, but perhaps I could do a shorter one and honor him at the same time and say I had done it.  That year I completed the OLY distance triathlon at 4:52.  The old thrill of being an athlete and competing was awakened again that year.  I knew I had found something I could have fun with and I could pursue it at my fitness level.  I began the journey in triathlon, yet another sport dominated by men.  I had several bad experiences along the way.  I went to a computrainer site to train and was ignored and although I asked for help I got none.  I left without training.  I tried to join a cycling ride and was left behind within four blocks, never saw the group again and finally figured out how to get home disappointed and upset.  I went for a ride with friends, all male, who met a younger woman along the way, took off with her and left me in the middle of an unfamiliar area and it took me an hour to figure out how to get back to my car.  I was upset and disappointed and angry even though I had a good ride.  I became a coach and worked with other coaches but often with male coaches, anything I say is either over-ridden with mansplaining or corrected in public.  I quit contributing to teaching/coaching groups with other male coaches.  

Older Athletes in Sport 

Now more athletes are competing later in age.  Triathlon is probably one of the best sports around (besides swimming) that attracts athletes in their 70s and 80s.  I'm seeing many male athletes in the 70+ age group when I compete, who are competitive and do very well.  I see many more women 60+ these days as well. Waves of 25-30 for age groups of 60+ or 50+ are common.  Some male 70+ athletes compete in nationals who are faster than I have ever been in these races.  I like to see what age group  I'd be competitive with at nationals.  Often they are over 75+ before I'd be competitive at 63.  

Older Women in Sport

Check out the link in this title.  Women are competing into their 70s and 80s in small numbers but they are role models for me like Lisa Lyon was during my 20s.  They promote the idea that how you age is a choice.  It's not necessary to feel bad or be unfit.  However, most women over 50 have not had a chance to ever be an athlete in their lives.  Lack of opportunity and social pressures have limited their interest and access.  Even intrepid women can be discouraged from joining a sport by unwelcome behaviors I shared above.  How we encourage women is important.  Making the sport accessible and providing support for novices that express interest is very important.  Most males have done some kind of sport most of their lives.  This is not true for women.  We can't just open the door, we have to offer a helping hand as well.  

That's why I prefer to coach older women.  I want to share my experiences and make them feel they can be athletes, will be successful and are encouraged to continue when the going gets tough.  I know women can do well.  One thing most women are familiar with is persevering through adversity and pain.  That to me is the makings of an endurance athlete.