“press down on the forearm?” What? I thought that was to be avoided. In fact, if I don’t take pains to avoid it, my shoulders get angry.
I thought that the catch didn’t really start until the forearm was pretty much facing backwards, no? So, if that’s correct, what the vid calls “the catch” is really just dropping the forearm and hand “to get to” the catch. Or am I missing something in how this is generally described?
At full extension your hand should be tipped down a bit. That is where the catch starts. From there hand and forearm move from horizontal to vertical catching water and pulling backwards. You shouldn’t be pressing down on the forearm as that will lift your chest too much which makes your butt sink. Not to mention can be hard on the shoulders. If you want to see good catch technique just google swimsmooth and proper catch and I would think there will be a good video.
What weirds me out about this video is that here we are in subject matter that is absolutely critical to novice swimmers, and eludes most of them…“how the heck to swim”…and there’s glaring errors in a professionally done video financed by a leading company of swim products. Screwed up in a way that will hurt people. Not a big deal to incorrectly(?) use the word “catch”, but it is a big deal, imo, to tell folks to “push” their arm down.
You guys that have competitive swimming backgrounds, I’m thoroughly convinced that only us adult onset swimmers really understand, deep down in our bones, just how difficult it is to a) understand that you don’t know how to swim, b) figure out what you’re supposed to be doing, and c) do it. Christ, it took me >30yrs to make it from a0 → c) and I’m no dumber than average. Well, not much, anyhow.
I pretty much stopped watching that video at that point. No pressing down at any point. You move your finger tips down toward the bottom of pool to initiate catch. As you tip fingers down, keep the elbow high and hand begins to point back so does the forearm get the vertical position and points back also…Thats catching. No pressing down.
I agree on the definition of catch. It is a very brief moment and movement. I come from a rowing background, and there, the catch is simply a split second of movement when the oar is dropped in to the water.
I think the confusion in swimming comes from the fact that while “pressing down with the forearm” your upper arm, from elbow to shoulder, needs to stay where it is more or less. Most novice swimmers, when they hear “press down on your forearm” their whole arm follows and boom, they are now “dropping the elbow” and performing bad technique.
I always thought of the catch like such: Your arm is broken down in to two parts: upper (elbow to shoulder) and lower (fingertips to elbow). Your elbow is a simple hinge, like a door hinge. Your upper arm, during the catch, should stay in the extended position. During the catch, if you press down on the forearm (I would say, press down on the part of your forearm just up from your wrist), your upper arm stays where it is and lower arm swings from pointing straight ahead to roughly downwards. That is the catch.
Now, there are more nuances to just that, like how to slightly bend your wrist, how the catch ties in to body rotation, etc, but for the purpose of explaining the concept to newbies, I always found the above illustration helpful.
The latest swimsmooth email I got was about how a reader was complaining that someone did a video on Nathan Adrian (world class swimmer) demonstrating his stroke and he was doing some things that are not recommended. Swim smooth then compared what he does in competition to what was shown in the demo video. I competition he does all the right things. When he slows down for the demo video he tries to demonstrate the ideal stroke and it is not as good. I can understand why adult onset swimmers get confused. BTW I am an adult onset swimmer.
During the catch, if you press down on the forearm (I would say, press down on the part of your forearm just up from your wrist), your upper arm stays where it is and lower arm swings from pointing straight ahead to roughly downwards. That is the catch. //
THIS^^^^^
You have to disconnect at the elbow when thinking about all this stuff. Yes you press in the catch, but the elbow theoretically stays in the same place until your hand drops down to 90 degrees(theoretically again) and then it all moves to the last phase of the stroke. For adult onset swimmers visualizing this stuff while trying to do it is nuts. Just watch real swim races in the distance events and you will see what I mean, stay away from these videos that are set up with swimmers “trying” to swim properly. When the race they “do” swim properly, just make sure you are not trying to emulate sprinters, like Nathan. Sprinting is a whole different stroke these days, maybe even watch Ledecky.
Just go watch youtube videos of Sun Yang. No better demonstration of a catch out there, IMO.
He’s got an incredible technique and catch, yes, but I do often wonder how applicable that is to those of us who aren’t 6ft6’ and have a wingspan probably greater than that.
I recently took another look at the human windmill Janet Evans as she’s around 5’3" to see how a short person can pull off a staggeringly fast swim. Her crazy head position aside, it’s incredible the stroke rate she pounds out as well as the ‘not-perfect’ underwater stroke (at least compared to super smooth Sun yang’s) probably due to the crazy turnover speed.
I did also look at 6"0ish Hagino’s freestyle - his freestyle is really sweet, but I suspect he’s got a pretty big wingspan too.
Just go watch youtube videos of Sun Yang. No better demonstration of a catch out there, IMO.
He’s got an incredible technique and catch, yes, but I do often wonder how applicable that is to those of us who aren’t 6ft6’ and have a wingspan probably greater than that.
I recently took another look at the human windmill Janet Evans as she’s around 5’3" to see how a short person can pull off a staggeringly fast swim. Her crazy head position aside, it’s incredible the stroke rate she pounds out as well as the ‘not-perfect’ underwater stroke (at least compared to super smooth Sun yang’s) probably due to the crazy turnover speed.
I did also look at 6"0ish Hagino’s freestyle - his freestyle is really sweet, but I suspect he’s got a pretty big wingspan too.
I don’t think we should all try to replicate Yang, but I think watching him can help new swimmers learn the concept of what the catch is, because his is so exaggerated. Its very easy to spot. No matter how you swim, in any stroke, you are always using your forearms as paddles, you are always having a ‘catch’ phase. Yang just makes it easy for us to spot and understand.
Personally, I feel, for most adult onset swimmers, a relaxed, catch up style stroke with a two best kick is probably the best, most efficient way of swimming freestyle to learn for triathlon. Get a hold of that and you can experiment more with different styles of freestyle. But that should be your bread and butter.
Agree with the Sun yang as the ‘archetype’, but not necessarily the ‘replicate myself’ stroke.
Not that I’m ever going to ever get close to replicating Natalie Coughlin’s stroke, but to me, her stroke (and she at 5’ 8") looks at lot more realistically technically doable by most male and female mortals than the crazy super vertical EVF that Yang has.
Agree with the Sun yang as the ‘archetype’, but not necessarily the ‘replicate myself’ stroke.
Not that I’m ever going to ever get close to replicating Natalie Coughlin’s stroke, but to me, her stroke (and she at 5’ 8") looks at lot more realistically technically doable by most male and female mortals than the crazy super vertical EVF that Yang has.
Good video of Natalie.
As for comparing the two as far as teaching goes:
I think if you show a new swimmer a video of Yang and say “do this!” Then watch them, their catch will probably actually look closer to Natalie’s.
If you show the video of Natalie to a new swimmer and say “do this!” Then watch them swim, their catch will probably look like most newbies, with their elbows dropping and not achieving a good forearm paddle by the end of the catch phase and start of the pull.
Sort of like when you see someone with a bad cross over. If you tell them to swim what they feel is super wide arm extension, they will probably actually swim with a relatively proper arm extension. What the swimmer sees in their mind’s eye is not actually what their body is doing!
“press down on the forearm?” What? I thought that was to be avoided. In fact, if I don’t take pains to avoid it, my shoulders get angry.
One issue i have with the vid is that it only shows a cross section of the stroke. By not having a head on you miss seeing a lot of the interaction between the hand/wrist/forearm/elbow/humerus/shoulder as well as the body’s rotation interacting with that. Albeit in this vid you would not see much of that as it appears the subject pulls straight down (not good). This isn’t a great example of an effective catch. Katie is idealized AWESOME, I think she does it better than the men. Watch slow mo head-on or underneath vids to see how she gets “on top of” the stroke/barrel. Then also watch how she anchors the arm and uses her torso’s rotation to power the stroke. Try to glean the core elements of what she is doing there to bring them back to where you can start bridging that divide.
I thought that the catch didn’t really start until the forearm was pretty much facing backwards, no? So, if that’s correct, what the vid calls “the catch” is really just dropping the forearm and hand “to get to” the catch. Or am I missing something in how this is generally described?
You are right, the vid isn’t a great example. Good eye!
ETA: there are limitations to AOS trying to achieve EVF, the most notable being the flexibility and strength-range-of-motion that these idealized strokes require.
I pretty much stopped watching that video at that point. No pressing down at any point. You move your finger tips down toward the bottom of pool to initiate catch. As you tip fingers down, keep the elbow high and hand begins to point back so does the forearm get the vertical position and points back also…Thats catching. No pressing down.
How does the forearm get to the vertical position without pressing down? Do you think it is the onrushing water that pushes the forearm to vertical?
Some serious over-analysis and under-comprehension going on here.
I don’t think we should all try to replicate Yang, but I think watching him can help new swimmers learn the concept of what the catch is, because his is so exaggerated. Its very easy to spot. No matter how you swim, in any stroke, you are always using your forearms as paddles, you are always having a ‘catch’ phase. Yang just makes it easy for us to spot and understand.
Personally, I feel, for most adult onset swimmers, a relaxed, catch up style stroke with a two best kick is probably the best, most efficient way of swimming freestyle to learn for triathlon. Get a hold of that and you can experiment more with different styles of freestyle. But that should be your bread and butter.
Good stuff, except that a catch-up style stroke requires the ability to be very streamlined (from fingers to toes) to reduce the effect of the dead spot when you are actually catching up. I’m not sure AO swimmers are skilled at that, if my reading of these threads and watching of the posted videos are any indication.