Remake of My nine weeks of practice! by

johnny_hunter434 — 2018-11-21 13:27:38 UTC

based on the video assessment, I decided to focus on leg propulsion in the water as it was Harry's weakest element of the front crawl. He was kicking from his knees and not his hips. So I got Harry to do two exercises that may help him incorporate his legs into the overall stroke. Firstly, I got harry to kick off the wall with his arms fully extended out and just focus on leg action (whilst reinforcing him to kick from hip). From there, I then got him to hold onto the wall with his arms fully extended just kicking his legs (trying to mimic the correct movement).

Coaches Reflection -

The progress was slow as Harry was not using his legs whatsoever in the front crawl. So I kept the drills very basic and worked only on legs to make it more simple to understand. The purpose was to get him to rise his legs to the surface of the water, so his hips wouldn't be laying low and he could actually kick from there. Both drills worked well, it helped him engage his core as he didn't have to focus on arm movements.

Students Reflection -

I enjoyed the first two weeks as personally I wanted to improve my technique. By breaking down the stroke and focusing on just the leg action helped me understand what I needed to do. I now know its important to kick from your hips rather than knees to preserve energy. However, I thought the second lesson was quite similar to the first and found it boring after 10 minutes.
---------------------------------------
In this drill, I was looking for legs near the surface of the water and kicking from hips. This mimicked the movement of the front crawl and simplified it by just extending the arms.

johnny_hunter434 — 2018-11-21 13:32:51 UTC

Moving on from week 1 & 2, I decided the most logical thing to do was introduce arms into the stroke for the this week. Few things I noticed from observing the video was:
1. They weren't rotating fully (shoulders not brushing off ears).
2. The shoulders were dipping when rotating arms

I used these two mini goals to guide my session today and ultimately reach the performance goal.

Coaches Reflection -

I found when trying to incorporate the arms into the stroke was the most challenging. There were a lot of different teaching points you had to get across to the student in order for them fully the technique. As my demonstrating technique was poor that maybe rubbed off on Harry slightly which made it more difficult explaining the correct technique. If I were to do it again I would spend much longer focusing on the small little details that I missed that may improve his stroke. Overall I felt it went really well, we managed to achieve the goal I set out and the lesson seemed enjoyable.

Students Reflection -

Today went okay, I picked up a few tips that I didn't know. There is a lot of small adjustments I needed to make with my arms in order to correct my technique. Bringing in the float really helped me break down the skill. In saying that, I still found it difficult when the coach was demonstrating the techniques, it was hard to understand what he was doing outside of the water. Maybe next time he could get into water and give demonstrations.

----------------------------------------
In this exercise the goal was to get the arms working fluently with each other and not let the shoulders . The Que was when the leading arm was fully extended, the other arm would be coming up ready to propel forward. I used the float so he could focus on one arm at a time. It worked really well on timing. This exercise also helped Harry engage his core which is vital when performing the front crawl stroke.

johnny_hunter434 — 2018-11-21 13:39:56 UTC

I allocated the final week for concentrating on what we had learned and applying that in 25 Metre swimming assessments.

We started off with a quick five minute dynamic warm-up to get the muscles warm as the pool was quite cold.
There were three assessments in which I recorded all of them and looked at the specific performance goal. The reason for this was to break it down into sections to allow for better in-depth analysis. Secondly, to provide visual feedback for Harry if he wanted to work on his technique independently after the four weeks. Lastly, I had a rating scale from 1-5 on how well I thought Harry executed each performance goal. (1= very poor, 2= poor, 3=average, 4 = good, 5 = very good)

Coaches Reflection -

Assessing our progress!

Leg Propulsion Analysis:
There were a considerable amount of positive progression from the first week on the placement of Harry's legs in the water. They were now up near the surface and gently kicking. He was still bending his knees sometimes throughout the stroke but certainly integrated his hips gave a lot more. I gave harry a 3/5 as there were still room for improvement but considering the short time-span I thought he did very well.

Arm Action:
The arms were coming up much higher and making bigger turns in the water which was pleasing to see. But it was still evident Harry was bringing up the arm by his side too early (just as other elbow hits the water). It is just a timing issue and with more time I feel I would have corrected it.
His left shoulder seemed to dip a lot more than his right on arm rotations (maybe a sign of poor shoulder mobility on his left side). Also, he was cupping (webbing) his fingers which was a bonus. Overall, it was a good improvement so I gave harry a 4/5.

Bilateral Breathing:
I don't think we achieved this goal whatsoever in the swimming assessments. Harry was constantly turning his head to the left. The one time he attempted to to turn his head to the right he swallowed water and had to stop. This may be down to the fact he is used to breathing on his left side and found it quite hard to change. In hindsight, I could've made it easier by allowing him to use a float for the swimming assessment or not have the test as long. With all that said I give Harry a 2/5 as we didn't achieve our goal and there were not much progress. Again, more time needed.

Students Reflection -

I really enjoyed this weeks lesson as it was slightly competitive - I wanted to do improve on my initial assessments. I was able to see the parts of the front crawl I improved on and some areas that I need to develop through the use of video. I did think the swimming tests were maybe too long, I was getting tired near the end and I could feel my technique getting worse. Maybe shorter distances next time.

johnny_hunter434 — 2018-11-21 15:27:03 UTC

Working on our third and final performance goal I introduced drills focusing on breathing technique. It was clear than Harry was only turning his head to left to breath and was not consistent on every 3rd stroke.

Coaches Reflection -

As this session was based around trying to achieve bilateral breathing it was very drill (technique) orientated. The first drill worked very well as got Harry to turn his head both ways on every 3rd stroke. However, when we moved onto the second drill you could see Harry was getting frustrated with himself as he couldn't perform bilateral breathing. So I took it back a step and just focused on the stationary drill (below). Therefore, the session was very slow moving and possibly boring for Harry - but technique was the primary focus not enjoyment. The session didn't go as well as the previous two weeks as I don't feel we achieved our performance goal.

Students Reflection -

Today's practise drill worked really well in terms of knowing where and when to place your head during a full stroke. It helped me turn my head to the right as I was having difficulty with that. The second drill was much tougher as I had to use my legs. I now understand breathing is an important aspect of the front crawl and can work on the area's I need to develop. However, throughout the lesson I felt John spent very long on the same drill and I got bored fairly rapidly. Maybe if he had of introduced some sort of challenge it might have made it more interesting.
----------------------------------------

Practising the correct breathing technique.

Standing, knees bent, turning head to side with cheek placed on water.
- using this drill allowed Harry to understand where his head should be when trying to achieve bilateral breathing. By standing up in the water he could focus solely on his upper body movements.