Go Swim DVD's any good?

LancsRider

I am looking as are most of us are to improve my swim stroke and am searching for a DVD to act as a good reference point to take into skill sessions.

Has anyone any experience of the Go swim series. I have found 'Triathlon Skills with Sara McKarty' and 'Freestyle with Karlyn Pipes-Neilsen' on the internet for sale. If so are these a good basis for a triathlon/open water stroke or are they more concerned about developing a form more suitable for short distance pool based races? If anyone has any other suggestions for a DVD then please advise. Am finding it a bit of a minefield given many originate in the States and may not be compatible with my player at home, or will they all work on the PC?

Thanks in advance!

bathtub

Check out swim smooth loads of good stuff on their web site. Also worth downloading their free "Mr Smooth Pro Console"

The SwimSmooth DVD boxset is good too, but a bit steep at £39. I got mine as a freebie for subscribing to 220 a few years back.

http://www.swimsmooth.com/



Also loads of swim training clips on youtube.

Neorn

Thanks bathtub for the wonderful idea.Thanks for your suggestion.I have checked your link and in your link there are lot of swimming DVD's stuff.This information is useful for everyone.

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LancsRider

I have taken up the advice regarding swim smooth, for anyone not too familiar with the site here is a breakdown of what is available and my comments regarding its potential usefullness.

The first freebie on the site is the download for the swim smooth animation. I suspect there may be a variety of opinions at the top level of the sport regarding ideal technique, there may not. Putting these arguments aside I have found the animation a good reference tool to take into the pool in trying to work on little things as I go through my long endurance swims. I suspect that the majority of us would be happy having a stroke this balanced. I think it is also a good reference for someone else to look at your stroke as they have something nice and clean to compare it to.

The next lot of free stuf is the general advice links on the site which gives a lot of solid basic advice. In fact there is so much on the site for free you may feel like I did initialy what is the point in investing in any of the products from the store?

So if you do decide to spend your hard earned cash what can you get. I have puchased the clean up your stroke set and the catch masterclass on dvd. I have also purchased the level 2 training plan for olympic and half-iron distance, though 3 free plans (levels 1-3) come with the main dvd set together with a very usefull pace calculator for excell to show set times based on training zone intensity. I have also purchased some of the training aids which appear in the training programmes.

In putting it all together into a programme requires some initial effort to go through the dvd's and cross reference the swim drills to the training programme. If like me you may find the language a bit foreign at first, and you may have to take along notes and prompts to the pool side, other option is a lap top for the dvd? Is it all worth the expense and time? The answer depends on how much you want to improve your swim time / stroke efficiency. There are other ways to do this, a weekend training camp, swimming lessons from a coach, or to find a regular training session. If like me you need to have a good understanding why you are doing something, and want to do things at your own pace, slowly getting things right, or possibly progressing through muliple sessions in a week not just one, then swim smooth products are one way forward and something I would recomend.

Thanks Bath-Tub