you can't use raw power to go that much faster. Most people suffer in that as they're recovering an arm, turning up, getting their mouth out of the water to take a breath, they begin the next pull to push down and keep their head up to breathe. They've immediately decreased their length of waterline by two feet or more and this immediately creates wake drag. You have to be able to put your ear on your bicep with a fully extended arm and keep it their throughout the entire breath. Recovery arm meets the extended one, rotate back down and THEN begin the next pull.A simple thing to write. A considerably more difficult thing to do practice and perfect in the water! For me as well. THIS more than anything else, will probably improve your swimming distance and speed by a huge amount!
My favorite is FistGloves: Swimming with your hand in a fist feels really strange! It forces you to have good balance because you can't use your hands to push yourself up out of the water. I usually do five warm-up laps with the gloves on and then take them off to do my training. Wow! It feels like someone has glued dinner plates to my hands! You'll feel like you're going as fast as a dolphin! I then do my five cool-down laps with the gloves on to make sure my body remembers proper balance in the water until the next swim.Hip fins: These are fins on a belt that you wear around your waist. They do two things; they force you to roll. If you’re not rolling, your hands will hit them on each stroke. And they also provide some resistance during that roll and twist which will strengthen your core.Pull buoy: This is the buoy that you hold between your knees to help keep your legs up. This helps to isolate your arm-stroke to work on perfecting it. While I find that a pull buoy is good for isolating the arms for correcting issues, I think swimming with a pull buoy too much can be bad because it gives you a false sense of balance.Fins: The same with fins. They are good for helping to isolate the arms, but using them too much gives you a false sense of speed and balance. Use them until the issue is corrected and then stop.Hand Paddles: These are meant to create resistance during the pull to improve lat strength. I say, forget them and concentrate on form and balance. Spend some non-swimming-day time in the weight room on the lat bench to work on building strength. We're all about balance and form here.Kick board: While a kickboard is a good tool for getting the feel of forward kicking power, I prefer to do “vertical kicking.” Go into the deep end of the pool, keep your arms around your chest and using only your legs, and try to maintain a vertical position by kicking alone. This will quickly let you feel what is the optimum way to kick.Speaking of kicking. While sprinters may use a strong kick, we are triathletes. Our goal is to get through the water as quickly as possible, while saving enough energy (especially in our legs) for the upcoming bike and run. I believe in a small kick which keeps the legs within that two-foot-tube that I wrote about earlier. Once your legs go outside that tube, they increase drag and slow you down. So your kick comes from your butt, not your knees. Try to keep your knees relatively straight and use your glutes, quads and hamstrings to do the kick. Don’t worry so much about a strong kick or the rhythm; it will naturally fall into place. Just concentrate on not bending your knees too much and keeping your ankles within 18 inches of each other.BONUS Extra on Endurance:
"Why do I get so tired and can only do 2-4 lengths before stopping from exhaustion?"Everyone has an initial plateau from a mind-body connection when it comes to beginning exercise. Let me explain. When you begin running or biking, your muscles send a signal to your brain saying, "we need more oxygen and glucose fuel!” Your brain's first and foremost reaction is to want to conserve as much energy as possible and not burn it, so it says in your subconscious, "then we should stop.” But since most people have biked and run much more than they have swam, they can push that