Technical Discussion Thread

Hey RainMan, I was all set to start a new thread, since the last one is so bloated, only to find that you already did that. Well, I've heard that great minds think alike. :D Sorry not to talk about the breaststroke pullout, but there is something else I have to get off my chest... 3) Technique is the only area that real gains have been made, mostly with ideas like core body use, head alignment, balance, better under standing of using streamlining. There was also a real gain about how best to propel yourself through the water. I think this point is being missed by a lot of people. I'm sure there are other books that also cover this, but I suggest Colwin's "Swimming in the 21st Century" if you are interested in the details and the science behind more efficient swimming. I'll try to summarize some of the key points (but I am sure this will be an oversimplification). The reason is that one pulls the body in the water by pushing the hand backward, while the hand is in the water. Thus, pulling is by pushing water back. I see any competitor's hand pushing water when the hand travels from being in front, past the hips, then out of the water. This was conventional thinking back in the 80s, and which I'm sure some (many?) people still subscribe to. The obvious implication is that you will go faster if you push on the water harder, or increase your stroke rate. While this does work, the important change in thinking is that there is a *much* better way of powering yourself through the water. There are three problems with the old thinking. (1) Study after study showed that stroke rate was uncorrelated with speed. (This is *not* saying that a single swimmer would have a higher or lower SR than another. This is saying that while elite swimmers are a lot faster than average swimmers, SR is not causing the difference.) (2) Studies (like the summary of Toussaint's thesis on "Mechanics and Energetics of Swimming" that I found on the web, comparing competitive swimmers and triathletes) show that elite swimmers can swim much faster than less skilled swimmers, using the same amount of energy and SR. They are going faster with less of their energy being used to "push water". (3) Photographs have been taken of elite swimmers compared to ordinary swimmers, keeping track of where the hand enters and exits the water. (This is done from the side of the pool, not from the perspective of the moving swimmer.) The ordinary swimmer pulls their hand out of the water behind where it went in. Elite swimmers pull their hand out in the same place (or ahead of) where it went in. So elite swimmers have some way of "anchoring" their hands in the water so they don't slip, rather than just pushing water back. From comments on the forums, people mention that Olympic swimmers are taller, stronger, have a more streamlined body shape, etc. But they are missing the fact that Olympians are also swimming a different way than the average swimmer. This last point can be changed, and will result in increased speed for the non-elite swimmer. Colwin mentions propeller theory, which states that it is better to accelerate a large mass of water slowly than it is to accelerate a small amount of water quickly. Water flows under pressure. If you push too hard/fast on the water, more of your energy goes into moving the water in random directions (turbulence). If you can catch a large amount of water, and get most of it moving in the same direction, you will generate more thrust. Over in the TI discussions, the example of the 50 free keeps coming up. Over that short of a distance, Olympians are giving up some efficiency to get that little extra speed. While they are "pushing water" more than they would in the 100 free, they are still doing it less than the average swimmer does (at any speed or distance). Even in the 50, Olympians are more efficient. So for new TI people, the point is NOT that a slower stroke rate (by itself) will make you faster. You only slow down your stoke to learn how to exert force on a larger mass of water. Stroke length gives you a measure of how well you are doing. You then try to minimize your efficiency loss as you move to faster stroke frequency. (If someone else is teaching this style of swimming on a popular level, other than TI/TI-proponents, they should point it out to me, so I can stop giving free TI advertising. :D )

Hey RainMan, I was all set to start a new thread, since the last one is so bloated, only to find that you already did that. Well, I've heard that great minds think alike. :D Sorry not to talk about the breaststroke pullout, but there is something else I have to get off my chest... 3) Technique is the only area that real gains have been made, mostly with ideas like core body use, head alignment, balance, better under standing of using streamlining. There was also a real gain about how best to propel yourself through the water. I think this point is being missed by a lot of people. I'm sure there are other books that also cover this, but I suggest Colwin's "Swimming in the 21st Century" if you are interested in the details and the science behind more efficient swimming. I'll try to summarize some of the key points (but I am sure this will be an oversimplification). The reason is that one pulls the body in the water by pushing the hand backward, while the hand is in the water. Thus, pulling is by pushing water back. I see any competitor's hand pushing water when the hand travels from being in front, past the hips, then out of the water. This was conventional thinking back in the 80s, and which I'm sure some (many?) people still subscribe to. The obvious implication is that you will go faster if you push on the water harder, or increase your stroke rate. While this does work, the important change in thinking is that there is a *much* better way of powering yourself through the water. There are three problems with the old thinking. (1) Study after study showed that stroke rate was uncorrelated with speed. (This is *not* saying that a single swimmer would have a higher or lower SR than another. This is saying that while elite swimmers are a lot faster than average swimmers, SR is not causing the difference.) (2) Studies (like the summary of Toussaint's thesis on "Mechanics and Energetics of Swimming" that I found on the web, comparing competitive swimmers and triathletes) show that elite swimmers can swim much faster than less skilled swimmers, using the same amount of energy and SR. They are going faster with less of their energy being used to "push water". (3) Photographs have been taken of elite swimmers compared to ordinary swimmers, keeping track of where the hand enters and exits the water. (This is done from the side of the pool, not from the perspective of the moving swimmer.) The ordinary swimmer pulls their hand out of the water behind where it went in. Elite swimmers pull their hand out in the same place (or ahead of) where it went in. So elite swimmers have some way of "anchoring" their hands in the water so they don't slip, rather than just pushing water back. From comments on the forums, people mention that Olympic swimmers are taller, stronger, have a more streamlined body shape, etc. But they are missing the fact that Olympians are also swimming a different way than the average swimmer. This last point can be changed, and will result in increased speed for the non-elite swimmer. Colwin mentions propeller theory, which states that it is better to accelerate a large mass of water slowly than it is to accelerate a small amount of water quickly. Water flows under pressure. If you push too hard/fast on the water, more of your energy goes into moving the water in random directions (turbulence). If you can catch a large amount of water, and get most of it moving in the same direction, you will generate more thrust. Over in the TI discussions, the example of the 50 free keeps coming up. Over that short of a distance, Olympians are giving up some efficiency to get that little extra speed. While they are "pushing water" more than they would in the 100 free, they are still doing it less than the average swimmer does (at any speed or distance). Even in the 50, Olympians are more efficient. So for new TI people, the point is NOT that a slower stroke rate (by itself) will make you faster. You only slow down your stoke to learn how to exert force on a larger mass of water. Stroke length gives you a measure of how well you are doing. You then try to minimize your efficiency loss as you move to faster stroke frequency. (If someone else is teaching this style of swimming on a popular level, other than TI/TI-proponents, they should point it out to me, so I can stop giving free TI advertising. :D )