I’ve got a question on the swimming over the barrell thing.
Are they referring to having an imaginary barrell type object underneath you while you are swimming in the water or is it a reference to how far you have to reach forward…(ie putting your hand in a cookie jar) before your hand enters the water.
I’m sure this is a very basic question but I’m not sure which they are referring to.
Thanks
“Are they referring to having an imaginary barrell type object underneath you while you are swimming in the water or is it a reference to how far you have to reach forward”
the imaginary barrel type object underneath you.
the idea is to create a visual that impedes your elbow from dropping after the catch. if you follow the links embedded in the article that show good swimmers swimming, you’ll notice the FIRST thing these swimmers do is form a broad pulling surface to use as a big paddle once they commence their pull.
in most cases there is a glide phase after the catch. in some cases (vanderkay) there is not, and the swimmer commences forming this big paddle immediately after the catch.
but in ALL cases this big pulling surface is formed. it’s like this: would you rather race with or without swim fins? pulling with your hand only is like swimming with only your feet kicking. pulling with your hand, forearm and upper arm all perpendicular to the water you’re pushing is like swimming with fins. there is a lot more surface pushing the water.
swimming over a barrel is just a way to visualize that elbow staying high in the water, which is a requirement if you want to form and use your entire arm as a pulling surface.
It’s mostly about having a barrel out in front of you that you have to roll your arms over before you can start your pull. Think of your arm extended out and having your fingertips and forearms start the catch because that’s what you need to get over the barrel.
Or you can think of keeping your elbows high as you initiate your pull… or using the surface of your forearm as a pulling device instead of just your palms. They’re really all kind of the same.
Someone once told me to keep me elbows “pointed to the pool wall”, this is the same thing, right??
Can’t say that I’ve heard that one before. I’ve heard of always keeping your fingertips pointed towards the bottom of the pool, though. I’d add to that to do it without bending your wrist, though. Which is the same as pulling with your entire forearm when you think about it.
I think that “Swimming Over a Barrel” article was a classic case of over thinking (and Slowman’s response here is too). There is nothing that can screw up a swimmer (or golfer) more than being told too much.
The barrel allusion is simply a way to describe the arc of your arm when you are pulling.
Stand up, bend over at the waist and put you arm into the pulling position as if it were arc’ed around a barrel…not too straight but not really “bent”, with a littel shoulder extension.
Just swim something like that and you will start to feel how to create more resistance with your arm.
Keep focused on the feel and not on anything else, or you will confuse your proprioception, which is what you want to train…not your literal mind on thinking barrels are underneath the water.
Largely,
It simply does not happen!! It’s far more important to relax your recovery!! If you are too worried about how your hand enters the water, where your elbow is during the pull phase, and all kinds of other minutae, you are on the wrong path.
What happens when most competitive swimmers hands enter the water is that they press STRAIGHT DOWN with a STRAIGHT ARM! This is reality. This is documented in underwater film footage. There is little debate. The film does NOT LIE. Once you begin your pull, after your hand/arm gets past your head and neck; then the forearm/hand should lead the elbow holding the water while your body passes over your hand. If you BEGIN your pool with any kind of bend in the elbow, - you are not swimming correctly/efficiently, - and it is not good. Dan Veatch recovers his right arm with leading with the hand straight up in the air! His whole arm comes down and slaps the water, loudly, completely straight with a locked elbow. This is admittedly, - extremely unorthodox, - but it gets his arm in the proper position during the pull phase: the most important part.
Remember, you do NOT pull through that water!!! IMPORTANT: YOU DO NOT PULL THROUGH THE WATER! With the exception of a very slight bit of slippage, - your hand and arm enter in one location and remain while your body passes over the catch, or lock, on the water. Imagine that you’re climbing a horizontal ladder, - you catch a rung of that ladder and pull your body over it: thousands of horizontal, one arm, pullups…
When you’re swimming efficiently, - it matters not what your arms and hands due in the air, - except that they are relaxed. Your head position is far more significant. Head position dictates body position, - if your head is up, - the consequences are far more dire than anything that you can ever do with your recovery…
Too much thought here, too much nitpicking here, is a BAD idea. Better to log more hours in the pool: learn flip turns and be smooth, relaxed, and graceful.
What happens when most competitive swimmers hands enter the water is that they press STRAIGHT DOWN with a STRAIGHT ARM! This is reality. This is documented in underwater film footage. There is little debate. The film does NOT LIE. Once you begin your pull, after your hand/arm gets past your head and neck; then the forearm/hand should lead the elbow holding the water while your body passes over your hand. If you BEGIN your pool with any kind of bend in the elbow, - you are not swimming correctly/efficiently, - and it is not good.
While I think the rest of your post is fine, the above must be a matter of confused semantics. Most competitive swimmers do the exact opposite of what you’ve described. Sure, sprinters tend to pull a little deeper (e.g., less bend in the arm), but still have plenty of bend. Perhaps you meant to say they press “STRIAGHT BACK” not “DOWN”. A straight arm pull isn’t used by any great swimmers, but definitely used by a lot of really bad ones who are destroying their shoulders.
Nope!
The film clearly shows that upon entry we PRESS STRAIGHT DOWN toward the bottom of the pool. Once the hand locks into the CATCH, - at least 5 to 6 inches, the elbow naturally comes up while the arm bends and the body passes over the hand and forearm as it continues to bend and hold onto the same place in the water. You should hold onto that water as long as possible with your hand, (after your body passes over it)…
At initial entry, hand and forearm are STRAIGHT! Elbow, locked, stretched as far out as possible.
My point? Thinking about reaching over a barrel as part of the end of the recovery in the initial catch phase is a bad idea. The water should be caught with your hand and arm straight and as far outstretched as you possibly can get it. Anything else risks the terrible condition of a tense recovery. The WORST thing that one can ever do in swimming is lift their head and not relax their recovery.
In my opinion…
my brother swam at HS in the US for a year in 1977, came back and told me about the ‘swimming over a barrel’ visualisation, so it’s been around for a while…
I’ve always found it helpful, it’s one of my swim mantras…
I think that “Swimming Over a Barrel” article was a classic case of over thinking (and Slowman’s response here is too).
I disagree. I was given the “over the barrel” analogy a few years ago by a coach and I still keep it in mind when I swim. It has been a tremendous help.
“Largely”
what you see from your post – and the replies to it – is that it doesn’t matter what analogies you use, people are going to question the utility of your explanation. you use “ladder,” i use “rope,” i think we’re talking about the same thing. the “barrel” is something i thought up independently, and found out through this forum that it was anything but original. this doesn’t bother me, rather it tells me my view of the mechanics that occur between the catch and the pull are shared by others.
the barrel idea amplifies on the ladder only in that people don’t climb ladders, or ropes, with their forearms perpendicular to the plane or direction in which their moving. you need another, better analogy to explain pulling surfaces. keep in mind that the barrel analogy is used to explain what somebody ought to feel or envision when they are swimming. it’s not descriptive of an arc actually scribed by the hand in the water. i don’t think anybody intends for this when they use the barrel analogy, i certainly don’t. if you have an analogy that works better than “barrel,” by all means have at it, but you’ve got to go further than “ladder” or you fail to express the most important and problematic element of what happens after the catch.
as is often the case whether in bike fit, swim mechanics, religion or any number of things, people have a need not only to think they are correct, but that they ONLY are correct. if one reads what you wrote, and what i wrote, we’re both after the same mechanical act whether you agree to this or not. this act we advocate for is rarely executed by triathletes yet always executed by the best swimmers.
you and i and anyone else who tries to explain and describe these proper mechanics will also be accused of “overthinking” and “overexplaining,” yet it’s apparent the issue has been underthought and underexplained or else we’d be seeing proper mechanics employed by triathletes.
so, in the words of ricky ricardo, it’s obvious our sport has “got some ‘splainin’ to do.” i’m happy to yield to a better analogy or explanation, feel free to come with it, and present it here.
my brother swam at HS in the US for a year in 1977, came back and told me about the ‘swimming over a barrel’ visualisation, so it’s been around for a while…
I’ve always found it helpful, it’s one of my swim mantras…
For several years after I was first told this (when I started swim training in my 20s), I thought the long axis of the barrel was parallel to the long axis of my body. I was soooo confused…
so you bend your body to conform to the arc of the barrel? (just kidding) Whatever key visualization works! Just keep it simple! Clearly people waaay over think things when just swimming would be the best use of time. Imagine you are the oringinal poster here, what would you do?
See the debate over straight arm recovery…well, it isn’t a debate now that the pendulum has swung to where straight arm is in favor (see Swimming World’s article in the latest issue)…and I just bought a pile of swimming DVD’s from the coach of Texas saying that straight arm isn’t the best…my kids are gonna end up like pretzels…mentall and stroke-wise!
For all those looking for the “best” form, check out http://www.kurtz.se/swim/index.html the Jensen-Davies-Hackett.mpg from Athens 2004. It shows the top 3 freestylers doing three distinctly differnt strokes. I like Davies’ arm bend the best, that looks like a barrel grab!
What a nice post from you…
And quite a valid point. I really better understand the underlying reasons behind your analogies now.
Thank you.
My concern from your point of the Barrel analogy is that the swimmer will not stretch out forward and gain that added benefit of those extra inches, and time, (however brief), to grab them selves a good catch.
I’m speaking from years of swimming experience, coaching, empirical evidence from coaches, as well as a number of seminars, - (can you say band camp)?, - both as a swimmer and a coach. 
Some coaches teach some of their swimmers who have issues with incomplete strokes to throw their hands forward, albeit relaxed, during the recover so they get that early catch… Some teachers instruct their swimmers to snap their wrists at the end of their stroke to get all of that catch and kick the arm out at the recovery…
You’re right of course, - now that you’ve explained it so well, - these are very similar techniques and analogies to describe something that is not easy to describe. And this certainly is difficult as swim technique is pretty important, probably more important to running technique, - (I mean, we’re all land creatures). Even underwater filming and close observance can be problematic due to splashing and other visability issues…
Thanks again for your wise words…
“See the debate over straight arm recovery”
there is such a thing as majoring in the minors, and you bring up a good case in point. i think the question is, what’s important in swimming? obviously what you do out of the water has little impact on speed. janet evans recovered with a straight arm, hackett recovers with a wide arm, so there’s the two best-ever distance freestylers behaving NOT by the book.
some have a glide phase after the catch, vandekay has zero.
but they ALL form a high-elbowed pulling surface as their first motion after any glide phase (of whatever duration).
that is one element that’s obviously worthy of emulation, and obviously requires explanation, because it doesn’t appear to come to people naturally who take up swimming late in life.
“My concern from your point of the Barrel analogy is that the swimmer will not stretch out forward and gain that added benefit of those extra inches, and time”
valid point. hackett is a great example of reaching for every inch before the pull, and this is obvious when you watch underwater video of him. but i see this as an entirely separate element of the swim stroke, and reggiedog is right that you can throw so much information at somebody that it requires a dual processor and 2 gigs of clock speed to keep track of it all while swimming.
so i’d prefer to link the “reach” with other elements tangential to the catch. for example, i think that reach to which you refer is often the proximate cause for a bad thing that adult swimmers do, which is to overreach. by “overreach” i mean an attempt to reach straight out that ends up with a reach across the body’s centerline, in other words, in trying to extend (especially while you’re taking a breath) your hand crosses over and you just exacerbate that jackknifing at the waist that causes that splayed-leg kick and all sort of associated problems.
so then, i don’t talk about extending during the catch unless i’m also prepared to talk about those bad habits that accompany such attempts extension.
Slowman,
“Catch” says it all…and is all someone has to figure out to get to swimming nirvana…no matter what analogy or visual works for them…tough to analyze catch given so many variables for sure! It seems to me that getting the proprioception down is the key and giving some one start in that direction is about all one can really do to help (other than the obvious big/easy to spot “faults”).
So…I am always wondering why it is that top swimmers spend so many hours in the pool (particularly since 2hrs is a main week for me in training and I swim ~1hr in an IM ;-)…obviously(?) there is a diminishing return to the strenght/wind aspect of so many hours. So I wonder if, despite no one identifying it, that the long hours are mostly for proprioceptive training, getting the body to know how it feels - and how to efficiently correct bad feelings mid stroke. Those guys are so darn good, yet all with different strokes, that they feel the water differently than others and can judge by feel what is fast, while they are doing it.
Check out the little flutter Jensen makes with his left little and ring fingers on his extension in the video. That guy feels the water…
Someone once told me to keep me elbows “pointed to the pool wall”, this is the same thing, right??
Which wall? There’s 4 of them
Dan,
I have worked on the ‘high elbow’ a lot in the last few years. Recently, I’ve found that it I reach just a little bit farther as I ‘go over the barrel.’–like I just have to extend a little to get over it, this seems to engage me trunk and cause a little feeling of acceleration and grip that continues with the hip rotation. (I don’t think that I am crossing over, but…) This has especially helped my previously injured left arm, which has always had a weaker purchase on the water.