Call The Suit: Evening Swim Clinic With Sheila Taormina

Last night, 10 swimmers of Monday Tri Swim group had their practical session with Sheila. She led us through specific drills and simple assessments that focused on the swim techniques of the best swimmers in the world. This is a summary of what we learnt and experienced from the passionately talented, 1996 Olympics gold-medalist in the 200m swim relay held in Atlanta. We learnt by discovering for ourselves how our strokes felt against the water. It felt elusive and subtle at times, yet deliberate and obvious in other moments.

We warmed up with gentle front-crawl strokes, with Sheila verbally emphasizing the high elbow pull and engaging our lats (not shoulders). It was revelation when we felt how the correct muscles worked to propel us through our watery medium. 

Having a streamlined body after your (low) push-off (from the wall) is important. Shoulder flexibility is a skill to strive for as it offers us greater stability and range of motion.

Bands are good for building arm strength and enhancing your high elbow pull, however we need not trace a circular path on the recovery phase. Keep your wrist straight, and remember to salute!

We did pull-buoy drills, with one arm – not easy as it isolates the leading arm.

The finish of the high-elbow, arm pull activates our triceps and completes the continuum of propulsion.

We enjoyed making and seeing vortices (whirlpools) during our sculling session. The emphasis is to ‘feel’ the water on our palms, wrist and forearms. We were enthralled when we were successful in making these vortices during our 'pull' phase.

The Polo Boys? Our group underwater shot before we ended the class on a swimmer's high.

Group shot with our Coach. Big thanks to Wilson Ang for helping us out!

Photo-credits: Wilson Ang, Richard Leong & Sheila Taormina

World Tour Swim Clinic With Sheila Taormina

Here is a photo-log of our lecture session with Sheila on Wednesday night. She arrived from Hong Kong for her 18-24 October leg in Singapore; she heads off for Cape Town and Johannesberg immediately after this. 10 members of the TriFam Monday Night Swim will be doing our swim session on Friday with her, and we are excited about testing out her ‘perfected techniques’ that translate to actual speed for us in the near future. In a nutshell, the glide increases stroke time that could be translated instead to a higher rate or shorter stroke. The emphasis is on feel of catching the water, activation of the lats muscles, creating the ‘vortex’, and ‘rolling over the barrel’. You can enquire with Elite Customs for small group sessions still.

Here are highlights of our fun and educational evening:

Everyone had his copy of ‘Call The Suit’ autographed by the Olympic gold-medalist

Finally, I met Sheila who I interviewed a month ago (one of our most read pieces ever).

Everyone got a chance to hold, wear and pose with Sheila’s gold medal that has seen much action (and boosted confidence for children and adults alike)

Master-bike fitter and founder of Elite Customs, David Greenfield wore it around his confident neck

Sheila demonstrating how the swimming bands works best for learning the pull phase of the front crawl

She put such passion into teaching that our hour-long lecture exceeded, much to our appreciation

Photo-credit: Richard Leong (who is also a participant of the workshop)