I don’t want to get into a swimming discussion about form and use of x word vs different words . You can watch the video she’s at 94 spm her foot drops under 12 inches from the top the water for 0.1 sec per stoke the rest are up near the top , go post some photos of an age grouper swimmers kick at 94 spm. Most are at 50-60 stroke per min and the kick has a bent knee and 1.5 ft drop. It’s not rocket science. many are obsessed with hands to swim .
like saying your feet run ???
Your feet pedal ???
I don’t have a theory I went to university studies under some amazing physicist and biomechanics instructor and can understand where errors lead to a increase in work and change habits to eliminate work while increasing productivity during force phases . Etc it’s not an idea it’s a truth . Your arm counter balance in running and your legs in swimming. It’s near impossible to Change that it’s a reflex based of your body position to torque, you can change it only by eliminating errors to allow balance.
E.g watch Lionel at super league in the pool swim
He hasn’t changed an error in over 10 years even with all those miles and miles and kick rhythms.
Didn’t you just say in your first post that others shouldn’t use certain words in relation to swimming? But now you don’t want that discussion?
To your other observation, why do you think Ledecky can keep her feet and kick close to the surface and the age grouper you mention can’t? I mean, that’s kinda the whole point. The AG’er will never get their legs anywhere near that close to the surface by putting a band on or discounting half of the bodys stroke mechanics. Not saying some won’t be fine with that but it’s also the reason many get stuck in their swimming after a while despite putting in an effort.
Are you saying that the university you went to taught information contrary to the current understanding of swimming stroke mechanics?
It’s too much for most to understand and I am now official on vacation. Plus if you read what I put and you didn’t understand what I said about one part of the body causing another part of the body to move improperly, and increase work load and create deceleration I am never going to get across or help you.
If I get bored I might give some info but words or leaning so how someone reads or understands a word doesn’t mean they can learn. You see all swim books and videos and then the age group swim times .
Yes and no. Fermín Cacho, the gold medal in the 1500 at Barcelona 92, celebrated a few years ago that he broke 60 minutes at a road 10k. This is just an example of how running speed deteriorates significantly faster with no training than swimming.
For sure, I didn’t say they are equal. There are huge medium differences between air with gravity(running) and water with buoyancy(swimming), and air without gravity(cycling)
But the premise is still a very valid one, in general (minus your N=1 example) whatever neuromuscular fitness you achieved in your youth, some amount of that memory carries through as you age. Perhaps Fermin could keep going from that hour and grind down to something a lot faster, don’t know all his personal factors. Thing like being overweight, injured, illness, etc. can all hamper aging athletes.
The thing about getting old is it just isn’t training and fitness you have to accumulate. You have to also dodge a shit ton of obstacles that your youth just rolled over. But if you can get over those humps, that speed you achieved is your virtual ceiling. Not that you can get back there, but some % of age graded gap to it. Others who come late don’t have that, and have to work to just keep pushing their ceiling up, rather than getting back to it..
I think Toth makes a very interesting comment. Pull, kick, catch, these are all words that isolate parts of the body.
Taking kick, we are not kicking a ball. We are using our whole body to balance and anchor, if you like, to get the most out of our making up of forward momentum.
There is an element of hair splitting to describe swimming technique not using the conventional words, but also useful to bring out the underlying Issue
that being said, saying Ledecky or any other 2bk have no kick effort is not quite right imo. They have a lot of effort from their hips and core, but not much quadriceps effort. just taking this idea of “clear on what words we use” a bit further
I think your first paragraph is the key explanation. In Spain people joked that Cacho ate Fermín to ilustrate how overweight he was. But had he been a swimmer, the performance deterioration would not have been as dramatic, but it’s probably due to your explanation.
A common reaction by novice swimmers using band is to fly kick to maintain body position. So maybe they are inadvertently training kick timing too?!?
Bringing the discussion back to the beginning, before the arguing over pull/push terminology, I still haven’t read anything that refutes JF’s original statement:
Use a band frequently. The best swimming drill there is. Do short reps with lots of rest at first. Both propulsion and body position will improve.
Björn and others are correct - kick timing is important for rhythm, but that doesn’t mean band swimming detrains, turns off or inhibits it.
And let’s be clear, “kick timing” in OW is not kicking as most think of it, it’s barely a flutter of 1 leg.
Band swimming is a tool that when used properly provides amazing benefits… like all things it’s about appropriate dosage and implementation.
I’ve never seen a serious triathlon swimmer work on their “kick timing” anymore than the best runners spend time on their arm swing… they just swim more, work on their stroke mechanics and voila their body position and kick timing improves. Obviously if there’s a major glaring issue it should be resolved, but JFs advice still stands as the best overarching philosophy on triathlon swimming around.
my n=1 MOP AGer experience with the ankle band drill - I have to be dead honest - it has never given me any speed boost, not even a fraction of a second per 100 or longer compared to when I couldn’t do it at all. There’s probably a benefit from going from not being able to do it to doing it, but it’s very, very small.
Ironically, as a not-fast AGer but who’s bullheaded in perservering, I tried really hard to get all the gains I could from that ankle band. Used it every practice for quite a while, and really focused on trying to learn from it.
The good thins I found - the ankle band rewards minimizes excess motion. So if you bob your head on the breath too much, you get punished - your legs sink. You can actually swim without a high stroke rate if you just stay super smooth and super balanced. Might be good for people with a lot of excess motion in their stroke - these folks probably won’t even be able to make it 12 yards, so if they can start surviving the full 25yds, they’re probably reducing their excess motion.
The cons I found were quite significant though. It really messes with your optimal rotation and timing compared to unbanded. I tried super hard to make them similar, but there’s just no way you are getting optimal rotation with the ankle band. And then there’s the leg drop issue - unless you’re a super fast swimmer without the band, you’ll probably be so slow with the band that your legs are going drop significantly. Which means you’re reinforcing bad body position - and pushing the head deep doesn’t fix it, so you’re now making both worse.
I find band+buoy a lot closer to correct swimming while removing the kick crutch. But even then, it’s def been lower yield by a lot compared to just swimming hard.
But for sure, my critiques may be irrelevant say, for a fast swimmer that Filliol typically trains, who can drop 1:05/100 no problem. Even if they drop 1:25/100 with a band, they’re fast enough that they may avoid all the timing and leg drops issues I’m seeing at 2:00/100 with a band.
Yes that’s a good point. Also - The comments were made in context of some people wanting to be really fast for the running stuff early season, Valencia etc. I don’t know much about running. I know the Kenyans are good at it.
Actually yes it is hard to explain things on the internet to people that’s don’t have the same knowledge it’s why it should be avoided or you get in circles talking about terminology (, support, catch , high elbow) rather then actual facts that improve performance.
My first comments on slowtwitch was with the popular dev , telling him you don’t pull up on bike pedals . He disagreed and disagreed and I used logic and took the effort to explain and then not much later he commented to others you don’t pull up on bike pedals.
It took that much effort and now people just agree or go to AI search and push back garbage so I am trying not to care and let you make your own path.
As for Katie she is barley kicking and especially barley kicking for a 94 spm swimmer, she also has a both were both legs lift up together not opposing each other, almost like a TB around the ankles coast. I have yet to see anyone post the age group swimmer at 94 strokes per min for 1500 m to compare their kick speed.
If you want to be coached and learn it’s available.