How To Swim 100m In 1:10 (Without Trying)
Summary
TLDRIn this video, retired Olympic swimmer Dan Smith shares insights on efficient swimming techniques, emphasizing the importance of technical skills over fitness. He discusses the need to connect with the water, maintain proper body and head positions, and the significance of a strong kick. Smith also addresses the role of bilateral breathing, rotation, and the common issue of overreaching. He advises practicing slow, perfect strokes to develop good habits and avoid flaws, ensuring a strong catch and pull for optimal performance.
Takeaways
- 🏊♂️ Dan Smith emphasizes the importance of technique in swimming, regardless of the level of the swimmer.
- 📈 Swimming is a technical sport where understanding and mastering the technique is crucial for improvement.
- 💡 The first fundamental truth in swimming is to be well-tuned and primed for swimming goals on a soft surface.
- 🌊 Learning to connect with the water is essential, as it can provide feedback and help swimmers move more efficiently.
- 🧠 The mindset of befriending the water is key to efficient swimming, similar to how one treats friends.
- 📱 Utilizing technology for self-analysis of swimming strokes is encouraged for improvement.
- 🦵 Dan was a leg-dominant swimmer, but he advises a balance of 20% leg effort and 80% arm effort to conserve energy.
- 👀 Head position is critical; keeping the chin back ensures a streamlined line in the water.
- 🔄 Rotation in swimming should involve the upper body while keeping the hips flat to maintain a strong connection point.
- 🚫 Avoid overreaching in the recovery position, which can lead to dropped elbows and reduced efficiency.
- ⏰ Maintaining a good catch and pull requires setting up with a high elbow position and applying power from the back end of the stroke.
Q & A
What was the significant achievement of Dan Smith in 2019 that went viral?
-Dan Smith swam 100 meters in 1 minute and 10 seconds, making it look easy and effortless, which led to a video of his performance going viral with over 1 million views.
What does Dan Smith emphasize is crucial for swimmers of all levels?
-Dan Smith emphasizes the importance of understanding that swimming is a technical sport and that improving technique should come before increasing fitness through laps.
How does Dan Smith describe the relationship between a swimmer and the water?
-Dan Smith describes the relationship between a swimmer and the water as one that should be friendly and cooperative. He suggests that the water provides feedback and that swimmers should 'befriend the water' to move efficiently.
What is the first fundamental truth Dan Smith mentions about swimming?
-The first fundamental truth Dan Smith mentions about swimming is that it is performed on a soft surface, and thus swimmers need to ensure their body is well-tuned and primed for their swimming goals.
What simple cues does Dan Smith recommend for maintaining proper body position in the water?
-Dan Smith recommends the cues 'chest down' and 'tummy tight' to maintain proper body position in the water, which helps to minimize drag and improve swimming efficiency.
How does Dan Smith suggest using technology to improve one's swimming technique?
-Dan Smith suggests using technology like smartphones or GoPros to film oneself swimming and then self-analyze the stroke to identify areas for improvement.
What percentage of effort should be in the legs versus the arms when swimming, according to Dan Smith?
-Dan Smith recommends that only 20% of effort should be in the legs and 80% in the arms when swimming, due to the leg muscles being larger and more prone to burning energy.
What is Dan Smith's opinion on bilateral breathing in swimming?
-Dan Smith personally dislikes bilateral breathing and suggests that it should only be used to prevent stroke imbalances, not as a standard practice unless one races that way.
How does Dan Smith define 'cheap travel' in swimming?
-Dan Smith defines 'cheap travel' in swimming as the ability to efficiently connect with the water and move forward with minimal effort, as opposed to 'spinning one's wheels' without making effective progress.
What advice does Dan Smith give to correct the common problem of overreaching in the stroke?
-To correct overreaching, Dan Smith advises to focus on entering the water with fingertips first, followed by the elbow, using drills like the 'fingernail trail' to practice the correct hand entry.
Where should swimmers apply the most power in their stroke according to Dan Smith?
-Dan Smith suggests that the most power in a stroke should come from the back end of the stroke, through the inward and outward sweep, rather than at the front of the stroke.
Outlines
🏊♂️ Olympian Dan Smith's Swimming Techniques
In this paragraph, Olympian Dan Smith discusses his viral swimming video from 2019 where he swam 100 meters in 1 minute and 10 seconds. He emphasizes the importance of technique in swimming, suggesting that it's a sport that requires technical mastery. Dan shares his experience as a retired Olympic swimmer and his passion for helping others improve their swimming skills. He stresses the need to understand the nature of swimming as a soft surface sport and the importance of body positioning and connection with the water. He also talks about the role of technology in providing feedback for swimmers to self-analyze their strokes.
🦵 The Role of Kicking in Swimming
Dan Smith explains the significance of a swimmer's kick, highlighting that while he was a leg-dominant swimmer, it's crucial not to rely too much on the legs as they are bigger muscles and can lead to energy wastage. He advises a balance of 20% leg effort and 80% arm effort. Dan also discusses the importance of a straight-legged kick with relaxed ankles, leveraging the kick from the glutes and hamstrings rather than the knees. He touches on the topic of breathing patterns, expressing a preference for unilateral over bilateral breathing, and the importance of maintaining a flat hip position while rotating the upper body for an effective stroke.
🤔 Advanced Swimming Techniques and Corrections
In this section, Dan Smith delves into advanced swimming techniques, focusing on the importance of overhead hand awareness and the challenge of correcting hand entry positions. He discusses the difficulty of seeing one's own hand movements in the water and the need for deliberate and slow practice to master the correct hand entry. Dan also addresses the importance of the catch and pull phase of the stroke, emphasizing the need for a high elbow position and the connection through the back end of the stroke. He provides a simple drill for correcting hand entry and discusses the concept of 'cheap travel' in swimming, which involves efficient use of the water's resistance.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Technical Sport
💡Stroke
💡Efficiency
💡Connection with Water
💡Body Position
💡Drag Minimization
💡Kick
💡Breathing Pattern
💡Rotation
💡Overreaching
💡Catch and Pull
Highlights
Dan Smith, a retired Olympic swimmer, shares insights on efficient swimming techniques.
Swimming is a technical sport that requires understanding beyond just fitness.
The importance of body positioning and how it affects swimming efficiency.
The concept of 'befriending the water' to improve swimming.
Techniques to maintain an efficient body position in the water.
The role of core strength in swimming and how to engage it.
How head position impacts swimming and the correct way to align it.
The significance of chest position in achieving an optimal swimming posture.
The impact of leg dominance on swimming efficiency and energy conservation.
How to adjust kicking technique as speed increases.
The preference for unilateral over bilateral breathing in competitive swimming.
The role of body rotation in swimming and how to maintain a flat hip position.
Common mistakes in the recovery phase of the swimming stroke and how to correct them.
The importance of entering the water with fingertips first to avoid dropped elbows.
How to apply power in the stroke and the significance of the back end of the stroke.
The concept of 'cheap travel' in swimming and how to achieve it.
The catch and pull technique in swimming and how to maximize efficiency.
The importance of practicing slow swimming to perfect stroke technique.
Transcripts
this is Olympian Dan Smith in 2019 a
video of him went viral with more than 1
million people viewing this video of him
swimming 100 m in 1 minute and 10
seconds Dan made this pace look so easy
and effortless he had people wondering
what is he doing in his stroke that I'm
not how is he able to swim this fast but
make it look so easy we caught up with
Dan Smith to ask him these questions and
to find out what he's doing as he swims
that allows him to be so efficient my
name is Dan Smith and I'm a retired
Olympic swimmer I was fortunate enough
to swim for about 21 years of my life um
really high highs as you could imagine
but also really really low lows at times
so um yeah really really passionate to
see swimmers not experience some of the
stuff I did but also really increase
that technical Insight that they need in
order to take their own swimming to the
next level you always have to remember
that swimming we're in a technical based
sport um it doesn't matter whether
you're a triathlon wanting to get your
Triathlon faster it doesn't matter if
you're a competitive swimmer wanting to
get to a state or national level it
doesn't matter if you're a beginner
swimmer you have to understand that
you're in a technical sport naturally as
swimmers we think about getting fitter
before we get faster and we're spending
all this time doing these laps and I'm
truly yet to understand how much of a
purpose they actually serve our swimming
um so for me the First Fundamental truth
to understand in swimming is we're in a
soft surface so you have to make sure
that your body is so well tuned and
primed for your swimming goals and then
secondly you have to learn how to
connect with the water if you can't
connect with the water you're never
going to be able to drive and a friend
of mine recently Jack mlen he said the
water's actually trying to give you some
sort of feedback it's trying to actually
connect with you and another quote that
I really really like is Alex popof um
and you can watch him all over YouTube
he says that if you befriend the water
it will help you move and when we
befriend the water it helps us move and
it's such a true thing you think about
our friends like well I hope so but
we're not mean to our friends we don't
fight our friends if we want them to be
our friend it's the same with the water
you don't want to fight it to work for
you it's all about connection it's all
about these kind of words that help us
connect with the water so just remember
we're in a technical sport invest the
time invest your resources get upskilled
in that area and you can do laps
whenever you want you can go to any
program in the world and do laps you
could go to anywhere in the world and do
laps what we do struggle to get in
swimming is that technical feedback or
that technical awareness or that
upskilling so that's where I would
invest most my time so what things do I
think about when trying to maintain my
body position or my head position it's a
swimming is a very awkward sport like we
are in a soft surface not a hard surface
so you can't just be all bendy and
floppy and and just guess how you want
to be in the water you have to to
actually make sure that your body's
helping you not hurting you that it's
actually setting you up for success and
not hindering your success so whenever
we're thinking about body position and
this is why my physio helped me with a
lot and my um coach is what we would do
a lot is making sure that our chest um
which is up here is on our rib cage so
it's like a bit of a compressed feeling
down on our rib cage which what that
does is then straighten our back up and
once we have a straight back then we can
start to pierce through that water we
don't want to have a lumber curve in our
back and be sticking our back sides out
in the water or have any water on our
back in swimming we're trying to
minimize that as much as possible drag
minimization trying to cut through that
water the higher we sit on the water the
faster we're going to be so for me
there's a couple of really simple cues
that would fix that for myself which was
thinking about chest down which is like
getting that feeling towards your chest
and you can work on this whether you're
at work whether you're at school whether
you're you know in everyday life you can
be working on this posture stuff and
then thinking about tummy nice and tight
so our core should be nice and on I like
thinking of it as the glue it's the
thing that holds all this together and
then thirdly which is our head position
is making sure that that chin is back if
our Chin's back then we' got that nice
Linen in the water and then we can start
really setting ourselves up if we can
get it on land first it makes it so much
easier in the water so do I recognize
whether my body position is high enough
probably not um that's why feedback is
important yeah it is hard out there to
have that real constant feedback on your
stroke um you know as swimmers we can
have so many swimmers in the squad and
not get that feedback that we want but
we're so lucky nowadays with technology
you know we can have a simple smartphone
a simple GoPro on the bottom of the pool
and film ourselves and start to
self-analyze what's actually going on
with our stroke that's something that I
did hugely just cuz I was in in in Elite
Hub didn't mean that I had that real
personal intentional feedback that I
wanted so I had to become a master
myself I had to become my own master of
technique um so does my kick change when
I increase the speed um of course it
does now I was a very leg dominant
swimmer when we think about being a leg
dominant swimmer the problem is is our
legs are such bigger muscles than our
arm muscles so if we're sitting in our
legs too much what that means is then
we're going to burn way too much energy
for what we need to do so all the race
that we need all the energy we need to
consum ve ourselves for in the race so
we need to be I would say only 20% in
our legs and 80% in our arms cuz our
arms are much smaller muscles but also
very strong and that's where the
connection Point comes from so whenever
you're trying to increase your speed or
increase your kick the biggest thing
that we want to make sure that we're not
doing and I'm just speaking I was
actually a 290 second for a 50 m kick um
so I was a very great kicker but it's
very very hard to bring that level of
kick into your swimming because again
like I was saying before your swimming
your kick is only about 20% of your
stroke so what we want to make sure is
we don't have a nice big knee bend kick
because think about how much weaker our
knees are versus our um hamstrings and
our glutes so we want to have more of a
straight-legged kick nice relaxed ankles
and we want to start practicing kicking
from our back sides or our glutes and
using our hamstrings so we can really
leverage our kick and it should be
assisting our stroke not driving our
stroke and as we increase our speed we
narrow that kick up more and then we
start to generate the power um through
our arms and our kicks follow the stroke
not lead our stroke is there a typical
breathing pattern that I follow I
personally hate bilateral breathing if
you think about all the best swimmers in
the world how many swimmers do you see
that actually can do bilateral breathing
well there isn't too many probably more
so on the distance swimmers but there's
not 100 m 200 M even 400 m swimmer that
actually bilateral breathes well so the
I like thinking about um and the advice
that we normally give is you would only
give about 20 20% of your lap should be
bilateral breathing and that that makes
sure that you're actually swimming the
way that you want to race you don't want
to swim and bilateral breathe for the
sake of bilateral breathing if you don't
race that way or it's slower what's the
point of that so the only reason why
anyone would Breathe both sides is to
make sure that you're not creating any
sort of imbalances in your stroke and
what that does is help balance out those
neck muscles a little bit more unless
you are that certain kind of freak of
nature that can bilateral breathe at
faster speeds then I recommend Bilal
breathing but from my perspective and my
experience I have not seen too many
swimmers be able to do that so in
regards to rotation in swimming it's
it's a really really hard thing to wrap
your head around especially if you're
are more of a beginner or a triathlete
because the thing that we want to do is
we want to try and keep our hips flat
and only rotate our upper body now what
a lot of swimmers do is they rotate the
whole body so hips and shoulders at the
same time and all is that does is makes
us break down in our connection point if
we think about cross connection or
anything the connection point should
come from pretty much the tip of our
fingertips all the way down to the tip
of our toes so from our left arm all the
way through to our right leg so if we
think about it if I'm if my legs and my
hips if my upper body and my hips rotate
to the side and then that that's going
to make me break down and not have that
good connection that I want to but if I
keep my hips flatter and keep that
really good cross connection and only
rotate my upper body then I can really
set myself up to catch properly and get
that really good lever in that
connection point with the water um so
one of the most common problems with the
recovery position of the stroke is what
we call
overreaching now it's it's a bit of a
hard thing to explain because the only
thing that I've found work for the brain
is to actually tell it to swim shorter
now you don't want to be too vocal about
a queue like that but if you quickly
dissect a lot of people's Strokes or
analyze their stroke you'll often find
that their elbows are entering in before
their hands now the problem with that is
when the hand enters and you enter in
here it naturally creates a dropped
elbow through the stroke so if you have
a dropped elbow and you're swimming like
this can you truly connect with the
water 100% no so what we want to do is
make sure that our fingertips are always
entering in before our elbows now a
simple drill to correct that and you can
add this into your warmup into your
normal program or whatever whatever your
swimming goals are is just adding in a
simple fingernail Trail drill just
dragging those fingertips across the
water and then dropping your hand down
and making sure that um your hand is
entering before your elbow now now the
problem with that is you're moving into
what we call Advanced skills which is
frustrating it is annoying it is really
hard to get it to work for you because
what actually happens is is then we're
moving into what we call Overhead hand
awareness now what's the problem with
overhead hand awareness is you can't
actually see what you're actually doing
and that's the hard thing so often
there's a disconnect between our brain
and our hands and if that's disconnected
how can you actually get your hands to
enter in right so when you're
progressing your stroke and you're
trying to enter your hands in properly
do it slowly do it make sure that you're
doing it um really carefully because
it's it's a very very hard thing to
master and one I struggle with with a
lot of my career so how long would I try
and keep my arm out in front of me now
that's really going to depend on how
well you're connecting through the back
end of the stroke if we think about all
the if we think about all the power that
we have all the connection all the power
all that drive forward movement comes
through what we do through the back of
the stroke so if we don't have a great
back end of the stroke and we force here
it means we force here but if we have
great push in through any of our Strokes
or great pull through the back of the
stroke that allows time to set up the
front of the stroke and then we can
connect with the water now we don't want
to be resting out on our arms and
developing all kinds of funky movement
patterns that um are kind of coping
mechanisms and and create more stroke
flaws but if we're working on our
movement pattern through the back of the
stroke that allows time up the front of
the stroke and my coach used to call
that cheap travel which means why
everyone else is spinning their wheels
you are connecting with the water and
drive forward because you're actually
connected with the water and you're
allowing time to set up through the
front of the stroke so that's really a
big thing we were trying to work on is
that cheap travel feeling in our stroke
um so how would I describe my catch and
pull again we're moving into what we
call Advanced skills body position is
always the easiest thing to correct but
if our body position isn't right in the
water and then we go start working our
movement patterns you are going to be
wasting years of your swimming like I
have personally throughout my career so
the first thing is we want to make sure
your body is sitting as well as possible
in the water it's not too hard to fix
with a few simple drills and Corrections
and the right cues but whenever we're
thinking about catching the water we're
always starting up with the setup of the
catch if we think about our catch
position and we're not setting up right
or we're not making sure that we're
entering into that nice high elbow
position then unfortunately we're not
going to be able to get the catch right
so we we have a saying that dropped
elbows drop swimmers and it's a really
really important concept to understand
dropped elbows drop swimming and you
pretty much just give away precious time
to your competitors so what we're trying
to do is make sure that when the hand's
entering and you can just do some simple
kicking drills in the catch position
making sure we got a nice high elbow
catch position and what we're doing is
starting to develop that really good
overhead hand awareness that catching
feeling in the water and what and what
that's going to do is help set up the
stroke now to finish this off the thing
that I would personally recommend and
it's a very simple thing to start
thinking about to get the catch right
wherever the fingertips go your elbow
goes so if your fingertips go in and you
shoot them forward what does that do it
creates a dropped elbow which drops
swimmers so what we want to do is make
sure that when our hands enter we're
shooting our fing fingertips down or um
get over the barrel as Brenton likes to
call it or we like to say you know even
spearing a donut if you ANS are entering
in forward and you and you want to spear
the donut and have a good Feast on a
donut make sure that your hands are
actually going down and getting into
that nice high elbow position if I go in
and my hands go up I completely miss the
dut or I can't get my hands over the
barrel as Brenton would like to say so
make sure that when you're working on
your catch and pull to make sure that
your elbows are getting in that high
elbow position and the how we do that is
making sure that wherever our fingertips
go our elbow goes so where I would apply
the most power in the stroke is probably
not what you would expect to me the
power whether you're butterfly whether
you're freestyle whatever stroke you're
doing the power always comes from the
back end of the stroke so it's the
inward sweep and the outward sweep
through the back of the stroke now if
you don't have that you're just going to
rush here and then Rush the setup of
your catch so to me what we need to do
and that's why learning to swim slow
perfectly is an art it's a skill it's a
thing that you have to learn a lot of
our laps as swimmers is done at a very
awkward Pace that doesn't actually help
our swimming um and so what we want to
do is make sure that when we're doing
our slow swimming we got not too much
pressure on the stroke we've got nice
downhill swimming and we're really
working on the good movement patterns
and we're starting to create those good
habits in our swimming and we work on
that at slow speeds first and then start
progressing it and that's what we were
able to do really really well um in
swimming
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