Maybe in a poor swimmer, such as myself, the shorter stroke is good for two reasons...it keeps more weight forward so my legs don't tend to drag as much, plus it gives me more chances per minute to breathe! I like to do the every-other-stroke alternating sides breathing, it keeps me better balanced, but that's a long time to go between breaths. My swimming buddy has a much faster turnover than I do, and he is faster than me...he's often asked why I didn't speed the turnover up...I was trying to get the glide thing going, but I think I lose too much momentum that way, because my kick isn't sufficient.

But, little finger first seems to help some of these problems...I especially seem to be able to rotate my body better. Just having the shoulder issues disappear immediately tells me it is something I should do for a while.

And after reading about these 10,000 yard workouts...well, you might as well be saying they are 10,000 MILES! I rarely get up above 2500...that's all my bad football shoulder could take before aching for a couple of days....maybe now I can get some decent yardage in. There's got to be someway to get out of the MOP times. Even though I have swam only a couple of years, it's time to move up! It's not fun trying to pass half the field on the bike and run.

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Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur
(That which is said in Latin sounds profound)

Yaquicarbo,

Passing half the field on the bike is probably better than being well ahead and watching everyone pass you. I suck on the bike. I think your way is motivating, I find my way a little bit demotivating.

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"which is like watching one of your buddies announce that he's quitting booze and cigarettes, switching to a Vegan diet and training for triathalons ... but he's going to keep snorting heroin." Bill Simmons, ESPN

Ha! I guess you're right! Maybe we should do a relay. Better yet, maybe you could coach me on the swim and I'll coach you on the bike and run.

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Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur
(That which is said in Latin sounds profound)

Not certain I agree with the pinkie first to eleviate shoulder pain. What I get from a quick scan of the article is exactly waht I used to to: I crossed the midline, had my head too high, and swum like a salmon (snaking side to side). When I added thumb first entry, my shoulders went nuts. Once I straightened out my entry (no crossing midline, more lilke climbing a ladder), began to rotate a heck of alot more than the zero I was doing, and dropped my head, the thumb first entry stopped hurting my shoulders. For me the thumb first entry makes it harder (now) for me to cross the midline, thus giving me a longer, straighter entry and more effective catch. I also find that rotating the hand to perform the pull a heck of a lot easier as I begin my body roll back - it's almost natural now to stick the elbow out and execute a nice powerful pull. I also get the benfit of a high elbow recovery, with the armpit facing the crowd ;-)

I see the article saying that if you cross the midline at entry, and snake all over the place, and hold your head too high (one or all of these flaws), you can bet that thumb first entry is gonna give you shoulder pain.

My 2 cents. I'll stick with the thumb first.

It occurs to me that swimming may be somewhat like golfing in these ways: what you feel like you are doing may not be what you are actually doing, and "fixing" one flaw may end up creating other flaws. Maybe thumb first is better for the reasons you stated. Thanks for pointing this out. I guess I'm going to have to actually take some lessons to find out what I need to be doing, I've been too stubborn resisting this step, I mean, I didn't have someone teach me to bike or run, I've learned those on my own and do just fine. Apparently, swimming is different for me.

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Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur
(That which is said in Latin sounds profound)

A common problem people have with shoulder pain is due to lack of rotation while swimming. Because you are concentrating on getting your elbow up instead of rolling to get your arm out of the water. Lifting the elbow causing too much stress on the shoulder. Use the body to rotate not the elbow. Look at the best female distance swimmer of all time Janet Evans swam with straight arms, she had amazing rotation in her stroke. I know some think that having the thumb first entry will work and provide more lift which is not the case. Putting the pinky in first allows you to set up your anchor quicker while keeping the elbow in the correct position by which your body moves past as our body rotates. Entering with a thumb first entry your are more inclined to reach up and out instead of down to your anchor which can cause your elbow to drop. Another bad habit.

trijohn wrote: Entering with a thumb first entry your are more inclined to reach up and out instead of down to your anchor ...

What I need to do it to cut my anchor loose! Darn anchor is what MUST be slowing me down...dragging that thing around is killing me!

I'm looking up the name of a coach that was recommended to me a few months ago...it's past time to do this!

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Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur
(That which is said in Latin sounds profound)

I am not a technical swimmer as I didn't get instructions until very late in life but from my observations in a masters class, the main qualities of the faster swimmers in the group are power and turnover. There is an Olympic class swimmer in our group who can lap me in a hundred with me rotating and freestyling and him not rotating and butterflying. I think a lot of the long distance training was to build up endurance to use this power. The technically perfect swimmers became the world record holders; the others go to Colorado Springs!

Bob Sigerson

Back to the original post, I played around in warm-up today with some of the ideas in the article.

My freestyle entry is rather middle finger first under normal circumstances. Pinkie first, I ended up with some weird torque things after entry in order to get my hand in position, and it ended up hurting my elbow joints.

As for shortening the finish, I'm wondering if what really going on is about learning to end the finish at the point where your hand would no longer naturally be perpendicular to the pool bottom. If you continue past that point and end up with hand position 45 degrees from pool bottom, you might not be moving water as efficiently and dropping water compared to the more 90 degree hand position.