I relearned yesterday that, while my swim split at IMC the last two years (1:10) has me finishing about 40th out of 150 in 50-54 AG (which I thought was pretty good), I’m a lousy swimmer compared to anyone who really knows how to swim.
I’d like to thank the 13 year olds in our local club’s kids program who participated with me in our kid/adult fun event for making my swim inadequacy very very obvious. They are way faster than me. Way.
So I’m reflecting on my technique, and ability and coaching and commitment level to improving etc and I have a fundamental question that I would like answered by some of our resident experts.
Front Quadrant or Constant Pressure?
What I believe front quadrant swimming is is what i see when I watch video of Hackett or Thorpe swimming long distance and is characterized by the pulling hand (hand 1)and the recovering hand (hand 2)passing each other at some point in front of the shoulders and has a bit of a glide of the recovery arm (hand 2) out front before it begins its catch and pull so that the other arm (hand 1) has a chance to complete its pull and begin its recovery in time to permit both hands to pass each other in front of the shoulders(the front quadrant) again.
Question 1. have I got that right? I’m hoping so because that’s how I have been trying to swim.
The coaches at my local tri club, partly influenced by the head coach of our local swim club do not believe in front quadrant swimming and instead coach a technique that I will call Constant Pressure. they think FQ is inefficient because it has the body surging during the pull and decelerating during the glide. They feel CP which involves catching and pulling as soon as the front arm is fully extended avoids the inefficiency of surging. CP has the hands at nearly opposite ends of the stroke which is quite different from FQ. The thinking is that by always having one hand pulling you are applying constant pressure to the water and maintaining a steady pace instead of surging.
Q2. What do our experts think of all of this?
I like FQ for a bunch of reasons, including that if the best in the world use it it must be good and that I like the very brief rest I feel in each cycle during the glide.
Is FQ now considered to be old fashioned and inferior (like I felt swimming against those kids)?
The problem with pulling right away without waiting for your other arm to catch up is that you will not have an arm out in front most of the time which creates more drag. You’ll actually end up surging more if you pull immediately. I know this because I just learned it this week. For now I’m going extreme and waiting for both arms to be in front before I pull – basically the catch-up drill. Otherwise my arms end up 180 degrees out of whack and I surge.
I’m not an expert at all, but just wanted to say that this technique is helping me.
The strongest portion of the pull will (for most) happen between the pull arm passing your head and the pull arm passing your chest. Prior to your head, you are only pulling with your hand and fore arm (and at an angle). Beyond your chest, the elbow is forced to tuck into the body and you are only really pulling (pushing rather) with your tricept. To some degree, whenever you try to “go fast” (aka use a powerful stroke) you will be surging. The timing of the pull is not very relevant.
HOWEVER, the timing of each stroke will effect, and be effected by, the rotation of your hips, core, and shoulders. Generally speaking, you want to have your pull hand under and in front of you. Meaning not out toward the lane rope but between your shoulders. In order to accomplish this, your body needs adequate time to roll from one side to the other. A pause at the end of recovery is intended to allow the body to lengthen and ensure that you are not “side-winding” through the water, but it also ensures that your rotation is well underway before that arm begins its pull. And it allows your head time to “re-set” after sighting…which strict pool swimmers would never need to do. Keep in mind too that “local” coaches may not fully comprehend the differences between 2.4miles in open water and 50meters in a pool.
I could give you a full discourse on the theory, but it suffices to say that each person is different. Not just different in how they swim “best”, but also different in how they approach the sport altogether. You may not have correct or efficient rotation. You may be bending your knees or hips too much when kicking. You may not be lifting your elbows enough. You may be overreaching and “dislocating” your shoulder at the end of the recovery. You may be picking your head up too far when you breath, thus sinking the back end of your body. There may be any number of reasons why you are not as fast as someone else.
For the record, I swim a “catch-up” drill for every workout and sometimes as the entire workout. Use a pull buoy. Touch your “Hand 1” to “Hand 2” (or at least make it close) before “hand 2” begins its pull. You talk about surge!?!
BTW: I finished 3rd (over 30 category) in the Midmar Mile. I do 40x100m in 1:10 on 1:20 … for fun
I would recommend starting to think of it not as constant pressure but constant connection. Connection between your anchors in the water, your rotation, the recovery arm and the breathing. Those surges are not good. For an analogy: Swimming in water would be like riding up a hill on your bike. Surges are not all that good there. The hill acts the same as the water in terms of resistence. So you are looking for constant engagement (connection). Surging means speeding up, which is fine, if that is what you want to do and can handle it. But conversely (esp in the pool) it means slowing down. Doing one surge on a climb is really painful…imagine surging every pedal stroke, like what ‘catchup’ stroke does to you in swimming. One of the most often overlooked areas of aquatic performance is in the recovery. I hear high-elbow all the time. THis is about the worst thing in the…wait, it is not about, it IS the worst thing. High elbows ignores the momentum and engagement one can get from that area of your stroke. Like a kayaker with one oar (a paddle on both ends) he doesnt just put one in end and pull it back, he pushes over the top bc that is where the strength comes from. See if you can tap into a connected stroke with the recovery arm. Do less UNDER water and more over the water. Simply said for the arms…move them like you were making a snow angel. Connected, powerful and simple. Dont overcomplicate things by reaching, bending elbows etc… big waste of time and energy.
Those concepts exist (if I may step back for a second) to satisfy one need. AIR. Lengthening out your stroke gives you more time with your face exposed to the air for breathing. If you can increase your breathing quality (on land) and become more effective, you can start to eliminate that need in the water and thus maintain your rythm.
I guess I’m still wondering about my fundamental question which is should I be switching to a stroke where my hnds are at opposite ends of the stroke all the time or do I stick with front quadrant the way I described in my first post.
Go with front quadrant for a while. Practice by doing the catch-up drill. Although you will have a glide phase to the stroke you’ll actually swim more smoothly.
I would recommend starting to think of it not as constant pressure but constant connection. Connection between your anchors in the water
Like a kayaker with one oar (a paddle on both ends) he doesnt just put one in end and pull it back, he pushes over the top bc that is where the strength comes from.
i agree with “connection” being the one area that most intermediate swimmer need to develop a feel for, and I believe that there are waaay too things to think about, which will get you mixed up/confused in the process…but you have obviously never used a kayak paddle correctly before…when described correctly, it does illustrate your point well…a kayak paddle is not used like a paddle wheel, with the top spinning over the bottom, it is used like a single-bladed canoe paddle with the shaft vertical as much as possible through the stroke to give the bottom blade the most connection to the water…a kayak paddle bascially spins in a horizontal axis and is drwan towards the body to provide a 90 degree surface area to the body…it doesn’t wotk like a pinwheel…the “kayak stroke” is a bit of mis nomer in that respect, given by watching the churning motion of a janet evans…in reality it is all about constant connection/force against the water…watch a kayak racer and they minimize the “glide” where their paddle is not pulling…
Try them both and compare speed vs effort. There are examples of both in pool swimming. Lots of catch up type timing but there are several women distance swimmers with high turnover and very little catchup in their stroke.
I think it’s a matter of speed. At top speed you’ll have less ability to swim catch up style and will cross over to a more direct opposition style. This may bea simple case of the pool coach seeing and overreaction in the catch up folks. Seeing that they have taken it too far and he is swinging it back the other way.
For my own thoughts and stroke. Well, I think everyone who is saying this and that and trying to sound pseudo-scientific is really just waving their hands trying to justify their own thoughts.
With new swimmers I teach a catchup stroke. Long, efficient and admittedly has a ceiling on how fast you can go with it. I think that ceiling is about 19 minutes for 1500 tri swim, at least that’s my personal ceiling with catch up stroke. Once those folks re pretty dran good and have a solid idea of what the hell they are doing in the water, I then work on the time and situation when you may want to go to a high turnover and less catch-up style stroke.
That situation is rough open water. In some situations with a lot of chop higher turnover seems to be the way to go. In open water swimming it’s what you see more of. In a long swim that goes from flat water to rough water I actually change stroke rates during the swim, not necessarily intentionally it just sort of happens. I see it in other open water swimmers as well.
So I teach both, have them both as weapons and use as appropriate.
If you are to ask me and I did the hand waving I’d say :
Pool swims 200 and under - less catchup
Pool swims 800 - 1000 - depends on your conditioning
Pool swim 1500- 1650 - probably a catch up type situation for most triathletes
Flat open water - catch up
Rough open water - less catchup
At this point in my life I am teaching and swimming front quadrant. I find that it allows me to drive my hips for a very rhythmic swim. I have a long front end of my stroke which creates lift. My breathing pattern fits beautifully into hip/shoulder rotation.
I feel that I swim using “summation of forces.” Which means that each body movement sets up another more powerful action. My kick starts it, my hips then shoulders and finally arms take over. In order for this to happen there must be a form of catch up in the stroke. As one arms enters the water my hips are squared off allowing them to rotate in the other direction. Think of a diagonal line going from one shoulder to the opposite hip. As my right arm enters the water and moves forward my left hip opens. It is all finely timed sequential movements.
If you are a skier and pole plant your are actually swimming. Think, pole plant - traverse. Your body moves past the planted pole and now you are ready to plant the other pole.
In swimming we have and extended arm - flex wrist and set up front end of stroke - rotate hips to drive the stroke. Now the next arm is ready to take over.
Swimming keeps evolving. This is my truth today, it may change tomorrow.
DougStern
Go to a local swim meet, watch the faster people swim. You will probably see that they are slightly front quadrant but not like TI teaches.
jaretj
I agree, but at a local swim meet, all of the races are significantly shorter in distance than I swim particularly when I’m doing an ironman. From what I understand (and I’m a new guy still learning not an expert by any means) the shorter the distance the more likey it is that you would move away from front quadrant and that the longer the distance, the more likely it is that front quadrant will be more efficient and therefore faster.
The shortest race I care about has a 1600 m swim.
For that distance and up does your opinion of the degree to which I should use front quadrant change?
I fell very strongly about FC but in order for it to be more effective, stroke rate needs to come into play here.
I started messing around with it about 5 years ago when I was forced to do most of my swimming in my apartment pool. I used a rubber leash and swam in place. When I started I really did notice the surge that your talking about but by adjusting my stoke rate I was able to apply constant pressure on the leash with minimal HR increase. After a few months of that I was able to swim in a normal pool again and when I did, WOW. I had a little fitness to gain but once I did I was MUCH faster with the proper stroke rate.
FC with proper Stroke Rate for me.
I am starting to come around to the whole “stroke starts with the kick” thing too. Using the proper kicking really helps getting the body in the proper position and roll. Makes breathing easier too.
You’ve got a good sense of what folks think here and have good arguments on both sides.
Now, go watch a big, Division I swimming team do their daily practice. (I do this all the time when I visit schools for conferences.) You’ll see 50+ elite swimmers doing their thing, something they’ve been doing for 15+ years, under the supervision of coaches whose athletes number something like n=2000+. Take a look at how many of the swimmers–even the sprinters–swim with a high rate of turnover on their longer sets. It’s next to zero. There are exceptions, no doubt. But for the vast majority of swimmers (especially middle and long-distance), a more front-quadrant-y type stroke is common.
If the high number of elite swimmers using it doesn’t convince you, and you want the science behind this kind of stroke pattern and the different velocity peaks it produces, check out Maglischo’s Swimming Fastest. Both strokes can be effective, but the arguments in favor of front-quadrant-style swimming (I hate that term, but so be it) are pretty overwhelming.
Because you are gliding more? That doesn’t improve efficiency, it’s easier but also slower. How could anyone be more efficient by gliding, slowing down then having to speed back up again with the next pull?
Hackett and Thorpe are huge guys with huge hands and feet. Look at their kicks, pretty hard aren’t they? good for triathlon?..that’s subjective.
I swim the 1650 most of the time I go to meets, not many front quadrant swimmers there either. By not being in the same heats with the fast guys I’m normally counting for them so I have a front row seat to view how they are swimming. None of the real swim coaches I have worked with preach front quadrant swimming either.
Watch some of the video from the Ironman’s on OLN (versus) also not much front quadrant swimming.
Does the length of his arms have anything to do with it? Watching Hackett’s stroke, it appears to my eyes that he does not glide. while his front hand may be hanging out there, the opposite arm is still pulling, (or pushing, as the case may be), there is never a dead spot where his arms are not applying power to the water.
It looks to me like the FQ style he employs is a result of a very fast arm recovery.
the one thing that “clicked” for me when I swam with Doug (who is the man) was how shortening the back end of my stroke really allowed for the front quadrant to “take off” without some sort of exagerrated glide. There is still a glide but because the back end has been shortened (which as people have noted isn’t exactly the most productive part of your stroke) the surge in a glide-pull series is greatly minimized and you come much closer to that elusive continuous power output…at least it clicked for me.
can’t wait to see you back in VT this spring Doug!
