I have just been on hols and caught up my Florida based niece. I knew she was a good swimmer but it turns out she is on the Junior Olympic team…!!!
She had some interesting comments on my smooth glide-based swimming stroke - DON’T DO IT!!!
Her comments were:
Use a straight arm recovery (not bent arm);
Pull as soon as the hand enters the water - this eliminates the glide phase entirely; and
Practice straight arm swim drills, ie swim “windmill style”.
This was all a bit revolutionary for me - however after 3 weeks of practicing this technique I am beginning to like it. I find it much easier to swim distance at a constant speed and do not get as tired.
Any thoughts on the straight arm recovery and “pull not glide” approach to swimming?
Practice straight arm swim drills, ie swim “windmill style”.
I would use caution about a straight arm. It will put a lot of stress on your shoulder and rotator. Maybe she meant to pull straight back and not a straight arm?
I think some athletes take the “glide” thing a little too far. Losing momentum during the strokle means the glide pahse is too long. It is about manitaining wake and inertia in the water. If your glide was so long it caused to decelerate, even minutely, ten you have to use energy to re-accelerate with the next stroke. That is wasted energy.
The key is walking a fine line between knowing when to begin the stroke. I find that visualizing the swimming stroke as one continuous, never ending motion as opposed to where it begins and ends on each individual repetition to be helpful. This mindset helps eliminate the “seams” between the stroke. It also helps with your stroke turnover.
Now, when you intrduce a wetsuit into the equation, things change…
Let me say to start with my master swim coach has several oly level swimmers and still teaches relaxed bent arm recovery which is what I do and feel comfortable with but that being said your niece my have and it is what obviously works for her. I think each swimmer has their own technique which works. If her technique works for you great and you may need someone(a coach) to evaluate your particular technique to see what may work best for you. If you can get any swim film of Dave Scott swimming you will notice his above water technique looks bad but under the water he got obviously got the job done. Happy swimming mike
Tom, I agree completely (not that I’m a swim coach or anything). The “glide” should not be a move forward-pause, move forward-pause, move forward-pause, etc type of movement. Just as you don’t pedal-coast (i.e. slow down), pedal, coast, or run-walk, run-walk, run-walk, etc. It should be continuous. Constant forward movement.
I’m not sure I follow the straight-arm recovery thing. If it means what I am interpreting it to mean, I don’t see how it could lead to more efficient or faster swimming. Someone want to explain this? I understand a straight-arm pull, but not recovery. It would require more energy (covers more distance, in more time, and uses more muscular force) to use a straight-arm recovery rather than a relaxed (dangling from the elbow) “reach”. I’m not following how that is better.
Hid - she def meant straight arm recovery. there has been discussion on this forum before on this technique. i think pro swimmer Janet Evans uses it…
Tom - how do you think swim technique changes with a wetsuit on? I think it does, I am just interested in your view of how…? (less glide?)
TT - straight arm recovery means what it says. when you recover your arm don’t bend it. it is surprisingly comfortable after a bit of practice and helps to keep the momentum going when you get in a rhythm.
The “windmill technique” is just a drill - when swimming normally there is a certain amout of bend in the elbow.
Different strokes for diffferent folks - literally.
If you do the straight arm recovery, your legs will swing from side to side a lot more, so to counter this you have to have a very high turnover. I guess it’s the equivalent of spinning on the bike? Whether this places more of a strain on you than bent-arm is debatable.
Janet Evans & Brooke Bennett made the straight arm recovery famous. Popov, Thorpe, Hackett and many others are advocates for bent-arm. The vast majority of Olympic level swimmers use bent-arm, so I’d stick with that.
However, it is VERY easy to do too much gliding. I glide until my arm is fully outstretched, and then I start my pull immediately. I do not leave my hand hanging out there as that’s just wasting speed. Once your arm has reached maximum extension (and you’ve rolled onto your armpit) you’re as streamlined as you’re ever going to be. You are also at the point in the stroke where your opposite arm is exiting the water, so there’s no propulsion if you leave your arm outstretched. Any delay here will only hamper your speed.
In years past when I was coaching we told people to freaking glide and then glide some more. The trends have been to not emphasize the glide so much. Basically gliding doesn’t pull you forward through the water. Outstretching your arm fully will help you swim on your side for a longer amopunt of time which makes you more hydrodynamic.
I know that several world and aspiring world class ITU triathletes have been more concerned about grabbing the water sooner in the swim stroke than say 3-4 years ago.
And also different strokes for different body types.
High turnover works well for relatively short women like Evans and Bennett. Long slow turnover gliding stroke works well for tall men like 6’6" Thorpe. Most swimmers end up falling somewhere between Evans and Thorpe in terms of what’s an optimal style for their body type. Finding that optimal point for each swimmer is the hard part.
If you’re feeling more comfortable and faster with the straight arm recovery, I’d keep up with it, at least in the short term. With straight arm/higher cadence freestyle you can also get away with a lighter kick that you would with a more gliding stroke. (and if you can get away with not using the legs so much in the water, you’re saving those muscles for the bike and run)
If you want to read some really, really long discussions on that sort of stroke, and its usefullness for distance swimmers and triathletes, poke around the archives of rec.sport.swimming and look for the Larry Weisenthal and Terry Laughlin debates.
As a masters coach and a decent swimmer here are my thoughts.
If you are going to use a straight arm recovery you need to make sure that you are rotating enough and your arm should recover close to the surface of the water. If you are is higher than 6-12 inches above the water you are putting unnecessary strain on your shoulder and it could lead to injury.
Also, you can use a straight arm recovery and still use a catch-up stroke. My personal opinion is that for most people, swimming should be similar to skating or skiing, in that it is a pull-glide-pull-glide, rather than the continuous movement of cycling or running. The reason for this is that if you are pulling enough water, it will take your pulling arm longer to finish than it will take your recovery arm to recover into the catch phase of your stroke.
Another reason to use a catch-up style stroke is that it keeps your body longer in the water and hydrodynamically, long and thin has less drag than short and thin.
I’ve never heard of a junior olympic team, but most states do have a junior olympics meet for those who are younger than 14 at the end of the short and long course seasons.
Some argue that brooke and janet were great distance swimmers despite their strokes, but i also know that effeciency can (and sometimes should) take a back seat to rythm, especially in endurance competition.
You will prob. never see a sprinters use this technique (very difficult to mantian an even 6 beat kick and get properhip rotation), it also requires more energy to lift your arm higher.
I always accelerated my arm forward in the water before pulling back, i never actually glided, and it was a very quick and fluid motion. I think the word “glide” should be replaced with accelerate, as too many people misunderstand this technique.
on an aside note, i swam for 13 years before realizing how much it sucked, so i didn’t just bullshit this whole post.
Yesterday I’ve had the best and worst experience in the pool with my strokes.
We had a 400 warmup, then a 4x700 (400m free pull, 100 IM, 100 Stroke, 100 kick).
In the 400 pull I’ve felt soooooo good. When I was pulling I could feel the water flowing around it (literally), and I felt like every inch of pull I was pushing against something solid and I was moving fasttt.
Then by the 3rd 700 my palm cramped. This never happened before. You know like the bottom of your foot cramps (near the arch); same thing happened to my palm. Ouch.
To finish off we’ve had 3x150, 3x100, 3x50. Each 150 was suppose to be faster then the previous one, and same thing with the 100’s. I swam the 150’s on 2:10, 2:04, 1:59. I tried twitching my stroke as I swam, and I found out that the msot important thing for me is to keep my head down and just try and focus on gripping the water. I also found that if I breathe every 4 or 5 my stroke becomes a lot smoother.
Most people don’t bring a drink to the pool for a one hour session, but woyld never think of taking a 1-hour ride without any fluids. So to avoid those cramps, bring a water bottle with your favorite sports drink and you’ll keep those cramps away.
Yeah, I also thought about switching the hand I mast… jk never mind =D
I’m still pretty off my 5:00 goal, but I’m more focused on longer distances (750 and 1500). I’m still amazed that bjorn swam 17:0x when he was my age (or maybe a year older). How do people become so fast in the water? I have to admit I have been improving pretty steadily over the last 6 months (ever since I switched teams), but at this rate I’ll be 20 before I can swim that fast for 1500.
Yeah, I also thought about switching the hand I mast… jk never mind =D
I’ve heard this called “The Stranger”. When coaching baseball I heard all sorts of mast … err … those kinds of stories.
I am likely confusing “pretty swimming” (no splash, gliding) as being the only way of efficient, fast swimming … likely a newbie mistake. I was watching clips of swimmers from a swim site, and they seem to just flick the hand out after the full pull and let it swing over and flop into the water, rather than the glide stuff. It just seems like it would require more energy than just a relaxed reach. I’ll may give it a try for 500 or so and compare the feels.
Can somebody help me out on this … I’ve got a siwm workout planned that says 500swim, 500pull, 500kick, 500swim as the main. When it says “500pull” and 500kick what exactly does this mean? Does the 500pull mean you just accent the pull much more than usual? Does the 500kick mean arms in front, rotating on sides to breath (propulsion is only the kick). I realize the question is horribly newbie and the answer is likely obvious, but a litle help would be greatly appreciated.
3. Practice straight arm swim drills, ie swim “windmill style”.
What’s the point of this one? I mean, what skill does it emphasize? I’m really asking, not flaming. But it seems like a lot of people have a bigger problem NOT windmilling when they swim. . .
How come we never talk about developing a “feel” for the water anymore? I always thought that was a term pretty inclusive of both propulsion and hydrodynamics.