I swam this morning at Asphalt Green in New York City. Every Sunday morning the pool is set up lengthwise - 50 meters. I love swimming long course meters.
As is my custom before I do my swim, I check out the pool. Who is working out today? Is there anything I can learn from some super swimmer showing up for a workout? What I did see was the same old same old hand flick.
You have probably read about shortening the back end of your stroke or creating a high elbow recovery and early hand entry in line with your shoulders. All of the correct stroke recovery mechanics are impossible if you flick your fingers back as you recover your arm.
You have all seen the hand flick. I did it for forty-five years. You notice it when you see someone’s hand leave the water first (as opposed to last), water is splashed backward and the hand arcs above the elbow. Other obvious signs of the flick are hips going lateral, legs scissoring and arms crossing in front of the head on hand entry.
I consider hand flick a big error because it is the precursor of many other errors. Therefore, if it can be eliminated you will have a much a more efficient stroke.
How to - Finish your stroke at your hip with your palm facing backward. Release the stroke and allow your hand to face your body, palm inward. Let your shoulder lead the recovery, then elbow and finally hand. Keep your hand very close to the water as you bring it forward.
You have done drills which help facilitate the high elbow recovery. They include finger drag drill and Zipper drill.
The next time you go to your pool look around. You will see the flick.
I appreciate your comments. My goal has always been the “KISS” method Keep It Simple Stupid. If you can understand what I write then I have been successful. I call it as I see it. This is no way a reference to your intelligence.
Do not fear. We are going back to Curacao next year. Half the people from last year have signed on again so far. You can get information on the trip from my website at www.dougstern.com. If the trip have gets too big I will probably do back-to-back groups.
It’s always amazing what a little bit of help can do in the water. I started working with a guy in January who could barely swim 200y before having to stop and rest. He had no breath control. His stroke wasn’t THAT bad, though he was bad, he just needed to learn how to exchange O2 properly.
Now he’s doing 4000y workouts with no problem and working on much harder skills like proper catch, kick timing, pace control, most efficient turnover, etc. He was a 28-29min 1.5k guy last year and did well enough to get his pro card. With the way he is swimming now, he should be @ 22 by the end of June and I hoping for about 20-21 by world champs.
At one time or another every coach/teacher emphasized the strong finish of the stroke. I have had to revise articles that I have written. Swimming truths change. You’re just catching up. You learned something new today.
Thanks Doug! I can’t wait to get into the pool and try this out. I think I introduced the flick to my stroke a few weeks ago, and I’ve been wondering what has been going wrong ever since. Sometimes the simplest things are the easist to miss.
Can you elaborate a bit on how you corrected this breath control issue? Similar situation for me - okay stroke (as confirmed by underwater vid), okay muscular endurance, but crap aerobic endurance in the pool despite good bike & run endurance.
Agreed that these swim posts beat hell out of bike threads for their pragmatism.
The drill that helped him the most was kicking on his back, hands at his side and dipping his face underwater with each exhale.
Simple bobs help as well.
Another if u have a weak kick is to do vertical kicking with your hands under your armpits. The body will want to sink under the weight of your head so balancing the amount of air in your lungs to keep your nose and mouth above water can be tricky. Everytime you breath out you will sink a bit and will need to inhale soon or you’ll go under. Keeping that balance and keeping your body level in the water is a learned skill. make sue you are keeping your head straight up and down in line with the body. No tipping back.
Not sure what’s going on with u but he was just holding his breath and simply couldn’t exhale out his nose. He was breathing at the top of his lungs and wasn’t getting any air in when he went to take a breath. Really good swimmers will have total control over their breath and almost prefer to exhale underwater. Once he was able to control the exchange of air in the lungs and not get a ton of water up his nose he was able to swim easy and focus on the stuff that gets you across the pool.
How long did it take for the guy that you were working with to build up that kind of volume and timing (approx. weeks, volume/week)? Did you build a program for him? I’m in the same boat right now but I’m comfortable exhaling underwater. Bilateral breathing too. Catch, pacing, turnover need mad work but will settle for volume and efficiency energy-wise for now. I guess that I’m a lean sinker so I tend to kick a bit more to stay level and my pacing is a bit ahead of where it should be if that makes sense. When I get this swim thing down pat, I know I will crush my time goals as I am cool in the other 2 disciplines. Thanks.
I can vouch for this tip. Three years ago I went from a slow gasping swimmer to better than average (well, for triathletes) . I watched my buddies at masters workouts and decided it wasn’t for me so I learned by trial and error. Probably can’t fine tune by this method but can correct gross errors. The one stroke alteration I noticed immediate speed from was pulling the hand out earlier and seeingly straight up out of the water. It was counter intuitive because one would think giving up that thrust at the end is wasteful. My stroke became longer and my swimming became less labored. Once your hand passes the hip you’re pushing and that seemed to waste energy.
Not sure what’s going on with u but he was just holding his breath and simply couldn’t exhale out his nose. He was breathing at the top of his lungs and wasn’t getting any air in when he went to take a breath. Really good swimmers will have total control over their breath and almost prefer to exhale underwater. Once he was able to control the exchange of air in the lungs and not get a ton of water up his nose he was able to swim easy and focus on the stuff that gets you across the pool.
I was sort of trying to do the same thing at first, even though I used to be on the swim team 10+ years ago. The trick that I found was getting the rhythym correct and making sure that I started breathing out early enough in the stroke. I breathe out probably at least 50% through my nose, and finishing the exhale just slightly after my mouth breaks the surface. After a while I automatically remember to breathe in only through my mouth.
One of the other biggest little errors in swimming is forgetting to point your toes. Well not point like a ballerina, but don’t leave them at 90 deg from your legs. I cut 15 minutes off of my IM swim time in practice when I realized what a doofus I was being.