So when she joined the Effortless Swimming Coaching Membership, she uploaded a video from her lane at the pool. She’d filmed herself using her phone, just propped up on the side of the pool. So the angle wasn’t perfect, but I could see enough. And I watched the video once, then I watched it again. And I slowed it down and watched it a third time. And I saw immediately that her arm was collapsing in the front of her stroke. So here’s what was happening. When she would turn to breathe, her shoulders would over rotate, her arm in front would drop straight down. And at that point, she would have nothing in front of her head. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Last month I had a swimmer join our weekly coaching members call. She’s 39, she was training for her first Ironman,

and she’d been swimming for about a year. And she was very consistent with it, training three times a week and following her program. But the thing was, she was exhausted after every session. And her pace hadn’t improved in four months. So she was sitting around two minutes 10 per 100, and she just couldn’t figure out what was wrong. And we spent about 45 minutes on the call in total with a few other swimmers there as well. And I had a look at her video a couple of times. And I gave her one change, just one. Three weeks later, she sent me a message. She dropped 15 seconds per 100. Her pace went from two minutes 10 to one minute 55 per 100. Same fitness, same pool, same training volume, but just one technique change. And today I’m gonna share with you what that change was and why it worked. So when she joined the Effortless Swimming Coaching membership, she uploaded a video from her lane at the pool. She’d filmed herself using her phone,

just propped up on the side of the pool. So the angle wasn’t perfect, but I could see enough. And I watched the video once, then I watched it again. And I slowed it down and watched it a third time. And I saw immediately that her arm was collapsing in the front of her stroke. So here’s what was happening. When she would turn to breathe, her shoulders would over rotate, her arm in front would drop straight down. And at that point, she would have nothing in front of her head. So no arm in front of her head. And what that was doing was causing her body position to suffer, her hips and legs were dropping. She felt like she had to lift her head up quite high to get the breath, because there was nothing out in front to give her support and give her balance. And she was also losing a lot of her streamline position because when that arm drops down, we create more drag immediately. And she also was missing a large part of her catch.

And it’s a very common mistake I see in adult swimmers, particularly around that two minute to two minute 20 mark, they are often pressing straight down with the arm in the catch, so they don’t get much propulsion from it. So when we got on the call, I said to Sarah, I want you to try this. So I had to stand up and I had to reach forwards with her right arm, rotate her shoulders a little bit, 30 to 40 degrees. And then I had to practice getting a good catch. And what that involves is getting the elbow to bend and go out wide and out to the side, while the fingertips would point down to the bottom of the pool. Instead, what she was doing prior to that was the elbow would stay locked out. So the arm was very straight and just pushing straight down and dropping straight down. So I had to practice bending the elbow and getting it out wide and to the side. And I had to do that in her own time, just in front of the mirror,

just to practice that movement out of the water before she did it in the water. And I said, all right, that’s the catch position. That’s what we’re going for. And you’ve just got to make sure that you don’t over rotate because that was through the shoulders, because that was one of the lead causes of that arm dropping down. The other thing I had her do was think of the catch as the setup. It’s not the power phase of the stroke. So one thing she was doing in the early stages of her stroke was going pretty hard. She was pushing straight down, trying to generate a lot of propulsion, really trying to keep herself up because her body position was dropping through that part, but she was really fighting the water and she wasn’t really gripping it. And so this is where a lot of swimmers feel like they’re working hard, but not moving forwards. They’re pulling, they feel a lot of pressure on their hand and forearm, but it’s not in the right direction

and it’s not connected very well with the rest of the stroke because everything’s out of sync and out of time. So Sarah practiced this along with a couple of other drills. And then she sent me another video a few weeks later and she said in a message that I think I’m getting it, but I’m not too sure. And I watched the video and her arm was staying out in front to give her support and balance as she was breathing and she was starting to get the catch. Rather than everything just pushing straight down on the water, her hand or forearm was beginning to press back instead of down. So she was starting to get it. And I sent her a message and said, that’s it, keep doing that, keep practicing. So she sent me another video a few weeks later and her stroke looked completely different. She was balanced, her catch was clean. She looked a lot smoother in the water and the main thing was she didn’t look like she was gasping for air.

And when she tested her pace, her time had dropped from 210 down to one minute 55, 15 seconds quicker. And I asked her how it felt and she said it felt easier. I’m not working as hard, but I’m going faster and I don’t understand how that’s possible. But I told her that’s exactly how it’s supposed to feel. When your stroke is efficient, you don’t have to work harder to go faster. You just have to connect with the water. So once you’re connected, that effort turns into forward movement instead of wasted energy. That’s what the efficiency is. It’s less effort, more speed. And most women think, I just need to pull harder to go faster. But pulling harder does not help you if you’re not connected with the water. You just end up tired and the fastest women are not necessarily pulling harder or with more power. They’re pulling smarter. They’ve got better technique, better timing. And they’re keeping their elbow high so their forearm and hand grabs the water

and presses back and they’re not pressing down. So they’re connected. And that connection is what turns effort into speed. And if you feel like you’re working hard but not going anywhere, then it could be what you’re doing when you breathe. It could be that your timing’s out or your arm is collapsing out in front of you. And if you fix that, everything else gets a whole lot easier. So here’s what I want you to do. If you film yourself from the side above the water can be fine. Watch what your lead arm is doing as you take a breath. Does it drop straight down, push down on the water? So if you go frame by frame is then nothing in front of your head for a split second. And if that’s the case, then your timing’s off and that arm is collapsing underneath you. So what we wanna do instead is enter the water, reach out with that lead arm, keep it reaching forwards to support you while you take a breath and then roll into the catch.

So there should always be an arm or something in front through each phase of the stroke. That’s the position, that’s the timing that we’re going for. So if you’re not sure whether or not your elbow is setting up a good catch or if your timing is there, then that is exactly what we helped with in the Effortless Swimming Coaching membership. So if you film yourself, send it in. I’ll watch it and tell you exactly what to fix. So there’s no guessing, just clear feedback on what needs to change. So if you want to help fixing your catch position, you can join me at the Effortless Swimming Coaching membership at effortlesswimming.com. You actually get a waterproof camera included with your first month, so you can film yourself easily. You can upload the video myself and the other coach Tasman will analyze it and tell you exactly where your elbow is, what your timing is like and what the main thing is to focus on. So then you work on that change

until it becomes automatic and a lot of swimmers start to feel a difference within a couple of weeks and then the times will start to drop after that. And quite often, they feel easier or they don’t put in as much effort for the same speed and then their time start to get quicker. So if you’d like to join us in the Effortless Swimming Coaching membership, links in the description, thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.