Even now I am being given the swim drill where you emphasize the finish and flick the water with your fingers when exiting. Is this all a waste of time? Everything you say makes sense.
Myth #1 To go faster in swimming one must push out the back of the arm pull
I believe this myth may have originated with an article that appeared some time in the 90’s.I was tought that in the early 80’s. I would not be surprised that the belief was already there and people looked for examples where they could demonstrate the truth of the belief, rather than impartially examine the evidences. There are so many examples of this attitude in all sports, not only swimming.
sadly it’s alive and well, with a resurgence in one pool 
Very thankful learned in the 70’s - you get in and swim the body figures it out quickly. That was pretty much the coaching that existed.
Looking forward to the next 9.
nice discussion
what are we actually discussing, I think so far it is how long is a peace of string 
I dont think anybody has said jet how far is too far.
I see people who think that they have a long stroke and do more doggie padlles and I have seen people asking me how do i get my stroke longer when they almost touch their knee…
than we have people who have such a low elbow (rugby players in the water and hardly catch any water in the first phase, and cant kick, so where do they get their speed from?
but I think the owner off total immersion wont like this post and I think thats the main point of Mr Halls argument to glide you have to have a great kick or a 10mm wet suit
In a previous post, you offered your expertise to us mortals. Here is my question:
I am a very fast cyclist (top 2% in most races sprint - IM) decent runner (top 15-20%) and a terrible swimmer (50-60%). I realize soliciting coaching on a forum is not the best way but what the hell, there aren’t too many super-human Olympians here in Charleston to coach me.
I am 6’1, 210lbs 8-10%BMI (Via the Bod-Pod). I have a strong pull but a weak and inconsistent kick. I can swim a pretty consistent 1:28 100m long course…but at 500m, I am about 8:45 and the longer the distance, the slower I get. I swim 5 days a week and do a good number of drills. Every time I get advise, it is to fix my kick. I’ve never been able to fix it though. At one point, I had my friend who is a former Olympic swimmer help but he couldn’t figure it out either. It is kind of like a flutter with a scissor kick at every breath. I can kick fine with the board, but I can’t get a rhythm when I am swimming free.
Any thoughts?
Thanks
How often and how long are your kick sets?
Usually 2or3x100
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not to belittle Ms. McGlone’s palmares, but she is just an okayswimmer. A great triathlete, yes. A great runner, yes. But I wouldn’t say she has an excellent swim background. Far from it…she swam 27 high at WF, most decent AG men can outswim her. The fact that she is giving swimming advice is suspect.
unfortunately, it doesn’t seem very hard for pro triathletes to get a byline these days.
27:55 was 28th overall (non-elite) at Wildflower this year. That’s less than 2% of the field that went faster than McGlone’s “27 high.” Are only the men in the top 2% of all AGers to be considered “decent”? Well, aren’t you special.
Gary,
First off, keep stirring. This is great. I have spoken of this type of thing on this site a few times only be argued against until it seems fruitless to try to help those who are asking for help.
Secondly, looking forward to seeing Gary Jr at our race in MA this year! Jenny T coming too… gonna be a great day. Thank him when you see him.
Having worked extensively on this topic during my time at the OTC, I agree with what you are saying. A simple test to show the dibilatating effect of elbow hyper extension is to go into the deep water and shut off your legs. Just using your arms to keep yourself vertical in the water. Note that you will scull as you shut off your legs. Hands sweep back and forth in front of you. Then try to “lift” yourself vertically by using a piston motion (hands traveling along the body as you hyper extend your elbows in both directions)… just like these coaches are asking you to do. It is impossible and it takes a lot of energy. Allow yourself to go back to the sculling motion so you dont drown.
The linear movement of the hands combined with the hyperextension of the joints (this equals a non-functional skeleton) are just so destructive to velocity maint. Let alone velocity creation.
Working w/ bill, milt, jonty etc… we also studied athletes densities and centers of mass and general musculature to help determine strokes per length and tempos.
DaveD
You want to debunk a swimming myth? Here’s a good one-that those really smart coaches of today trying to debunk the myths perpetrated by coaches of yesterday are actually different people.
Let me try to explain more. There are really two techniques of freestyle, hip/leg driven and shoulder driven. Both take advantage of inertia by sustaining power either with the legs or with higher stroke rate. In order to do a hip driven freestyle, you must have strong legs and use a constant 6 beat kick (Hackett, Thorpe, Mellouli, Hoff etc). The advantage of this hip driven technique is that with the legs kicking you have more time to hold in front (more lift) , rotate the hips more (the speed and duration of the counter-rotation is what determines the stabilizing force for each arm pull…ie more power per pull (dps), and for whatever its worth, push out the back. If you don’t have the kick driving you, then holding out in front or pushing out back, slowing your stroke rate means you are just sinking or slowing down.
Shoulder driven (Pellegrini, Davies, Cochrane, Janet Evans etc) tries to utilize the law of inertia (sustain your speed) not with the legs but by keeping a more constant propulsion in the most powerful position, up front. Ideally, we should have 3 arms and we could act more like a propeller…ever see a propeller with 2 blades? Since we don’t, turn your arms over faster and even if you were blessed with great legs, adapt to a shoulder driven technique (fast turnover) and save the legs for the bike and run. Use a 2 beat or soft 6 beat kick.
Gary Sr.
BTW, not that it really matters too much for tris, but Phelps, Lezak, Paul Biedermann and others have adapted to a hybrid freestyle, which utilizes a hip driven stroke on one arm and a shoulder driven on the other. It seems to work well for middle distance (100 meters to 400 meters) and from above gives the appearance of a jerky, assymmetrical turnover. In Texas, I am told they call it the gallop.
Gary Sr.
Hate to mention it to you, but that myth died about 10 years ago.
I think the myth is alive and well. Actually, I hope I am just misunderstanding this advice.
I have been working with a swim coach and one of the big things we have worked on is finishing my stroke. Previously, I would start to pull my arm out of the water once it went past perpendicular to my body. Now, I have been focusing on not bringing my arm out of the water till it has brushed past my hip/thigh. This makes a substantial difference in how fast I swim.
Are you saying that this difference is in my head? Or that I am incorrectly attributing it to accelerating through the finish? Or am I unclear what garyhallsr is saying?
I agree with Gary. And - pk you raise a good point. Many think they are swimming correctly, but are not. A coach may tell the swimmer to push out the back, swimmer does it, so he thinks. In reality, he just finished just past the hip instead of bailing out through the pull at the bottom of his rib cage.
My point is…sometimes a coach may use words to create a stroke that in the swimmers mind is way different than it feels. It feels like he is doing “x” but the coach is able to see he is really doing “y”.
With that being said - get someone to video you swimming. If you have never seen yourself…just wait for the shock.
Hip vs. thigh are very different points of exit. When I swim for pace with a higher turnover, my hand begins to exit much closer to my hip as opposed to a more languid mid-thigh position.
Can you link your study, i prefer the primary literature
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not to belittle Ms. McGlone’s palmares, but she is just an okayswimmer. A great triathlete, yes. A great runner, yes. But I wouldn’t say she has an excellent swim background. Far from it…she swam 27 high at WF, most decent AG men can outswim her. The fact that she is giving swimming advice is suspect.
unfortunately, it doesn’t seem very hard for pro triathletes to get a byline these days.
27:55 was 28th overall (non-elite) at Wildflower this year. That’s less than 2% of the field that went faster than McGlone’s “27 high.” Are only the men in the top 2% of all AGers to be considered “decent”? Well, aren’t you special.
\
There are two different things going on here. First, Sam is a very good swimmer, and you do not have to be an olympic swimmer to teach swimming, but it usually doesn’t hurt. Gary is talking about pool swimming and non wetsuit open water swimming. Sam’s advice goes to triathletes who 95% of the time race in a wetsuit. Gary has already said that if you have a freakish kick or in a wetsuit, then lenghten your stroke. I will give Sam the benifit of the doubt and consider she is talking to all those rubber clad triathletes out there…But I do feel that if you become a better pool swimmer, you will become a better wetsuit swimmer, but definately different stroke techniques…And if we are measuring ones speed on quality of advice, the guy in the 55 AG at wildflower that I have come out of the water with in every race since 1981 went 27:15 I think, so I suppose I would have been one of those to come out ahead of her too (-; But of course Dean and I often come out ahead of the two, sometimes three AG’s ahead of us in the water, so that does limit her getting AG punked in the water…
But I do feel that if you become a better pool swimmer, you will become a better wetsuit swimmer, but definately different stroke techniques.
Can you (or anyone else) explaine how they differ. As a novice swimmer, I try very hard to hold my “pool form” during the race.
Can you (or anyone else) explaine how they differ. As a novice swimmer, I try very hard to hold my “pool form” during the race.\
No problem. When you wear a wetsuit your body is floating in a very unnatural postion in the water, one that an 18 second 50 guy gets to enjoy for two laps…But you get that postion without even moving, so now you have this artifical 18 second 50 position without expending any energy at all. SO what do you do with that?? You take advantage of the momentum that you now have and lenghten out your stroke accordingly to make sure you are not interupting it. Like the guys with motorboat 6 beat kicks, you can lean out a little longer and finish further back. If you have great pool form you can transfer most of it to your wetsuit swimming, just lenghten out a bit. But most folks have horrible pool form usually from very poor body position, and the wetsuit fixes a lot of that too…
Excellent…thanks!!
BTW, not that it really matters too much for tris, but Phelps, Lezak, Paul Biedermann and others have adapted to a hybrid freestyle, which utilizes a hip driven stroke on one arm and a shoulder driven on the other. It seems to work well for middle distance (100 meters to 400 meters) and from above gives the appearance of a jerky, assymmetrical turnover. In Texas, I am told they call it the gallop.
Gary Sr.
I see MANY top open waters swim like this… some really fast ones too. Works for distance I guess.