Do you need help improving your entry phase for front crawl?
The entry phase starts from the moment your hand enters the water to the point your catch phase starts. A correct hand entry will enable you to start the stroke well balanced and will encourage you to glide and achieve a greater distance per stroke, helping you to slice through the water more efficiently.
If you're not performing the entry phase correctly then you could be losing valuable time and efficiency, not to mention any one or all of the following points:
• Increased drag and resistance by elbow entering with your hand at the same time • Snaking and cross over of legs from cross over on entry • No rhythm and timing from arms windmilling / out of synch • Lots of bubbles from not having a glide / slapping into the water putting the brakes on from a cross over on entry, or hand pointing upwards • Fatigue in shoulders from over reaching on entry • Loss of balance on lead arm • Slicing across the water in the catch from entry from a thumb first or little finger entry point
If this is happening to your entry phase then it is really worthwhile having your swim stroke analysed and your technique corrected to mainly reduce drag and resistance and thus improve streamlining
If you have a swim technique problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the Speedy Swimming Team!
Front crawl video analysis in an endless pool at Tribal in Chertsey:
