The 'S' is fo the purpose of finding still water to hold on to. Most accomplished swimmers do this unconsciouslessly just by feel.

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Dick

Take everything I say with a grain of salt. I know nothing.

I've seen accomplished swimmers use both. One really isn't any better than the other. Good mechanics and efficiency don't really have much to do with the shape of your arm pull.

I asked swim coach Doug Stern and Olympic Swimming Gold Medalist and Olympic and Professional Triathlete Sheila Taormina about this at Doug's Triathlon Training Camp in Curacao.

Doug showed me a video of a long distance freestyle race from the Atlanta Olympics. He said, "Watch the underwater view of their arms."

I did. They put their hands in the water and pull them straight back. For some there was a minor "cavitation" or flutter of the hand as it accelerated against the water, but for the most part they pulled, then pushed straight back.

Holy s@#t, listen to me, giving swimming advice..... That's worse than me giving reltaionship advice!

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

Depends on your perspective. In reality, many (most?) really good swimmers pull straight back, from a third person's point of view. However, relative to the plane of their torso, which rolls from side to side, they are making an S-bend.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

It's not really either of them. I've seen plenty of videos of Hackett (800m and 1500m specialist), and the thing is he keeps his elbow near the surface the entire time. Arm at a 90 degree angle.

The catch is you need trenmendous power to do this and good rollover. Slower/weaker swimmers (and this is what my coach says), should let the arm sink a few inches downward, and then start the pull (keep the elbow high).

Here's a pic:

Jason's right.
From the bottom of the pool's point of view, it's just about straight; from your body's point of view (if your rotation is proper) it's more of an "S".
b

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"What's good for me ain't necessarily good for the weak-minded."

This question is really still up in the air.

I think much of this comes from the problems of tracking motion in three dimensions when the basis of motion is also moving. If you trace a line of where my hand moves relative to my trunk when I swim; you would find it is in an S shape from overhead to my hips. however remember that we rotate our trunks when we swim too. So you have to consider where one's hand moves relative to the *water*. In this case you would find that my hands moves mostly straight back from catch to finish. Mostly, not totally.

Years ago doc counsilman got the idea that swimmers make an S during the freestyle pull. He did some studying and got the idea that this was because of the fluid mechanics involved. He applied bernoulli's law of fluid motion to the system and got the idea that we create lift by moving our arms sideways relative to the water. It should be noted that as is the case in many swim technique studies, he was chasing the technique. He was trying to explain scientifically something that he saw good swimmers do.

Also remember that there weren't the motion capturing devices we have now. It was just some cameras, some trigonometry and a grad student looking at pictures. So anyway doc counsilman came up with the idea that Bernoulli's law applied and got people going on the lift theory. That we use our hands like the wings of an airplane and create lift by moving them sideways relative to the water.

There was a lot of research that followed; some arguments but the result was that the S curve came to be accepted and persists in a lot of swim circles. Mostly perhaps because once an idea gets into coaching and into red cross teaching; it stays there for a while. I think it's a sociological issue actually. Kids get taught to make the s curve when they are age group swimmers. That's what they learn when they are young and impressiionable and that's they do. They get older. Older folks are less ready to change and already know plenty about swim technique so they head to the pool and get a workout in. While working out they are still pretty good so the guy in the next lane asks the 45 year old gentleman in the next lane what to do with his hands when he pulls so he says. Make an S in the water. The matter is of course confused by the fact that he may be correct.

Back to the story, much research goes into swimming by lift with lots of papers written and some guys doing research that refutes it but the community MOSTLY goes with the propulsion by lift idea. Lots of s curves. But perhaps it was the early nineties or the late eighties that fluid mecahnics became concerned with quasi steady state systems and shed vortices. The most notable being the bumblebee. Remember when we were told that according to the laws of physics a bumblebee's wings were too small for it to fly. Well that's not true anymore, turns out a bumblebee CAN fly (!); and we know how he does it too. Yet another case of the scientist chasing the technique.

Taking this new theory of fluid mechanics I tkink it was Dave Costill who popularized the idea that these quasi steady state systems and shed vortices apply to swimming. He published these ideas of propulsion, which still lean heavily on the ideas of doc counsilman, in his books. You see these books on the shelf at the local bookstore.

Round the late nineties some other research got popular though. That's the research by guys who have been contradicting swimming through lift for a long time. And a couple of new ways of looking at things. One was putting little wool tufts on one's arm anchored at one end. These act like little windsocks and indicate which way the water was moving. Turns out that through a large portion of the stroke, water moves down your arm, that is from the elbow to the fingers. This doesn't go along with any other ideas out there. Another was the idea of using computational fluid dynamics to study the flow. In these studies they found no indication of either lift propulsion or shed vortices.

What does all that mean? In my opinion I think it is still up in the air. I think the physics of swim propulsion are still missing a key element, or we are looking at it in exactly the wrong way. The latest book by Ernie Maglischo, Swimming fastest (it's "The lore of running" for swimming) makes the case that we move in diagonal directions to move water backward simply because it is the most effective way to do it, yet the lift and quasi steady state laws don't apply. Simply newton's second law. To an outsider this might seem semantic, "So I should move my hand sideways as long as I realize that Bernoulli's law doesn't apply." But really it dictates the extent to which moving your hand sideways to the water is beneficial. It would seem not much sideways motion is appropriate - this would jive with the previous poster's observation that some good swimmers bring their arms pretty much straight back.

But then again we are chasing the technique and there is also a chicken and egg problem. Good swimmers a re a product of their coaches. If the coach has told these gentlemen to bring their hands straight back then that is very likely what they do. Is it possible that we could go to another workout in another pool and find that the swimmers there are just as good but hve lots of sideways motion in their strokes? Almost certainly is that is what the coach tells them to do.

And what should you do - for most triathletes I say don't worry about it. Triathletes have a lot of other ways to get better in the water usually that don't involve taking sides in a fluid mechanics discussion. If you have a nice catch under water and get a good surface area to pull with you'll get better whether you move a lot side to side or not. Furthermore we haven't even talked about biomechanics; that could be the most important idea of all. That is, maybe good swimmers swim the way they do not because it the best way to grab the water but rather it is the best way to use the muscles to achiieve the movement.

Work on your catch and everything else should work out fine.

If you MUST work on your pull, get a copy "Championship swim training". It has a whole chapter on that they author's call sculling. traditionally sculling meant the purely side to side aspects of the pull. These guys include straight back pull aspects under the term sculling. If you practice their drills you should get your *own* idea of what works for you in terms of the shape of your pull.

woa slow down there triplethreat

freestyle,

Wow, that phot sequence is really cool. Thank you for posting that. Super cool.

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Tom Demerly
The Tri Shop.com

LOL, he didn't put a quote.

My wife is a swimmer through and through and has been on me about this S stroke thing. Interesting thread to read because as a non-swimmer I really only hear her perspective.

Good photos, thanks.

It is difficult to see exactly where his hand is in the 3d space from a 2d photo, but you can make a few general observations.

He gets his hand and forearm perpendicular to the bottom of the pool as soon as possible, and keeps it like that throughout his pull. That is really difficult to do, but effective if you can.

It looks like, relative to the bottom of the pool, his hand goes down and up, wilth minimal 'slippage'. Also something to strive for. He pulls his body past his hand quite well (obviously, look who I'm analyzing)

His hand doesn't move from side to side in the water, near as I can tell. He finds clean water by moving his hand down and then back up. Also excellent trunk rotation.

he doesn't fishtail, no overreaching and crossing the centreline.

Also

Kick. Knees are not perfectly straight. Many folks seem to think that kicking from the hips means that knees should be locked. That is wrong. The knees and ankles should be relaxed, to generate a whip effect at the end of each downstroke, but the power should come from the hips.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Bite me. =)

Actually, I laughed at your comment. Good one.

Thanks for that photo. Mind telling us where you got that and if there are more clips/pics to view? Thanks in advance.

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-- Every morning brings opportunity;
Each evening offers judgement. --

Here is a link to some good slow-mo underwater swimming views as well as a funny CLif Bar commercial.

FWIW, I think the subtle sculling at the catch is key to getting the most out of the entire stroke.



http://cmac.smugmug.com/gallery/739/1/20927

With his right arm he pulls it bent, from right in front of his face down his chest and then to his hip. With the left arm, it's something different. It look as if he almost pulls to the side of his body (camera view perhaps?).

Also ... he doesn't look like he swims on his "side" very much; very little roll.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to sound like an expert or anything. I only know what I have read and practiced with TI. I bring it up as to understand swimming technique better [I also understand that TI isn't the end-all be-all of swimming].

Thanks for the link, I'm gonna look around the site a bit longer. "Renourishing" myself after a 3-hour ride. Yeah, it means I'm eating ice-cream.

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-- Every morning brings opportunity;
Each evening offers judgement. --

without a straight on view, it is impossible to tell if he S's or not. His hips rotate at least 90 degrees from slides 5 to 15. His shoulder move nearly 90 from 1 thru 8.

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_________________
Dick

Take everything I say with a grain of salt. I know nothing.

I just review several videos of Hackett. He consistently rotates his hips and shoulders more than 90 deg. His stroke is DECIDEDLY less S than most. He has a slight inside out skull at the catch, then a straight pullto the bottom of his chest, then a slight inside skull across his abdomen, and an outward skull at then, probably caused by his rotation

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_________________
Dick

Take everything I say with a grain of salt. I know nothing.

docfuel ... I was referring to the swimmer in the video clip provided by Fishman. Is this the same clip you are referring to? Or are you referring to the time frame picture sequence shown in this thread?

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-- Every morning brings opportunity;
Each evening offers judgement. --

sorry to get back to you so late, but my second to last respone was referring to the above photo sequence. My last, before this, was in referrence to some video sequences, some of them straight on, available from a prior posting (last week) regarding swim videos. There several videos of grant Hackett and others there.

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_________________
Dick

Take everything I say with a grain of salt. I know nothing.

I swim with my arms straight...It is how I learned years ago. It works for me, but I have friends that swim with the S stroke...of course they try to get me to switch, but then I keep passing them.

I average 20 to 22 minutes per mile using the straight arm stroke. I don't see any reason for me to adapt my style.

----->Trent

15 yrs as a swim coach has taught me that neither S or straight arm is as important as ensuring that your hand is directly below your elbow before you exert maximum force backwards. Ian Thorpe can get in that position and hold it almost as soon as his hand enters the water, ( a big kick helps) your avg age group swimmer is lucky to be in that position by the time they pass their shoulder.

PS - while very tough and the fundemantals are obviously there Hackett is not a role model for swimming technique - he is just an animal in training. I watched him go 30 * 100 LC on 1:10 - he averaged about 1:00. Not bad considering he was wearing bands and no pullbouy.