Now I will stir the pot, everyone should have the latest Swim magazine, with the great woman breaststroker from San Diego. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, well several photos are showing her doing the breathing and pull wrong, again in my opinion. She is coming up way high and the head and eyes are looking down the pool. I call that swimming like a woman, or Amanda Beards old style. Even Brandon mentions he tries to get her to look down.
More and more women now swim breaststroke like the men, head down at all times and not coming up very high. Remember for every inch the head comes up the hips will sink two inches. I went to a development meet in November, the young hot shots. Only one girl in the entire group swam with a high head position.
Any comments?
This will be a real interesting year for swimmming. There will be a lot of world records broken in trials and the Olympics. In my opinion all the mens breaststroke records are soft. It may take a 58 and 2:07+ to win the mens gold. The women have developed the speed they need this last year. A 1:04 and 2:20+ is possible.
Any comments?
Former Member
I should also say the timing I use. You can never swim as fast as you can push off the wall underwater, I have a tight streamline so I go a full 3 seconds before pulling down for the 50, 100 and 200 races. For the 50 I count one and kick to the surface, I count two for the 100 and I count three for the 200. I can sometimes make 12 yards on just the first three seconds before the pulldown.
Cool, thanks. I'll try these techniques tomorrow and report my findings here. Wow, lots of tips for BS'ers in this little discussion Here are things that I'll try to remember tomorrow:
1. Look down when breathing, try to stay low during recovery (got this down already from Dave Denniston's video).
2. Hand recovery stays in the surface of the water.
3. Tight streamline, about 3 secs before pulling from the wall.
4. Most importantly, I'll try the modified pullout.:)
I think the Dave Denniston video is the best, slightly better than Ed Moses DVD video.
If I were his coach, I would have him do a narrower pull, with a more pronunced pull rather than scull. With less time with the arms in the pull phase, he could spend more time underwater in streamline.
Kitajima has a very small time wise pull phase. He starts and ends every stroke in a true streamline, even in the 100 meters. This means less effort overcoming water resistance, and more time getting distance out of the kick phase.
In the very early days of the wave style some recovered their hands over the water. But all soon realized that when the hands came out of the water, it caused the hips to sink. Same relationship as the head. Most people recover the hands through the top of the water or just under the waters surface.
The new style underwater pull satisfies the rules, gives nearly the same distance, but keeps the speed at a much higher average. Most people come to a complete stop after the hands come back to the sides of the hips.:mad:
Allen,
You mis-read. The 12.3 is the goal with the shortened pulldown. The 12.6 is my best.:D The real secret to this pull down is not breathing the first stroke up. Try it, you will feel much more power and carry more speed into the next breathing stroke. Allen, you have to try things in swim meets. Practice is not the same. You just might be surprised.
Do you do two turn sprints? We start as if going into a turn, swim a fifty and a reace finish. Basically the last 50 of a hundred. My best is 32.1. I have always felt my start was worth 3 seconds over a wall pushoff.
I have always had a very narrow kick. I could always kick along the pool wall without hitting the wall. But I am very concious of water resistance and streamlining during the kick. I continue to take videos underwater to make sure I keep the knees inline with the body, so not to break streamline. Videos of Barrowman, Moses etc all show a very low angle of knee bend when the feet are brought back. Poor breaststrokers have this huge bend at the waist that is the real major flaw in their strokes.
Only the feet are brought up, and that should be explosive. You want to cause as little time with this water resistance as possible. I really don't think exploding the kick back, that comes naturally. And I always snap the ankles so the heels smash together. Kitajima's coach feels that is what he does better than any other swimmer, and he feels all great breaststrokers do the ankle snap and heel crash naturally. The faster the heels are brought back to the but, the beter the kick will be.
Allen, PM me, I will send you my latest article.
I have had 6 swim workouts and 4 weight workouts this month, the most in over a year. There is still another week in this month. I was real sick at our Las Vegas meet, it has taken me two weeks to get back into the water.
Amanda Beard is a mystery. I have not seen here stroke since the 2000 Olympics. She has a new coach for some time. What I really like about her is she started swimming the World Cup. eek after week swimming short course meters against the fastest women in the world. Their times are getting so fast. I call it getting race hardened. I have never bought in the theory of only swiming one or two important races a year.
Spitz could race and break world records in practicein heavy training. Ed Moses has broken records in heavy training, as many others who now swim the World cup series. I think it gives you more chances of experimenting at race speed. Plus $5000 for a win, $25,000 for a world record, and $25,000 for swimer of the meet is incentive. Two weeks ago when Moses went 2:02.92, he won $65,000 in two days. He then won $15,000 the next week.
The biggest women swimmers change is Megan Quann. She used to come real high out of the water. She now swims like a man, head down. And she is BACK!
No, in truth the wave style is returning to what Barrowman did in the 1992 Olympics. Very low amplitude wave. Many coaches went the wrong way, emphasing going high out of the water. They even invented a non propulsive "windshield wiper" pull just to get the swimmer high enough to dive over the water.
The real secret of the wave is allowing a streamline while underwater:D
Great post by Wayne.I totally agree about stroke mechanics. I have REALLY been focusing on keeping my head down for the past year. THE result has been my best times in nearly 10 years and a new enthusiasm in training. I have been playing with the shortened underwater pull for some time now. It feels faster but the stop watch doesn't agree, yet, so I haven't used it in major meets. One major part of the "wave" breaststroke that Wayne hasn't emphasized in this thread is recovering the legs by bending at the knees only,with the hips straight until just before the catch when they do bend some to increase power. Doing this really decreases drag.
One question,how does Amanda Beard go so fast with her stroke?
( Wayne,if you can go 12.3 for a 50 I'm glad you don't have time to train. That time is scary. However, I do love to swim with you & hope you can find time to work out.)
Amanda Beard's coach I think is Busch. I think it help Amanda going to Arizona since she's been here she hasswimming toward the top again. I do think the world cups great for the top swimmers they make some cash.
