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oceanman lake orta

25/6/2015

On Saturday 20 June, the inaugral Lake Orta Oceanman race was held. The 14km race, along the length of Lake Orta was completed in 2 hours 59 min for the first in the elite male category and 3 hours 6 minutes for the first in the elite female category.

And the organiser was none other than 'our' Stefano Falciola. Well done, Stefano! We will see you in August.

Check out Oceanman's facebook page for more details and some fabulous pics.

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Sydney Swimtour

25/6/2015

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A note about our ‘Iconic and Historic Swimming Places of Sydney’ swimtour. I have succumbed to an overwhelming number of suggestions (two at least) that I avoid the busy times of Christmas/New Year 2015 and Easter 2016 when people have family commitments. They are also busy times in Sydney with most hotels already booked out for Christmas.

So now I plan to offer a choice of two dates: November 2015 (tentatively 16th to 20th) and March 2016 (tentatively 14th to 18th). If you would like to put your name down for either of them, please let me know soon-ish and I will send you more detailed information. The cut off for the November tour will be the end of the first week in August.

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European swimtour season

25/6/2015

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Otter Aquatics' European swimtour season will commence soon. Stay tuned for reports on Croatia, Italy and Germany. Contact me for more information on the fabulous swimtours on offer for the European summer of 2016

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end of SWIMMING season

25/6/2015

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For our swimming group, our season has now ended and we will resume on 4 October. Our Open Water Swimming, on the other hand, is very much still going. They are a little dim, these OWSers - they haven't figured out that the water is cold now.

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Swimming tip of the month: ‘the recovery’

8/6/2015

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The recovery is that part of the freestyle arm stroke which occurs out of the water. The recovery pulls the hand and arm out of the water at the end of the pull/push and brings it back to a position in front of the body where it can again enter the water and provide propulsion. It is also one of the least considered aspects of the freestyle stroke, perhaps because it doesn’t itself provide propulsion, but it is critically important to balance the body and to ensure good body alignment. Because the arm moves through the air in the recovery phase, it weighs much more than it does when it is in the water, so small movement errors can significantly disrupt every other part of the stroke.

Here are some techniques to make your recovery more effective:

Keep your arms symmetrical. Each arm’s recovery action should be a mirror image of the other. If one arm swings wider or higher than the other, your body will skew awkwardly and your legs may bend excessively or splay widely. In the pool, you will waste energy in making minor subconscious directional adjustments and, in the open water, you will constantly veer off course and that is a sure way to swim a much longer distance than you intend to. You will make your recovery symmetrical much easier if you use three-stroke/bilateral breathing.

Relax your arm in the recovery. Don’t tense your arm muscles in the recovery. You will want to bring it forward fast only if you want to swim fast but, even then, you must still keep your arm muscles relaxed. This is not a time to put strength into your arm action, so don’t thrash your arm into the water in front of you - that is a completely misplaced and pointless expenditure of energy.

Keep your elbow high and your fingers low. There are a few techniques that may help here:

o   Imagine a piece of string attached to your elbow which pulls it high out of the water

o   Imagine your fingers dangling vertically just above the surface of the water, not high above it

o   Imagine the fingers of your hand to be the bristles of a paint brush which paints an imaginary straight line in the water parallel to the body (it is this imaginary line that your pull and push arm action will soon follow in the water)

Don’t forget to roll/rotate your body. If you do not rotate, you will not be able to pull your elbow straight out of the water or, if you try to do so, you risk injuring your shoulder.

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sydney swim tour

8/6/2015

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Bookings are now being taken for the ‘Iconic and Historic Swimming Places of Sydney’ swimtour from Boxing Day to New Year’s Day.

The price includes return airfares from Brisbane, accommodation, guided tours of the early history of swimming and lifesaving in Australia and supervised swims in places where the kings and queens of Australia’s glory days of swimming learned their trade.

Price: $2,200 – or $2,000 if you book before the end of June. Contact me for further details.

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oceanman lake orta

Sydney Swimtour

European swimtour season

end of SWIMMING season

Swimming tip of the month: ‘the recovery’

sydney swim tour

mark's blog

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