This week in our Race Club camp, I had two swimmers who represented very different types of athletes. One of them was 12-year-old Erin, whose mother had won a gold medal in Sailing in the Pan American Games some years ago, and the other was Melody, who is a 29-year-old-superbly-conditioned triathlete from the SF Bay area.
Erin is a tall, spindly girl who will undoubtedly reach over six feet when she is through growing, and is already a few inches taller than Melody, yet could not even muster a bend in her elbow on the pull up bar. Melody is strong. She can do umpteen pullups, ab sets all day long and can run like the wind. Yet, put Melody in the pool next to limp, gangly Erin and it is a different story. Erin swims circles around Melody. Therein lies the paradox of swimming. Where does all that power go in the water?
It is not as if Erin had it all right when we started, even though she swims for a competitive team. Both swimmers come from programs with little or no swim technical training….and it showed. Once we got the head in the right position and the elbows up underwater, though, it was still no contest. And then it donned on me. What Melody was missing wasn’t the high elbow or the head position or even the slimmer body of Erin. It was the connection.
The connection between the beginning of the arm pull (the catch) and the start of the counter-rotation of the core (hip/shoulders/legs) is a vital part of fast swimming. Among beginner swimmers, it is often missing. Among fast swimmers, it is taken for granted. What is so fascinating about this connection is that it can take a long-piece-of-spaghetti type arm, like Erin’s and create more propulsive power in water than a big, strong arm, like Melody’s.
I like to compare the connection to the pitching mound. A pitcher who throws a baseball at 90 mph from the mound will lose about half of that speed when throwing from the deep end of a swimming pool. There are a few reasons for that, but the biggest one for losing the ball speed is that the water is not stabile. So when he throws from the diving pool, he has nothing solid to push back against, as he does with his foot on the pitching mound.
So when it is just you swimming across a lake, an ocean or a swimming pool, there is nothing to generate forces to move you faster through the water other than those you create with your own body; no starting block, no wall…just you and the water molecules. The act of counter-rotating your body simultaneous to the start of the pull, what we call the connection, enables one to create more propulsive power out of the arm pull. It enables one to achieve greater distance per stroke. It enables swimmers to swim fast.
The good news is that after working with Melody all week, trying lots of different drills and ideas to get her to understand the connection, she is starting to get it. And it shows. I loved to share with her the story of one of my ‘non-swimmers’, Nancy from Philadelphia, who is in her late 50’s, a fitness model, but had never swum before. After two Race Club camps, Nancy swims like she has swum all her life. She finally got the connection.
If you want to look and act like a fast swimmer in water, learn to connect. We’ll help you do it.
Gary, I think Doug Stern said something along the lines of imagining that your right arm is being connected to the left hip. As the right arm catches and starts pulling, imagine that is aiming for the left hip, while imaging that the left hip is driving down and forward towards the right hand…does this make sense…does it encapsulate the feeling?
As someone with plenty of strength but very little swim speed (so frustrated by this, ha ha), I’m interested in this. Can you guys try to further explain this counterrotation/connection (or link me up with some appropriate youtube videos?)
It does make sense, as Doug had a great way of explaining things. Getting a swimmer to counter-rotate means we first have to get them to rotate. That takes energy…and something the beginner often doesn’t want to donate.
I have also found that the way the arms recover above water (more vertical than horizontal) also helps promote better rotation.
Actually gentlemen, I believe this “connection” is directly related to the timing between the pull and the kick. And it really is QUITE simple to teach, given a properly structured program (I happen to have one somewhere, here, let me see … oh right in my sig).
This proper kick timing, I believe helps to synchronize the body with the arm pull (or at the very least an IMPROPER timing of the kick can prevent body-arm synch).
This baseball pitcher analogy you mention was put forward in a paper by Prins, entitled, “Swimming Stroke Mechanics: A Biomechanical Viewpoint on the Role of the Hips and Trunk in Swimming”, in which he measured the velocity of a water polo ball thrown by a javelin thrower, while standing in varying depths of water, and then floating with a vest, her velocity fell from 20 to 12 m/s as a result. With this, he concluded that there was no evidence of a “kinetic chain” since the feet were not fixed - chalking it all up to inertial forces around the trunk.
Prins makes this point to counter what he perceives to be an inordinate amount of attention to “hip rotation” and “body roll” that is so frequently tossed out there. I can’t disagree that I see a number of swimmers attempting just that - rolling the body in the interest of producing propulsion (and failing). However, I think that a good case can be made that some principles of the kinetic chain still apply, since the feet can exert a countering force, in essence stabilizing the core. A more definitive experiment would have been to have this javelin thrower complete a throw with feet tied together, and then with her feet allowed to go free - I suspect that we would have seen a difference as she was able to in fact use her feet to stabilize the core and generate power with the arm.
Just thought I’d chip in with my experience. I got good enough at swimming to find out I wasn’t good enough! For Power vs Technique, I always remember watching Pieter van den Hoogenband as a spindley sixteen year old (we are the same age) destroy the field at a European Grand Prix by a clear second over 100m against these massive 20 plus year old guys who were twice the size of him. It was a thing of beauty. I, by the way, was at the back of the field.
You are right, Robert. The kick is a very important part of the force one creates during the counter rotation, amplifying the propulsive power of the arm pull. Jan Prins is very bright and a post graduate of Indiana University, I might add.
Tagging onto this thread for the exactt same reason…I’m interested in this as well, but cannot quote catch on to the concept. I’ve only been swimming for the past year so I’ve still got a lot to learn.
Tagging onto this thread for the exactt same reason…I’m interested in this as well, but cannot quote catch on to the concept. I’ve only been swimming for the past year so I’ve still got a lot to learn.
Michael
There are some great websites for this. Check out http://www.virtual-swim.com/3d_mv/top_btn/free/3d_s_free.html is a good start. And listen to both Gary and Robert. They know what they are talking about. Finally, my advice is learn how to swim well, before swimming fast. 2 tips swim 100m count strokes per length and time. Swim it again with 1 less stroke a length but with the same time. Do AT LEAST 500m of drills a session. You will get more from them than from thrashing up and down the pool.
watched the Big Ten Network show on Spitz a few weeks ago and remember your interviews from there. I love when summer rolls around so I can train in the outdoor pool.
However, I think that a good case can be made that some principles of the kinetic chain still apply, since the feet can exert a countering force, in essence stabilizing the core. A more definitive experiment would have been to have this javelin thrower complete a throw with feet tied together, and then with her feet allowed to go free - I suspect that we would have seen a difference as she was able to in fact use her feet to stabilize the core and generate power with the arm.
That makes perfect sense to me. How do you build that in to your stroke mechanics if you don’t have it?
The connection between the beginning of the arm pull (the catch) and the start of the counter-rotation of the core (hip/shoulders/legs) is a vital part of fast swimming. Among beginner swimmers, it is often missing.
What drills do you recommend to correct this deficiency (for those of us that won’t be able to make it to your club in the foreseeable future)?
Try this
Freestyle with band pull, no kick allowed inside band, no hip rotation Freestyle with band pull, no kick allowed inside band, with hip rotation Freestyle with band pull, 2 beat kick allowed inside band Freestyle, no band, 2 beat
This should be the equivalent of your javelin thrower with feet tied up trying to throw
.
This connection…not sure what it is, and I know I DON’T have it. I love triathlon and I want to swim better. I have had lessons, I have done masters but at the end of the day, my times do not improve. Can you buy this connection?
The best drill I know of to feel the power of the connection is the 6 kick, one stroke drill, with fins. The fins add power to the counter-force and enable you to experience this connection power more.
Get on your side, kicking with one arm over your head and one at the side. If you are on your left side, your right arm is above.
Take one stroke with the right arm as you simultaneously recover with the left arm. With the recovery arm let your thumb touch an imaginary string that comes straight above the left shoulder. This will force you to recover over the top, rather than the side.
Be sure the underwater pull occurs simultaneously with the recovery (as opposed to a catchup stroke). You will feel the power of the rotation moving you forward with each stroke.
I would love to see a video of this drill, because I’m having trouble figuring out what the recovery looks like. Any chance of that? (If it helps my case, I work down the hall from Erin’s mom from your article, and she showed me your post on beginner triathlete!)
Thanks,
That’s kind of where I am right now. As I mentioned, I’ve only been swimming for a year now and “think” my form is decent (I’m sure I have lots of areas for improvement), I think I have the basics of form though. I swim 2000 yds a session and recently have been trying to hold my form thru the entire set and not let it go to crap toward the end. The last few swim sessions I’ve done I’ve felt my form has stayed consisent thru to the end so now I’m thinking about working toward gaining some speed. Some good advice here and any concepts that has the possibility to provide serious speed gains…I’m all ears.
Michael
Tagging onto this thread for the exactt same reason…I’m interested in this as well, but cannot quote catch on to the concept. I’ve only been swimming for the past year so I’ve still got a lot to learn.
Michael
There are some great websites for this. Check out http://www.virtual-swim.com/.../free/3d_s_free.html is a good start. And listen to both Gary and Robert. They know what they are talking about. Finally, my advice is learn how to swim well, before swimming fast. 2 tips swim 100m count strokes per length and time. Swim it again with 1 less stroke a length but with the same time. Do AT LEAST 500m of drills a session. You will get more from them than from thrashing up and down the pool.