A theoretical paper but interesting nonetheless:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=22687444
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I remember seeing an instructional video from the University of Washington swim coach, and he was talking about this. His idea was to put your hand out your car window at highway speed, then play around with your finger spacing. The spacing that produced the most force against your hand would be what you should use in the water.
I do know that when I try to keep my fingers together, I get cramps in my hands eventually. If I relax my fingers and let them separate a little, no hand cramps.
After re-reading the PubMed piece, I wonder what is the Reynolds number for water? I have also heard for years that one should keep fingers slightly spread apart. Now apparently, the distance between fingers should be .2-.4 X finger’s diameter?
The best swim coach I’ve ever worked with said these two things about having essentially relaxed, partially open fingers. One, he feels like its faster. Second, it’s easier than holding them together.
I was at a clinic put on by an Olympian and his coach. No names to protect the innocent but but the question was posed, “should your fingers be spread?” The swimmer said “yes,” and the coach said, “no,” simultaneously. It was funny. Personal experience, I don’t think there is a right answer. I slightly open my fingers because it is comfortable.
The best swim coach I’ve ever worked with said these two things about having essentially relaxed, partially open fingers. One, he feels like its faster. Second, it’s easier than holding them together.
^^YES
A theoretical paper but interesting nonetheless:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=22687444
Phelps:
Key is to keep your hand relaxed. If you do that, there will be some openings between the fingers, but nothing huge.
Phelps is only doing that because he is lazy.
After re-reading the PubMed piece, I wonder what is the Reynolds number for water? I have also heard for years that one should keep fingers slightly spread apart. Now apparently, the distance between fingers should be .2-.4 X finger’s diameter?
The Reynolds number is a function of kinematic viscosity (“thickness” of the fluid), flow velocity and a characteristic length, in this case for example the finger diameter. Of these, only viscosity is a material function, the rest depends on the flow, so there is no “Reynolds number for water”, but a different one for each particular flow involving water. (More precisely: it is a scalar field, i.e., defined at every point of the flow with potentially different values.) My finger is about 1 cm in diameter, I move my hand with maybe 2 m/s when swimming, and the kinematic viscosity of water is about 10e-6 m^2/s, which gives a Reynolds number of 0.01 * 2 / 10e-6 = 20’000. For the very low Reynolds numbers addressed in the paper, you would either have to move your hands very, very slow, or have tiny fingers, but I’m not sure I understood correctly what they did. I’ll get the paper and look a bit more into it.
Or maybe I calculated something completely wrong.
Edit: This paper http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~glauder/reprints_unzipped/Lauder.Exp.Fluids.2011.pdf mentions Reynolds numbers for adult organisms between 5000 and 20’000, so not too far off.
I do know that when I try to keep my fingers together, I get cramps in my hands eventually. If I relax my fingers and let them separate a little, no hand cramps.
That’s funny, I get a cramp in my left hand between the second and third finger when they’re apart. So I have to work to keep them together.
Phelps is only doing that because he is high.
Fixed
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I do know that when I try to keep my fingers together, I get cramps in my hands eventually. If I relax my fingers and let them separate a little, no hand cramps.
That’s funny, I get a cramp in my left hand between the second and third finger when they’re apart. So I have to work to keep them together.
You guys need to talk to Captain Canada,he has a program that will fix both your problems…
I do know that when I try to keep my fingers together, I get cramps in my hands eventually. If I relax my fingers and let them separate a little, no hand cramps.
That’s funny, I get a cramp in my left hand between the second and third finger when they’re apart. So I have to work to keep them together.
You guys need to talk to Captain Canada,he has a program that will fix both your problems…
doesn’t involve a knife, right?
Phelps is only doing that because he is high.
Fixed
hahahahaaa, nice…
I was at a clinic put on by an Olympian and his coach. No names to protect the innocent but but the question was posed, “should your fingers be spread?” The swimmer said “yes,” and the coach said, “no,” simultaneously. It was funny. Personal experience, I don’t think there is a right answer. I slightly open my fingers because it is comfortable.
In my personal experience as a coach, when working with beginner/intermediate swimmers, if I tell them to slightly spread their fingers, they don’t have the kinesthetic awareness to do that and end up spreading their fingers too much. So I prefer to just tell them to keep their fingers together.
For advanced swimmers, they already know what they need to do to go fast, so there’s no point in changing the way they have their fingers. They usually have their fingers slightly spread apart already.
In my personal experience as a coach, when working with beginner/intermediate swimmers, if I tell them to slightly spread their fingers, they don’t have the kinesthetic awareness to do that and end up spreading their fingers too much. So I prefer to just tell them to keep their fingers together.
For advanced swimmers, they already know what they need to do to go fast, so there’s no point in changing the way they have their fingers. They usually have their fingers slightly spread apart already.
So as a coach you are basically not needed, just standing quiet on the deck…(-;
In my personal experience as a coach, when working with beginner/intermediate swimmers, if I tell them to slightly spread their fingers, they don’t have the kinesthetic awareness to do that and end up spreading their fingers too much. So I prefer to just tell them to keep their fingers together.
For advanced swimmers, they already know what they need to do to go fast, so there’s no point in changing the way they have their fingers. They usually have their fingers slightly spread apart already.
So as a coach you are basically not needed, just standing quiet on the deck…(-;
In many instances, not coaching is the best coaching.
New Tri gear: Carbon rings to keep your fingers at the optimal distance apart.
$44.99 USD comes with nice ring holders.
Condoms with finger holes strategically spaced out.
Assuming you have some Magnums laying around the house.
Where can I get these? Can you wear them with paddles and fins on?