Swimming

A high elbow catch is not about keeping your elbow close to the surface. Brenton Ford spends the video on the misconception that sinks most adult attempts: high means the elbow sits above a straight line drawn from shoulder to fingertips, not that it is near the water. In practice the elbow is ten to fifteen centimetres under the surface, even in elite swimmers. Once you see that, the whole shape of the catch makes sense.

Why it matters: with the elbow in that position, the forearm presses back on the water rather than down. Pressing down moves you up. Pressing back moves you forward. Ford recommends starting with a snorkel and fins so you can isolate the arm shape without fighting balance. Watch this before you go looking for hour-long 'ultimate catch' breakdowns. It corrects the wrong mental model first, which is what most of the other videos assume you already have.

Running out of air is usually an exhalation problem, not an inhalation problem. Paul Newsome's fix is to concentrate on 'exhaling smoothly and deeply underwater, just like a relaxed sigh' so that by the time the head rotates there is only air to take in. Most adults hold air during the face-down phase and then try to do both halves of the breath in the half-second their mouth is clear. It does not work.

The other useful point is the 20% drift figure: unilateral breathers 'often find themselves veering off course by up to 20%' in open water. Worth knowing before you pick a breathing side and stay there. The post also covers drafting, anti-clockwise loops and injury prevention, which is more than you need for a first read. It assumes body position and rotation are roughly there; if your hips sink the moment you breathe, fix that first.

Kick from the hip, not the knee. USMS puts it plainly: the flutter kick's whipping action starts at your hip, and if you kick predominantly from your knee, 'your progress will be almost nonexistent.' The kick is much tighter in the water than people expect: small range of motion, quads and hip flexors driving the downbeat, hamstrings and glutes the upbeat. Ankles need to be mobile enough to point the feet backwards.

USMS covers two-, four-, and six-beat rhythms as different tools, not correct-versus-wrong. Their main framing on propulsion is the one worth remembering: the kick is 'not responsible for a large amount of propulsion' but it holds your stroke together by keeping the hips up. Prioritise body position and catch. Keep the kick honest, do not chase power in the legs.

Drills as set padding produce nothing. Drills as diagnostics produce feel. Paul Newsome uses two: sculling (he describes the action as 'subtle forearm and hand movements') and doggy paddle with a high-elbow catch and short, powerful pulls. Both are about the same question: can you feel pressure against your palm and forearm? If not, you are slipping the water, and his fix is to slow things right down until the pressure is there.

Useful if you rack up kilometres without getting faster. Not useful if body position is still a problem: sculling with sinking hips teaches a shape you cannot reproduce at speed. Fix posture and rotation first, then come back. The post itself is light on a protocol for transferring feel back into full stroke, so you will need to work out the re-entry sets yourself.

Straight-line swimming in open water is a pacing advantage, not just a navigational one. Kate Rew describes two sighting options: 'croc eyes' (keeping the body flat while bringing the eyes just above the surface, which conserves energy) and the full head-lift, which some swimmers simply find easier. Sighting frequency rises as chop or swell moves you around; ease off once conditions settle. Pick something you are actually swimming towards, not the next buoy.

The point Rew makes best is that navigation is a performance edge, not just a safety one. She swam Windermere with two men twenty years younger than her and came out first, a result she credits largely to swimming in a straight line. If your GPS track from a triathlon looks like a zig-zag, this is the piece. One limit: the post is about sighting, not pacing. For stroke-rate adjustments in chop or current, or pacing a 1500m+ swim by feel, pair with a coached open-water session.