Butterfly, me, and Phelps

Marc, I was wondering if your new technique lowered the stroke count or not?

I've been thinking about it most of the afternoon. My guess is that it lowered my stroke count. It felt slower but was faster. That seems like an indication of efficiency. More efficient means less work, which probably means fewer arms strokes. Unfortunately, I didn't count. Normally I take 6 or 7 per 25 yards. If you're thinking of trying going deeper I'm not sure you should focus so much on going deep as much as having an extreme body wave with a good hard kick to keep momentum. I think the "body wave" the key. I may have been slightly exaggerating with 3' deep, but it's much deeper than I've ever swum fly before, and I'm talking surface of the water to chest. Phelps fly arm stroke broken down as best I can describe as it relates to what I had to do: Hands enters water (no splash, already on downward arc) dive down about 2' as quickly as possible. I found that I had to mentally treat the entry as a dive to 2 feet, instead of an hand/arm entry. Pull Immediately and hard. Direct momentum forward while underwater. I found that if I wasn't careful I'd pull myself downward slightly instead of forward. near 1/3 of pull - start on upward arc near 2/3 of pull - breath. This is a very quick breath. Quicker than I'm used to. end of pull - start top of arc, arms fully extended backward, head should be buried. Your head and hands should never be out of the water at the same time. Recovery. Now, I don't know about what I did, but I noticed on the video that Phelps' shoulders were about 6 to 8 inches underwater at the ending of his recovery. There is obviously a trade off here, but my guess is that the amount of resistance caused by the upper arms at this moment is completely negated by the more powerful body wave and kick. Phelps kick is a 2 beat kick... I'll let you figure it out. I'm not sure I could describe the timing and get it right. I don't think it's anything special. Just very pronounced and hard. Since you're further underwater you'll probably find you can be a little more exaggerated without breaking the water's surface. I don't know if this stuff will help anyone else. Recently I've been focusing on keeping my butterfly reach forward. I know that this has flattened out my body wave quite a bit. It's entirely possible that this exercise has simply corrected a mistake. It's entirely possible that this is the way I should have been swimming fly all along.

Wow, I really want to try this. So if I understand you right, I should try to get my body deeper on the arm entry?

Thanks for the tip.....I think I'll also give it a try and report back.....If it works for Phelps....then it's hard to argue against it.....(although I don't have the same kind of body as Phelps does...so maybe it won't work??) newmastersswimmer p.s. I was talking with a lifeguard friend of mine at the pool the other day who swims for a USS team in Memphis and has seen this guy named Gil Stovall swim on multiple occaissions growing up (Gil swam for the Memphis Tiger Swim Club and a local high school team in Memphis up until last year)......I think he even knows him somewhat from age group swimming with him over the years??....Anyway, apparently this guy is lightening fast in the butterfly (He holds the 100 fly HS record in Tennessee at 47.93...a record he set just last year in fact)....He is a freshman this year at Georgia and he won the SEC conference title in the 200 fly at 1:43 something or other.....Anyway, according to my friend he is only about 5' 4 (or 5' 5 )....and he is not at all big (as in muscular).. ...He says the reason he is so fast is mainly do to an almost perfect stroke......Stroke mechanics over size and strength!! ....I found that very inspirational to know!

Just for the record: I just went to check my claim about Gil Stovall winning the SEC conference title in the 200 fly and found out that I was mistaken about that.....Apparently I was "way" off....Daniel Cruz won the event with a pool record time of 1:42.88...while Gil placed a miserable second with a time of 1:43.24....(and here I was talking this guy up and all!!) newmastersswimmer

Marc, I tried that technique of going deeper and I think that works!!!I felt better.I think I was faster, too, I did not time myself though.From how I see it, By going deeper you force your hips to rise more, which is a very good indicator for good butterfly.I also noticed that my kick felt more like the continuation of the total body movement , not just the kick by itslef, it felt stronger, too.Anyways, I loved that new way of swimming and I am going to stress it every time I do butterfly now - thanks for a little discovery!

I would agree that dipping the head/shoulder lower is better for increasing hte effeciency of your stroke. It really gets the whole body involved in the stroke. It was something my year round coach (in bellevue, Wa for props to the NW) was on my case about as a butterflier. I'll be honest though that it really came more into effect when I swam the 200 fly vs. the 50/100. But now I'm just trying to work myself back into shape after a long time layoff. So at this point lasting a 50/100 fly is good for me ;)

What I think is great is that Phelps breaths every stroke. there is a woman in Champaign, IL who gets down 25yds in 6 strokes. Seh get really deep on her butterfly. It is amazing to watch.

I tried the new technique today at practice also and found it to be much as Marc and Hooked on (and others here) have described it....I didn't count my strokes but I could tell I was getting more distance per stroke with the increased body wave.....I also felt like I was going faster (or at least as fast) as I was before the change....only with less effort....I felt like I just loped along (fairly effortlessly) for 2 50's in a row using the new method Marc described in the 25 meter pool at our YMCA....and I clocked in just a little faster than I normally swim them in...(I repeated the 2 50's again shortly thereafter and got the same result)....I think that the technique will probably pay off the best in the 200 fly (as Gkami pointed out below) b/c the effort level was lower and the stroke was just longer and more relaxed this way.....Thanks for the tip Marc! newmastersswimmer

Thanks for the tip! I also tried this technique, though I don't know if i'm doing it correctly or not. I noticed that during series of 100 IMs, when I felt tired towards the end I could still do the fly leg when concentrating more on my body wave. Previously, I would revert to the "one armed fly" and cheat towards the end, especially if i'm trying to get back into shape, which i am. ;) lol.. anyway, I'm going to keep trying this technique, thanks for the tip! Jeanette.