Your hands are not perpendicular to the bottom and not pulling efficiently from the beginning to the end. There’s no way swimming with fists can be faster. That’s just impossible if you know the physics. If you are still faster with fists, that’s it. Just swim like that.

I agree with the other response. You should NOT be faster with a closed fist. To me, that means that something is off with your technique. I would assume once you get that figured out you will drop more time in comparison to your "faster" fist time.

Have you had someone video you from the deck to hopefully see a difference? Have someone record you with your hand open and then with your fist.

The only thing I can imagine is you’re dramatically improving your forearm position looking for water to push. Can you try a few lengths with closed fists, then open the fist, keep some tension in the wrist/hand and see if you can replicate the same feeling?

As noted by others, it’s very rare to be even equally fast with fists.

My only thought is that you may be doing the “stop in the name of love” prior to the catch, and the fist prevents this.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Very weird.

Have you tried pulling with some conventional paddles that are modified to attach to your hands with some tubing around your middle finger ONLY ? Swimming with those will give you feedback on what strange things you are likely doing with your hands. And force you to correct them.

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I agree with the post that said you are improving your pull technique when you cannot rely on your hands.

My guess is that when you are using your hands, you are letting your elbow drop and your forearm goes more horizontal. When swimming with fists, in order to get pressure to pull against, you are doing a better job at early vertical forearm and high elbow. This is, in fact, what the fist drill is supposed to teach you. So pay attention to what you're doing with your elbow/forearm during the fist drill and then try to bring that over to your normal swimming.

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Ed O'Malley
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Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
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OMG please post video. My brain is struggling to comprehend how this could be.

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Hello Alex - Looking at your profile you've been on ST for over 10 yrs now. Maybe you waited a bit long to try the fist drill??? As others have noted, your pull definitely needs revamping if you're going 5 sec/100 yd faster with fists vs the regular hand. I mean, WOW, that is a huge diff espec consid it should be the other way around, i.e., 5 sec faster with the regular hand than with fists. IOW, you are around 10 sec per 100 yd slower than you in theory should be. But do not be discouraged as I'll bet swimming with paddles should clear up your arm/body's misconceptions on a proper pull. Again, not trying to be a smart ass. :)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I like to treat swimming as a $5 massage session. Drills harsh up my massage induced nirvana :)

No, seriously - what kind of paddles do you recommend? I swam with Speedo tech paddles for a few years, but they tend to eventually injure the lower arm muscles.

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Next races on the schedule: none at the moment

I like the Strokemaker paddles which are made by, wait for it, Strokemakers. Paddles are their main product which is the sign of a company that knows what they are doing IMO. They come in several diff sizes and I would rec size 1 as it should not be too big. (Too big can hurt your shoulders.) They come with a strap over your wrist plus a strap over your middle finger but, as DarkSpeedWorks noted above, they work best for stroke correction if you take off the wrist strap. I've had a pair of these for maybe 16-17 yrs and find that they are great at showing your arms/hands what to do. I use them mainly for freestyle and backstroke but in theory you can swim all 4 strokes with them. While you can order straight from Strokemakers, I'd go with swimoutlet.com as they have a 30-day return policy in case you feel the padds are too big or too small. Get the paddles and get on it!!!

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."