Week 25 – Left and then Right and then Left and then…

One of the weirdest things about training is the asymmetry of technique.

First your entire technique is a mess. You’re doing everything wrong. And you’re too clueless to understand how wrong everything is.

Then you build up a certain amount of aerobic and technical base, and you become aware of flaws in your technique, so you start to work on improving them.

First you notice how you don’t breathe on your left side when you swim, so you work to fix that. And by the time you are done, you realize you breathe better on your left side than your right side, so you work on your right side and then you suddenly realize that your left side breathing is a mess… You’re like: woah I am out of balance, my head’s in the wrong position, my arm is flopping like a banana peel and…

So you start working on the left side again. And you know that you’ll be back to the right side.

And the same process holds true for both running and biking.

 

The net effect is that I am feeling like an awkward teenager with a body he has no control over that I am just barely able to move the way I want.

What’s really interesting in all of this process, is that every time I focus on improving technique on the offside, the offside overshoots the improvement. My theory is the following: At time T, because of my overall skill level I am able to affect an improvement of F, at time T+1, because of improvements in fitness and skill, I  am able to affect an improvement of 2F and as a result overshoot my desired improvement. I suspect at some point in time as my fitness level plateaus, my ability to get incremental improvements will diminish, but I am a long way from that point in time.

 

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