The best way to learn most skills is to simplify them, which is what Andrew Sheaff has done here with arm recoveries to make you a more efficient swimmer <\/p>
A lot of triathletes struggle with their arm recoveries<\/a>. It\u2019s difficult to recover the arms smoothly over the surface without effort, all while keeping your body line tight. <\/strong><\/p>\n If the arms are swinging side to side, the body is going to do the same. Just as importantly, if the arms aren\u2019t recovering effectively, it\u2019s going to be more difficult to execute strong arm pulls<\/strong><\/a> as the arms will be out of position. Not good!<\/p>\n For a variety of reasons, improving the arm pull is difficult. It\u2019s an odd movement, you\u2019re in an unstable environment, and there are a lot of other skills that you\u2019re probably working on as well!<\/p>\n I\u2019ve found that the best way to learn most skills is to simplify the skill rather than isolating it. That\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re going to do here. We\u2019re going to perform a simplified version of the arm recoveries, then work to transition into regular freestyle<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n To help learn to recover the arms straight forward, start recovering them under the water. It\u2019s going to make the action much simpler, because you don\u2019t have to lift them out and over the water.<\/p>\n It will allow you to focus on making the recoveries very straight and very direct. That will help you keep your body in alignment, rather than wiggling side to side<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n Just as importantly, it will allow you to focus on pulling straight back. As mentioned above, when the arms aren\u2019t recovered in a direct manner, it\u2019s more likely that they\u2019ll be out of position to pull effectively.<\/p>\n Simply alternate between repetitions of underwater recovery with repetitions of regular freestyle. The goal should be to make the recoveries with the regular freestyle feel as seamless as the underwater recovery.<\/p>\nGo under the water<\/strong><\/h2>\n