I hope everyone is having a great winter season. Winter is a great time to get into the gym and work on your strength training as well as hitting the pool and working on your swim stroke. For me, swimming is the area where I could use the most improvement and for those of you who know me, I’m big believer in working on swim form. When going to the pool, I don’t think about swimming faster, I try to work on swimming better. Improve your form, become a better swimmer, and you will by default, become a faster swimmer, too.
There are lots of ways to accomplish this goal. One great way is to join a masters swim class. Swim RI has some great information for different times and locations at this link here. Also, there are adult classes at the Brown University pool and you can read that information at this link here.
Another way is to spend some time on YouTube to learn some drills to improve your form. I try to spend some time each winter searching through YouTube videos to see what’s new and useful specifically related to what I need to improve. This winter, I’m working on bi-lateral breathing. It’s something I’ve put off for a long time, but after doing some underwater film analysis it’s clear that I have an unbalanced stroke due to only breathing to one side. It was a great thing to learn and hopefully, in a couple of weeks of drills, I will be a better swimmer than before and I can then target my next weakness, which will probably be my sinking hips.
One more thing about YouTube, if you are riding your bike on the indoor trainer and need a little inspiration or some ideas how to improve your pedal stroke or strength drills, there’s a lot you can find to help you there, too.
Good luck and happy training. Spring will be here before you know it!!!
Let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Ron P.