I’ve come back to swimming after about 100-years of being out of practice. Spine and knee injuries had kept me off land with poor aerobic capacity, and I was looking for ways to improve both my fitness and technique. I came upon Swim Smooth’s website and their Swim Type guides.<\/p>\n
The concept behind their methodology is based on identifying what kind of swimmer you are. The types are based on common problems encountered with swimming technique that group together like a chain of events. The approach then is to tackle not each individual flaw, but what is causing them to begin with.<\/p>\n
First, you determine what your type is<\/a> by reading descriptions and filling out some info. In my experience, getting yourself on video is king; what you look like while swimming can be very different from your experience of it. In fact, I now use my smartphone as a tool to track my progress, by videoing every couple of months, and using instant-playback at the pool.<\/p>\n Each 18-20 page PDF guide for a particular swim type is written in a clear and concise language, and includes four sessions that work directly on what it is that makes your stroke wonky in a sequential manner. There are different ways to use them; you can incorporate them into your swimming routine, concentrate on one before moving on to the next. I cycled through them religiously for about three months, meaning 1-2-3-4 every week. My stroke and fitness both improved, allowing me to begin training for endurance. Before I was simply out of breath after just one lap. I now go deeper into one session for a number of weeks, with two other different swim sets thrown in. It’s up you how to keep using them once you have improved.<\/p>\n There’s also a nifty app featuring an animation of the ideal freestyle stroke. You can control the speed and view from different angles. Sometimes while I’m swimming, a question about a movement pops up and I like to go back to the animation and check it there. It’s free to download on the main Swim Smooth<\/a> site.<\/p>\n They have a number of other products, from DVDs to swim suits designed for each swim type, and also conduct workshops in the UK. I haven’t had the chance to try these yet. I have no idea about the size of the operation, but my exchanges with them have been very attentive, and make it feel very personable, I would even describe them as the ‘mom and pop’s’ of swimming.<\/p>\n Fixing your swim stroke<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6221"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6221"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11199,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6221\/revisions\/11199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}