Fqs

I swam the 400 Free at Savannah LCM Nats and couldn't believe how good it felt. Being a butterflyer and never much of a freestyler I recently have been working on my freestyle. I used to hate anything over a 200, but I felt so great after my 400 I could have gone another 400 at the same pace. The reason was not just front-quadrant swimming, but the fact that I wasn't pulling all the way back. I was recovering quicker so I could maintain a rhythm that kept me in the front quadrant. By establishing a good rhythm you avoid "dead-spots" by gliding too long. As someone once said - and then I heard Michael Collins say it again - "there is no glide in freestyle." Now, I believe it.

Biomechanically, kicking is a terribly inefficient means of propelling yourself through the water. If you are doing a 50m sprint you can clearly afford to expend the energy and pay the price in oxygen consumption and waste product buildup. If you are swimming the 1500m you only want to kick enough to use the excess metabolic capacity not being used by your arms and core, otherwise you are starving your efficient engine to fuel your inefficient engine. No?

Great article about this subject in Swimming Technique. Lars Jensen's coach, Bill Rose, believes that the six beat kick is important but should not consume too much energy. He believes it helps maintain good balance. Apparently 30% of their workouts are kicking. Chad Carvin was the first of the American distance swimmers to change over to a six beat kick in an effort to compete with Hackett. Supposedly Jensen's "late" start (age 13) meant that he never picked up a two beat kick as a survival technique in practice.

I guess part of the point is that if you are genetically gifted and swimming 12000m a day in workouts you may well be capable of maintaining a good kick through the 1500. If, on the other hand, you have a more typical masters level of conditioning you may do better with a different ratio of kick to pull effort.

I agree 100% with that. At this stage in my life, I don't believe I have the time nor the genes to develop a six beat kick that will last for 1500 meters.

Very interesting thread. Several people have given their stroke counts in the 12-15 range. Is this counting a full cycle (r-arm, l-arm) as 1 stroke or two?

1) Negative splits are how you use a kick in distance. 2) Some swimmers increase their speed up to 35% with kicking. 3) I really think htat what happens under the water is more the point than above the water. FQS is a means to get your hands ready to begin your stroke.

hey craig, did you throw that "Some swimmers increase their speed up to 35% with kicking.", in to see if anybody was paying attention? Or did you mean 3.5% or was it 350%. Increase speed or decrease speed?

While I'm questioning conventional wisdom, my limited knowledge of hydrodynamics leads me to question whether Froude's work really says that sticking your arm out in front of you greatly reduces wave drag. My recollection of Froude was that for a given displacement a narrower hull resulted in lower drag, I am not at all sure that you can make a boat faster by attaching a flag pole to the bow under the waterline, which is the rough equivalent to sticking your arm out while stroking on your side. If this worked I would expect to see such underwater protrusions in high performance sailing yachts. I think cross section normal to the direction of motion is the critical factor and long thin hull has a smaller cross section for a given displacement than a shorter hull. The width of the waterline would also be a factor as the bow wave would be acting on a smaller area even for an equivalent cross section (deeper is better than wider). I'm not saying that extending your arm out is not the right thing to do, just that the explanation of why seems questionable to me, in the same way that all that talk about foils never made sense. Extending the arm might help balance or body position or roll or be beneficial in some other biomechanical fashion. Any hydrodynamic experts care to fill us in?

Originally posted by fatboy Very interesting thread. Several people have given their stroke counts in the 12-15 range. Is this counting a full cycle (r-arm, l-arm) as 1 stroke or two? I can only speak for myself by saying that it represents each hand entry. My guess is that the others utilize the same stroke count theory.