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.
No. That’s the kind of thinking that makes novice swimmers crazy. Sure, one has to get the hand down, but try to keep the elbow high, such that the result is a forearm in the vertical plane, if prob slanted inboard a bit.** One has to be incredibly careful when one explains/shows this kind of thing to novices because to them, it’s a very unintuitive and awkward**. A novice will look at a video like this and not extract from it the lessons that an experienced person would hope they extract. They novice doesn’t understand the subtleties of what they’re being shown. And because “pushing” the arm down is tough on shoulders, it’s something that’s really important. I spent years not able to return to triathlon simply because I didn’t understand that I was pushing down on the water and that was hurting my shoulder.
Pulling this off the top of my head: I explain to a novice how to get to “the catch” I emphasize “you cannot push down.” Sure, they’re going to say “but I have to”. To which I respond "that’s going to hurt your shoulder. Keep experimenting with it. Get a pull buoy and play with how you tilt your hand just after the glide. Play with how deep your gliding arm is, play with how you rotate your upper arm, play with your rotation timing, play with all of that but come up with a way to get your hand deeper then your elbow w/o pushing down. Your objective is to somehow make the hand magically go deeper w/o really trying to do it. Wrap your arm around that big imaginary medicine ball by thinking about what your upper arm is doing, don’t just shoot your hand down the other side of the medicine ball. And don’t try to have the catch executed too far forward of your body. Be content if you don’t achieve that nice vertical forearm until it’s under the body. Once you get that, then experiment with getting that forearm vertical a little further forward then your shoulder. Keep at it working on an earlier and earlier catch, but never “consciously” pushing your hand down.
Conversations like the above happen every couple weeks because I frequently try to help other folks in the pool if they are a complete disaster and appear receptive to some tips.
That video really surprised me. Is kinda bewildering to see them giving such, what appears to be, bad info.
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.
I think you are on a better track looking at Janet Evans’ stroke rate and Natalie Coughlin’s form. What people forget is that Sun Yang generates a crazy amount of propulsion and lifts his entire body with what his legs are able to do even with a 2 beat kick which almost none of us will ever dream about doing even with fins+wetsuit+motor. But let’s just take fins and what you are able to pull off with your upper body when you 2 beat with fins vs not. It totally changes what the upper body is capable of when you get huge propulsion from the bottom half of your body. Sure, Sun Yang has amazing EVF and all of that, but its not in the realm of achievability for the rest of us.
For the record I am 5’6" when the world’s shortest torso and 6’2" wingspan, with giant size 10 feet and I can palm a basketball…basically the rest of my body are the proportions of someone 6 feet tall, but I have no torso…so not sure who to look at but probably Daiya Seto from Japan (Rio Bronze 400 IM) who is only 2 inches taller and can swim pretty darn fast. My thought is that you don’t want to look at any “prototype” swim form, rather look at elite swimmers with the same body dimensions as you, because your hydrodynamics and catch (limb and hand proportions) are likely to be closer. If you talk to the guys who do naval architecture, while there are principles of hydrodynamics, its better to compare similar shape vessels to one another.
Try this. Go to the deep end body against the wall/side of the pool. Push off the bottom and glide up. As your hands pass the deck, just press the deck with the palms of your hand and push your body out of the water and step onto the deck. You have just done pretty well perfect Early Vertical Forearm, because there is no way to get on the pool deck with dropped elbow. Do this a bunch of times. Karlyn Pipes Nielson explained it to me like you are jumping onto the top of a brick wall during a swim clinic she was putting on. Another way I like to get early vertical forearm is just do backstroke. If you “drop” your elbow doing backstroke, your hands will rise out of the water. Then I flip over to front crawl and my catch feels stronger and there feels like there is “less slip”
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.
These two videos actually contrast what I am looking at now in my stroke, which I have titled "Don’t underestimate the use of heads-up freestyle, and also "Don’t underestimate your hand entry & catch (doggy paddle drill) "
It all started after I saw swimmers (including Mark Newsome) doing the doggy paddle drill - every set.
The first Speedo video is male “head down” style. 2nd Speed video is Natalie on a snorkel in a heads-up, front of chest up and arms on top of the water positioning.
I swam these two styles in one set (pictured below) and you can see the results. Natalie’s style imo is more efficient, straighter and easier too!
Body position - this is the classic kickboard position. Head up, shoulders up, chest lowered, tucked belly streamlining to high legs/kick.
Try the “doggy paddle” drill to start to get a feel for the catch
Then try a heads up freestyle if you can do 1 &2 reasonably well. You might have to work dry-land to doing a proper yoga cobra for a few days or more. You’ll have to have thoracic and shoulder flexibility to be able to do this. If not, work on it.
this thread explains why no one can learn how to swim. Read back the replies it is so complicated anyone trying to work out what you are all saying would have run out the room screaming.
Point fingers to bottom of pool, elbow stays high, press/pull repeat
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.
Lucky for me I’m 6’8" so this sounds like a great place to look!
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.
Lucky for me I’m 6’8" so this sounds like a great place to look!
Everyone looks at Sun’s arms but that is not the story (and the point of my post earlier). You need to look at where his arm pits are, his chest and trailing body. His gut is so sucked in tight it’s freaky. His chest is riding very low yet his arms/shoulders are high.
The arms are connected to the shoulders, the shoulders to the chest.
To grab water it’s best to start high and early - but this can’t be done from the hands or arms, it has to come from the shoulder positioning.
Shoulder position is best demo’d on a kickboard. Every great swimmer can kickboard without duress, head up all day long.
Get what I’m saying?
.
Natalie Coughlin never really swam distance events untapered, and was still 4:37 in the 500 yard free, and I think she got close to breaking 10:00 for the 1000 SCY.
this thread explains why no one can learn how to swim. Read back the replies it is so complicated anyone trying to work out what you are all saying would have run out the room screaming.
Point fingers to bottom of pool, elbow stays high, press/pull repeat
This is why, IMO, every adult onset swimmer that is getting into triathlon should get into a Masters program and get some coaching. A good coach, like the one I had, will give you ONE thing to work on at a time and will prioritize what you will be able to understand/feel along with where your biggest gains will come from. I went from swimming 4 days a week on my own for 15,000 yds to 2 days/week with masters and once on my own/week for 9000 yds combined and went from 1:04 IM swim to :57.
I heard Eney Jones talk about how, for open water swimming, it can be helpful to have hand entry be deeper to get under the turbulent water. I wonder if that would also help those without the necessary flexibility to get EVF…
Good coach yep. Lot of the time people are just getting information overload about something they struggle with mentally and physically.
High elbow confuses them, then they are getting, feel the water, point elbow to the side of the pool, rotate hips, early catch, what kick, stream line, body position. Add in weird drills that do nothing to connect their mind to the exercise.
Look at the bottom of the pool
point fingers to the bottom of the pool
pull arm back/ press water whatever rocks your boat.
If to confusing get a pull buoy and some sensible paddles then look at bottom of the pool the rest will happen though the stroke rate will be a little slow
