Evaluating my performance in swimming Essay

Introduction In the assessment I am going to evaluate my performance in swimming, I will be analysing my strengths and weakness and how they contribute to my performance and how in the future I can improve the development of my swimming. Strengths My main strengths in swimming is front crawl, I am good at this stroke as I use the correct muscles and joints effectively allowing me to generate lots of power, which enables me to glide through the water easily. I use my deltoid and trapezius which are located at the top of my back to muscularly pull my body through the water. To start the front crawl I must dive into the water using my hamstrings and quadriceps, I must use these muscles in a short burst to generate lots of power. I also have long arms which means that I have a long arm stroke, this allows me to have less arm strokes per length, and this means that I have more energy in the last fifty metres of a sprint. In the dive I create a streamline position so that I can make a clean entry into the water, this will limit the splash at the point of entry into the water allowing me to swim a faster length. Whilst I wait to dive of the board I must make a specific pose with body so that I can enter the water quickly. The first position should be made before a signal has been called out, I should have my fingertips touching the tip of the board, one heel should be in contact with the board and the other foot should be placed at the back of the board. When a signal has been called to signify the start of the race I should balance my body weight towards the front of the board. I believe that my reaction time to the signal is also one of my strengths as I react very quickly. I excelled in the in the short distance sprints as I generated lots of power from my kicks. When kicking the movement involves all the muscles in my lower body for example, hamstrings, quadriceps, gluteus maximus and calves. The movement begins with the gluteus maximus which the powers the motion all the way down to the legs to the feet. My kicking is efficient as I keep them parallel to each other when alternatively kicking them up and down- known as the flutter kick. I also make the kicks short and quick which generates the mos t power making me quicker in the water. Weaknesses My main weaknesses in swimming is my backstroke. I struggle with this stroke as I tend to have a poor sense of balance, my hips are not pushed up which also causes my legs to drop below the rest of my body. This disallows my legs to kick as fast as they are deeper under the water. I am not streamlined, this slows me down further as I am creating more surface area. Furthermore, in backstroke my fingers are spread out allowing water to pass through, this makes my stroke inefficient. I could stop this by keeping my fingers closer together which would then allow me to pull the water past me making my stroke more efficient. Another weakness of mine is tumble turns. When performing backstroke tumble turns I tumble slightly too far away from the wall this is because I come to close to the wall before I tumble. When I am far away from the wall I generate less power when pushing off the wall causing my head to be raised and my back not horizontal therefore I push off upwards. This stops me fr om staying under the water gliding meaning that I have more strokes making my time much slower. I am also very weak at breast stroke as I struggle with the complexity of the leg movement. When performing the stroke I use the correct technique but I do not push hard enough when kicking out. When sprinting in breaststroke my leg technique is poor as my hips dip below the surface of the water. To compensate for the lack of power in my leg movement I then have to push harder with my arms (unbalanced stroke) meaning that my timing is inconsistent. When coming up to breathe between each arm stroke my head can sometimes face toward the end of the pool making me more resistance in the water, however when taking a breath my head should be facing to decrease the resistance between my head and the water.