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Butterfly recovery

ForceDJ

Can I get a comment from anyone with some expertise in butterfly. I’m not real proficient at the stroke, and only throw a little bit into my swims just for a bit of variation. I.e. my pool workouts of usually around 3000 meters are just about all free/crawl…I’ll do a 400m IM toward the end just to break things up. So my biggest problem is with the recovery. Maybe I just don’t have the shoulder/arm flexibility, but getting my arms out of the water to throw them forward is difficult. At least with my elbows bent. I get fatigued and then end up “catching crabs” and get sloppy. The thing is, I’ve never really known if my elbows/arms should be straight/horizontal going forward, or should I have them bent and high at the elbow, like you would in a crawl stroke recovery? I look at various graphics depicting the stages of the stroke (two attached)…some show the arm straight. Some so the elbows bent. I think straight would be easier. Is that correct? — Dan

 

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  • IMO, these diagrams are not helpful to understand the nuances of butterfly.  When I was coaching kids, we spent alot of time on a couple of basic butterfly ideas.  Maybe these will help you:

    • Arms should be recovered with the arms straight and relatively close to the surface.  Bending the elbows during the recovery encourages a very poor outsweep at the end of the stroke and is just not a realistic way to swim for most masters swimmers.
    • During the recovery, I like the palms facing backward so the thumbs are down (think drag through the water).  This is a relaxed position that does not require much in the way of shoulder and back strength.  Palm down is not bad either and individual specific.
    • I encourage the swimmer to begin lifting their head to breathe as soon as they initiate the pull.  These diagrams show it far too late in the stroke.  The head is not lifted so much as you push your chin forward.  Keep your head up until your arms are in the recovering phase by your shoulders.  Then, lower you head and let the arms enter in front of your shoulders to begin the next pull.
    • The pulling pattern is such that the first half of the pull is a keyhole/under your body pattern.  Once your hands get past your hips, the arms should start to flare out and away from the body so the recovery does NOT impinge the shoulders..  This is unlike freestyle where you try to touch your thigh with your thumb at the end of each stroke.  Of course, better, faster swimmers push back further before flaring out to the side.
    • The diagrams are pretty good as to your hip position right before you begin the pull - they should be as high or slightly higher than your shoulders. As you initiate the pull, let you hips drop so your shoulder get higher than your hips.  This is crucial and makes it much easier to get your arms around on the recover (the left diagram has this part wrong).
    • Forget about the kick for now.  Focus on two movement.  Before the beginning of the pull, hips at or slightly high than the shoulders.  As you initiate the pull, shoulder lift up and are higher than the hips throughout most of the stroke cycle.

    This is very simplistic with many nuances that depend on a person's physical strength and flexibility.

    Hope this helps.  Saw your post on a mountain bike forum - just bought my first mountain bike for cross training.

  • in reply to Windrath

    Wind — Thanks. That all makes sense. I’ll keep it all in mind next pool workout.

    With regard to the bike…it was probably on the Bicycle Forums…but not the mountain bike forum. I’m strictly a road cyclist.

    Dan

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