Today, swimming swiming was a wash. Too many people at the pool. By the time it cleared out I didn't have enough time to do a full set.
So, I decided to spend my shortened time to try to swim like Phelps. I had just watched a Butterfly video.
I did a few laps normally (at speed), a few like Phelps (my version - at speed), and a few normally again.
The Phelps versions of my 50 yard butterfly were 2 seconds faster: 28 seconds vs. 30 seconds.
I was laughing pretty hard when I saw the times.
All I really changed was the depth of my body wave. In the video Phelps has this gigantic body wave. His head is about 3 feet underwater at the lowest point of his arc. I also found that in attempting to have the same size arc (I bet I was doing a 2 foot arc) that I had to breath every stoke like he does to keep the momentum up. I also found that I was able to have a larger kick going underwater that deep.
It was pretty cool. Thought I'd share. I'm hoping that if I can hone it or get to a place where I'm comfortable with this new style that I'll be able to drop even more time. We'll see.
Normally I'm a huge skeptic, but I'm always up for trying new things. Sometimes they work, and this is one of those times. Pretty amazing.
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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.
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.
