Swim Improvement

In the last week since I last went swimming, I bought swim jammers (just had standard trunks) and have been watching a lot of YouTube videos. I actually saw some serious improvement over my previous times. My 100 yard time dropped from 2:45 to between 2:14 - 2:31 depending on the set.

I've mostly been doing blocks of 100 yards. I figure if I can concentrate on my stroke the best when I am not out of breath. Endurance swimming can come later. I found that these drills, addressed some of my weaknesses. I definitely hadn't rotated my body when swimming, but this is because I learned it was bad ("rotating is wasting energy").

I breath out of my right side, and I notice I start pulling with my left hand too early (when my hand is by my thigh). It was a little difficult to correct with the "catch-up" drill or the similar "slow arm recovery" drill, because I notice I start sinking and I use the pull to keep my head above water so I can breathe. I think I need to keep my butt up closer to the surface as I must be dragging. I need to have someone video me when I swim.


Update: Via the wonders of the internet and google, I found an answer to my question. The entire post "Bigfuzzdoug's Ten Points to Swimming" is awesome, and one of the points directly addressed my issue:

 

4.)  “Torpedoes move faster than oil tankers.” You have to try and maintain a slim, sleek, torpedo shape.  Back and legs straight as a board.  Think of your body swimming through a narrow two foot-wide-tube.  Most swimmers legs tend to sink.  You need to overcome this by two things:  First, improve your back, abs and oblique core muscles.  I can’t stress enough how good exercise like Pilates are for swimming!  And second, “press your buoy.”  By lowering your head and pressing your chest down, you raise your legs.  This is known as “downhill swimming”.
Unusual Training Tip:  Try to look at your feet!  That's right.  As you swim, I want you to try and look under and behind you.  This is going to drive your head down, get your feet up and make you more streamlined in the water.  Your chin should be against your chest.  Not so tightly that you can't breathe or that it's uncomfortable, just so that you're leading with the top of your head, not your forehead and driving your head down.  Again, the goal is to raise your legs and look like a flat, horizontal torpedo in the water....

The most common mistake by amateur swimmers (me not excluded) is that they convert their breathing stroke into a vertical support stroke to push their heads up and out of the water further.  It doesn't work and it's wasted energy.  It slows you down (dramatically) and creates bad habits.  Keep that chin in tight to your shoulder and use that stroke to go FORWARD!   ...

Most people suffer in that as they're recovering an arm, turning up, getting their mouth out of the water to take a breath, they begin the next pull to push down and keep their head up to breathe.  They've immediately decreased their length of waterline by two feet or more and this immediately creates wake drag.  You have to be able to put your ear on your bicep with a fully extended arm and keep it their throughout the entire breath.  Recovery arm meets the extended one, rotate back down and THEN begin the next pull.