Like Greg Valentine

I figured something out on Monday, and playing with it more this morning, had a bit of revelation in the pool. I think I may have mentioned this before, but I've found when doing paddle sets, I tend to lead with my elbow on the left side, slipping my hand through and not getting a strong pull. Paying a bit more attention to this, in just regular swimming, I also wasn't keeping a high elbow on that side. I was dropping my elbow (like the aforementioned Hammer), and costing myself power. No wonder my right side was getting so tired, it was doing all the work. Some reading I'd done recently made a big point about the high elbow, and about scapular retraction, so during the warm-up tried to really focus on these.

Here's what happened: I keep my elbow up, which automatically forces my scapulae to retract. This puts my latissimus dorsi in a stronger position, for more power. It also forces more of a body-roll, so I'm slipstreamed, and more likely to finish my stroke (the over-arching theme of my swimming). There we go, three problems (somewhat) solved in one fell swoop. Not too shabby, eh?

The workout started with a lot of paddle work, and things didn't go great there, as I'm still too likely to slip the paddle. It was supposed to be descending sets, but the level of exhaustion caught up with me quick, and although my effort went up, the speed stayed the same. Then we had an easy pull set, and I just cruised up and down the pool with my new two-sided swimming stroke. We finished the day with a bunch of sprints, done as a group. Like the Olympics, the fastest swimmers were moved to the middle lane, with Tier One (the remnants of Lanes 1-3) on one side, and Tier Two (all the swimmers from lanes 4-6) on the other. Then I was positioned along the wall of Tier One (the equivalent of that guy from a tiny African country who trains in a hotel pool). Not one to tolerate a slight, by the third sprint I was alongside our fastest swimmers. When things fall into place, everything gets faster. All those sprints were tiring, and my performance in the last block using paddles left something to be desired, but I'm moving in the right direction again.

Swim: w/u - 200m each free, non-free, pull
4x100 pull w/paddles, descending, 10"
100 ez non-free
4x100 free w/paddles, descending, 10"
100 ez non-free
500 ez pull
4x25 sprint, on 1'
50 ez non-free, 90"
4x25 sprint, on 1'
50 ez non-free, 90"
4x25 sprint w/paddles, on 1'
c/d - 100 each back, breast, pull
Total: 2800m