Last night’s swim went well. The focus was on building endurance. We did fairly rapid sets of 100m in 2 minutes or less. Towards the latter half of the session, I was gassed and started fading. As we get more intense over the coming weeks, I’ll have to bring something that will help me sustain my energy throughout the training.
My shoulder was OK, as I’m still working on improving my stroke. What’s odd is that now that I’m doing it properly, I find that my right arm almost comes through too quickly, throwing the rest of my movement off and making breathing just a touch awkward. This is likely because my rhythm has always relied on a poor stroke and poor timing.
Gabbi finally noticed that I almost always breath to my left only. This is bad for so many reasons:
- Poor rhythm – breathing from both sides
- Wasted energy – breathing from only one side means that I’m missing out on opportunities to keep my head down on odd numbered strokes, resulting in less shifting and more movement forward
- Neck strain – constantly shifting to just one side increases risk of strain to the left side of my neck and head
- Correction – I tend to over-compensate when my left arm comes over, pushing me slightly off course. This may also be why my right arm (and shoulder) faces more strain
Unfortunately, this is a really bad habit that will be nearly impossible (although I won’t say ‘never’) to break before June. I’ll try, but it’s hard to break from that comfort zone.
When I do try to breath out of my right side, I get modestly disoriented and tend to get a nice big gulp of water instead of air because I’m not in the habit of turning my head out as far as I should.
