Brad Tandy - Endless Pool Balance Freestyle

Important Note to the Viewer

LESSONS: 22 VIDEOS

Stationary Front Float - Brad

Right. So the first exercise that we're gonna get started with, with Brad is just basic balance. So from fingertips to toes, you see how his core is nice and stable. His hips are right at the surface. His feet are pointed. So really, really good line. And you notice that even in this position, he's gonna be floating, moving around the pools. The way the wind's blowing, the way the current is in the pool. That's what true balance is so that any movement that he makes on that line is going to be very, very productive. Brad, what's your take on this? Nothing wrong with the good line. Kind of sets up the foundation for the rest of the strokes. Hold tight. You can hold that line, throw strikes. This is going to reduce resistance.

Balance Buoy at Hips

So now, while Bradshaw did initially with the balance, with just his body line, if you have problems doing that, if you want to feel what this is like, put a poor boy on and just wear it normally and you can see that it really takes away the responsibility of the core, but it does set you up with a good feeling of what you're going for. So this would be kind of step one in learning what it's supposed to feel like. And you have a little artificial flotation and you can focus on on a really rigid body line at that point. Yes. The pool boy, if he helps with the feet, thinking that's gonna be the first problem, trying to hold the line. We don't realize how heavy the feet actually are.

Buoy at Ankles

So progressing forward with this exercise. Again, we started with nothing. Now when you move the poor boy all the way down to the ankles, it puts a little bit more weight on the core. So the responsibility of the balance does come more toward the middle because you've got buoyancy with the lungs up front. You've got the pool boy all the way at the back. So this also gives you a great feeling about how stable the core should be. But it is a little tougher to do. And you can really check out your midsection on this one. Yes. So putting that down to those below the feet, it's going to help gauge the cool a lot more, making sure that we get the lower back and the cool gauge, keeping the hips up high, which is a very, very big fundamental moving forward in the rest of the strokes.

Head Lead Front Balance

So just nice and relaxed, really, really slow water speed, so to start building a stroke. We want to just start to take that balance that we just had and move it forward with just some gentle kicking. So Brad's just kicking into the flow. You can see the head, the back, a little bit of the rear, all in line. So a really nice job. This is just nice and gentle and relaxed. He's got a snorkel on right now. We're gonna show without the snorkel in just a minute and show how you can kind of re-establish your balance and your body line. Very good drill. Well, we want to feel on this way, our body is in reference to the water, how the water feels moving past us. One thing we did notice is a lot of resistance up in the shoulders to work on that next.

Shoulder Shrug

So a brand is going to do next. He's going to actually change the shape of his shoulders. Right now, they're very square. So he's kind of a blunt object rolling through now as he shrugs the shoulders up. He actually becomes a little smaller. You can see he moves forward in the water flow because the water speed is not changing here. So you can experiment with this and see if you're going faster or slower. Check what your heart rate is. And so this becomes very, very important, especially to someone that's as fast as Brad to make sure that the shape that he shows the water is going to be the most hydrodynamic possible in order for him to gain the most efficiency from each stroke. As we have the broad shoulders, it's a lot of resistance coming down. You want to try and make the arrow points up in front. You see the resistance reducing the drag, making us to be more efficiently through the water. This is very prominent in the breaststroke pullout before we get into our final stroke.

Forward Breath Balance Recovery

So we're going to try that head lead exercise with no no snorkel right now, and you're going to see some things that happen. So as Brad starts this off, we want him to take a breath by looking directly forward, making sure he doesn't use his hands. And you see how he completely falls out of balance. But instead of trying to kick his way back up, he takes his head and his chest down to the depth of the hips. And then the entire body rises. So this is learning how to push your way down to balance rather than try to kick your way up to balance. This drill shows us the difference in changing our line and how much can affect our body and our movement in the water. Very good to do future rules on what not to do. If you go to.

Head Lead Rotation

So once we've set the foundation of balance on your stomach, we're going to introduce a little bit of rotation here. First, Brad gets himself nice and balanced. And then he finds a good position in the pool and he simply rotates one of the shoulders out, goes back to the front. Balance rotates the other shoulder out. So this is starting to introduce rotation because you do definitely want to swim freestyle on your side. And if you can master balance without the deleveraging arm out front, you are going to have a such a better core and stable body line that as you progress forward, you can build a much better freestyle. It's a great drill, obviously, for freestyle backstroke, making sure that we get the rotation. The trick is keeping the hips nice and flat. Naturally, we are going to rotate with that and keep our core engaged and make sure that we get the full rotation around without breaking our line.

Rotate To Extension

Sorry, you're starting a home based position, we're going to start to add some length to the body. I have had to speed up the water a little bit because as Brad moves forward from front to side, I'll leave that. As soon as he extends that arm, his body becomes more hydrodynamic. And he just shoots forward in the pool. So you won't experience this in in the normal pool because you're going to you will go faster. You won't necessarily have to change the water speed. But again, it's setting up the foundation. It's then rotating the entire core and then lengthening the body to become the most hydrodynamic that you can. Yeah, by lifting the body, obviously creating a much tighter streamline and longer vessel. And you can clearly see same speed on the pressure, but moving a lot more forward with ease, having the streamline position with other hand up in front.

Gentle Balanced Catch

We're just going to start to set up the pattern or the path of the hands from the balance position. There's gonna be a very gentle fall back of the hand. So it's flat. You rotate the body. So again, establishing balance, then balancing on your side, making the arm extended, and then simply drop the hand and come back to extension. So you're really not pulling much. You want to imagine that you're gonna have this great pull, but you're doing it in slow motion with very little power. So you're practicing a great stroke in slow motion around a very stable and balanced board. Fine. So, again, don't power it focused mostly on the balance. Let the hand just fall through. Using the line like we spoke about, it's very important to make sure that we get the catch. Do you know when it fights against the water use to advantage. Use a line to cut through the water rather than try to power through. Take your time with this drill. It's all about feel.

Position 11 Kick

So we're just going to go with a position eleven kick now that we've worked on the core body line and stability. So Brad's just going to kick with his hands directly in front of his shoulders and position. Eleven. So not a streamlined kick, but the arms directly in front of the shoulders. So, again, it looks like an eleven. It's pretty simple. And again, you're just looking at the alignment from the shoulder to the hands. So let's grab with this drill. I get to see the reflection on the bottom. Is your hand placement out in front to make sure that we're not outside of the shoulders or two in on the shoulders, right in line with it, which is maybe once our freestyle catch and entry.

Finger Drop Catch Drill

Once we've set up that position, eleven kick. Now you have the opportunity to just play with the initial setup of the catch. So just dropping the fingers into the flow just a little bit. You're really focusing on trying to keep the elbows nice and high and just allowing the fingers to go down. This is kind of like what starts first when you're swimming freestyle. So rather than pushing the entire arm down, you're really focusing on the fingers, the forearms and keeping the elbow nice and high at the beginning of the catch. This is a great drill, finding out in front where it should start on the pole position in the pull of the front of the freestyle stroke. A lot of resistance. Using the water against me helps you find that connecting position on in front.

Position 11 Set up Stroke

So, again, we're going very slowly. This is to make sure that we don't add too much power too soon. So we go back into position 11 kick dropped the fingertips, then drop and pull through. The idea here is that you're setting up this path or pattern of the hand, very linear, a straight line. You're not pushing too hard so that the hand doesn't sweep in and out too much. But it's just directly from front the back and it's making sure that the catch is initiated way out front with a high elbow. And you're just dropping the hand and think of it as swimming fact in slow motion. You're really trying to take your time on this. Yeah. Like you said, take your time on this. Set up the field on the front of the stroke. Reset back. Get back into that position. Feel the water on. You'll probably ahead as you pull through the freestyle stroke.