This site is devoted to swimming. Why is it called Twenty-Three Seconds? Because my goal is to swim 50 meters within twenty-three seconds. Follow along as I analyze my crawl stroke to death and maybe you'll learn a few things to improve your own time.

Anchoring In The Water: 38.69 seconds on 50 meters

Posted by heathweaver

Coaches often toss around the concept of getting a feel for the water, which, they say, means to learn to hold on to the water.  Both of these concepts are interesting, but without further explanation leave a lot to be understood of what they actually mean.
The drill I have been working on to develop the […]

Stefan Nystrand Swimming Slowly

Posted by heathweaver

First a few stats about Stefan Nystrand

Birth Date: October 20, 1981
Birth Place: Haninge, Sweden
Height: 193 cm (6′ 3")
weight: 85 kg (187 lbs)

Stefan Nystrand is the current world record holder in the short course 50 meter freestyle and the short course 100 meter freestyle. There are some fantastic videos of his swimming […]

Frame by Frame Analysis of Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett

Posted by heathweaver

This frame by frame analysis was originally on limmatsharks.com. The sequence shown is taken from the 800 m freestyle final in Fukuoka 2001. I won’t repeat the analysis as I think it is enough to see the images and make your own judgements.
The only two points to highlight are: 1) Notice how high their elbows […]

It’s All in the Shoulders: 23.22 seconds on 35 meters

Posted by heathweaver

I am really happy with the progress I am making. The week before last (week 39) was frustrating for me, but I learned an important lesson that made a big difference for me. I figured out that if you want to swim fast, you need to practice swimming fast EVERY DAY. Most of my […]

Swimming Geeks Raise Your Hands: 17.08 seconds on 25 meters

Posted by heathweaver

Yes. I am a geek. Oh well. Breaking personal goals is always fun, but if you see that my 50 meter time is double the current world record time it helps me keep things in perspective.
The chart below is for sprints on 25 meters
 
The chart below is for sprints on 50 meters

Playing With Numbers: 17.38 seconds on 25 meters

Posted by heathweaver

Here is a graph of my fastest times in the last four trips to the pool. 
I recently purchased the SportCount timer and so I can record the time on each lap that I make. I have been recording the times in an Excel worksheet and then looking at the progress. Unfortunately, I have two different […]