Butterfly, Discussion on Overall Technique
I am going to reply to this post with my summary interpretation on fly technique but first I will describe where I am with the fly and how I got here.
About a year ago I casually decided to improve my horrible swimming "technique" and re-teach myself freestyle, back, and *** strokes. Somewhere along the line I started playing with the butterfly stroke too which was particularly helpful in making sure I got the most exhausting workouts. So far, my mission is to improve my enjoyment of exercise and make the best out of my limited opportunity for swimming which does not include any formal instruction (Masters would be fantastic but it's not in my near term plans.) In fact, my swimming season could end anytime now so I am taking this opportunity to record what I think I've figured out.
In reading older posts on this board, I came across a comment from someone who wrote: practice, study, practice, study, practice, ... That is what I've done. I've searched out advice on the net, downloaded and studied video, and taken a lot of notes. I haven't come across any type of consensus that the best video instruction or book to buy is "such and such" or found too much consensus on anything other that it's a hard stroke to learn. Other than for a couple of sources, info has come in bits and pieces. A personal instructor and film of myself would be great, maybe it will happen someday.
I began attempting butterfly without even having learned how to dolphin kick which is what I worked on first. After several workouts, I started getting the legs in control and could actually do some fast but very inelegant "butterfly" for up to 25 meters at a shot. My exercise routine has been pretty consistent in rotating two laps of each of the four strokes. I gradually started reading more info on the fly and I discovered I was supposed to be kicking twice instead of once. Initially, it seemed impossible to kick twice but (within a couple sessions) I worked in the second downkick by doing (what I thought of as a) "bunny hop" kick shortly after the first kick ended. For many a workout I worked on arm motion and breathing the most and took lots of notes in the evening. I was not getting the progress I was looking for which made me try even harder. Then I found that some recommend learning with one kick (but I wasn't going back to one now), and I realized the improper timing of my second kick but I was unable to do anything about it. I also discovered that some advice I had apparently misinterpreted had led me into unknowingly dragging my legs straight during part of the stroke. Then I wrote what I'll call my first brilliant rule of butterfly:
"You must learn to rhythmically undulate the entire torso properly for butterfly, and be able to control it, or you will not succeed. This is the first order of business. Do this and learning the rest is a matter of time and perseverance. Don't learn the butterfly undulation, and time don't matter."
Since then, I've been working on undulation almost exclusively. I am very bad at forcing myself to do drills for very long and for the other strokes I do not do any significant drills. For butterfly, I had been doing some isolated kicking and body movements and also plenty of non-breathing and slower motion butterfly. But it hadn't been helping enough. So I started swimming some more intense laps of just undulating and practicing undulating at the surface. Also, I've tried practicing with the arms recovering underwater instead of over and also swinging the arms over and under while applying little underwater resistance. No matter what I did, I found it hard to correct my fly undulation while pulling and the timing of the subsequent (second) kick. I tried mixing in a stroke or two of fly in the midst of a lap of otherwise plain undulation, but I found it too awkward to revert to anything else once got into a full fly stroke. In particular, as far as I can tell, plain undulation meshes with one kick and not two. I haven't yet tried alternating/mixing in other strokes (like *** and freestyle) with fly in the same lap or even one-armed fly. There are too many possible things to try and learn and none standout as best, so I prefer short drills, getting on with butterfly, and not overly interrupting the rest of my medley.
My breakthrough was in concentrating almost exclusively on undulation though the catch, pull, and push. I think of my body as pushing into an arc, but only in one segment at a time starting with the chest. First there is downward pressure on the chest, then the stomach, then the thighs, and then the lower legs. And by really exaggerating this motion I can finally change the pattern of my undulation. This also helps to loosen up my legs which was desperately needed. However, what I've gotten so far is a tiring jerky stroke with highly exaggerated undulation; but the sequence of my undulation seems to be finally on the right course. I've got a lot of smoothing and flattening out to do and it seems like I need work re-integrating my arm-stroke.
In reading earlier threads here, I found someone had posted a couple video frames of Phelps' stroke positions. I actually took the same source video file and extracted a few frames myself at the precise points of my interest (see attached jpeg). I am imprinting these positions into my mind and I intend to focus on executing these stroke points as shown. I looked at video of several other top swimmers (Ian Crocker and others including female) and I could find the same points of interest in their strokes. Phelps' head and trunk goes deeper below his arms than most others (but not all) and Phelps is one of few who breathe every stroke, but I think the stills of Phelps do the intended job.
Comments, arguments, ridicule, or advice on anything is welcome.
Parents
Former Member
Ande, Much thanks for coming into this thread per my request which was for being frank and brutal. You were frank but not brutal enough! Some good stuff there - I need to be more aware of where my head is (and it wasn't bad, maybe angled too low if that's possible) and flatten my undulation some more after having beefed it up in order to develop the right motion. I especially can use these too: focus on moving your arms fast, watch the finest flyers and copy them (confirmation I've been doing the right thing - although Matt does have a contrary point), relax, and stay smooth when fatigue sets in (I worked hard Friday on this one). You're welcome to come back to discuss more fly!
I think I had a bit of a misunderstanding about what people mean by gliding. More on gliding later.
Kyra, Thank you so much for your compliment! Getting hips up: I had made a lot of changes and I found my hips were staying up like a pro. I agree that it comes (naturally) with proper undulation. Even more specifically (although I could be wrong), I mostly attributed it to using my legs correctly: doing the up and down nicely - and in particular: bringing the legs up high enough.
some_girl, I tried the side-breathing for two 50's. For my very first (right side) side-breath, my left arm almost didn't come up at all. I think you warned about something like this. But I continued ok and it didn't happen again. At a couple of points I took at least three breaths in row to try to get into the flow of it. I also switched back, without planning to, to a single regular front breath, once each lap. I think my body wanted its regular breath because it wasn't sure it was getting enough air. However, side-breathing seems like it would work just fine if I worked on it. I really don't have any incentive to switch except to find out if side-breathing is better and that would take a fair amount of practice. By the end of the two 50's, I started losing my form due to the side-breathing. Side-breathing seems like it has potential for a drill to work on exhalation. I was more conscious of my exhalation when, midstroke, I switched back and forth to straight and side-breathing.
After my previous swim, I had said 50 meters was in reach. And now on Friday, I had several real good 50's and did well over 1000 meters total fly. I have a bunch of new thoughts to share. Perhaps I won't be saying anything more here after this. I'll be acting like the expert flyers that seem so quiet. Either many forgot how they learned, they don't know what they're doing (which is hard to believe), or they care about "something" else.
The frame/pic#3 of Phelps with his head well below his hands is something I have abandoned, at least for now. I think that is much too low for learning and my natural depth is close enough to that of many top flyers, so I suspect I'm fine. The deep position hinders me in getting my hands back fast and it probably yields too much undulation. All other aspects of the Phelps frames are exactly right.
I think there is one small problem in just saying "deemphasize your kick." It seems to me to be critically important to be raising your legs and bending them as Phelps is shown doing. Ande also says that if you kick too big with the wrong timing it makes things worse. Granted this is true, but once my timing gets off, I haven't yet figured out how to correct it without stopping anyway. For the first kick, I think the kicking force needs to be appropriate (or curtailed) to match or not exceed what's required for the undulation. For the second kick (the one where incorrect timing shows up the most), I'm wondering if a (less restrained) hard kick, at the right time, isn't good thing - a good surge can make recovery a breeze - yet a drag if mis-timed.
Arms. I'm still trying to figure out what is happening to get my undulation out of kilter. Is it my arms fault they aren't keeping up? Am I changing my undulation? Are my legs to blame? One thing I am learning is how true it is that the undulation dictates what the legs and arms must do. And likewise how important it is to have just the right degree of undulation.
Swimming fly slow. Ande says no. Well there goes my one-time most popular drill. I'm ok with that. I drop drills just like I drop cigarettes. But, the best fly I have swum (and not a drill) was at slower than usual speed. This has happened many times. I do a 25 slower than usual and it feels near perfect, effortless, awesome, and elegant. I turn around and do the next 25 and for whatever reason I go faster and not even close to being as good of form. I kind of think that if I didn't have to turn and the pool was 100 meters I would have gone on to do elegant fly for 100 meters.
Gliding. Matt, you recommend gliding and Emmett Hines. I'm not sure the two go together. Yesterday, I came across this by Hines: "The flow of butterfly is really dependent upon maintaining the fluid rhythm of undulation, so a glide phase is really counterproductive." Yet I don't question that gliding is working for you and bud and hundreds of others. I'm not planning on trying to learn gliding for fly, but when I get "good" at fly, if I have trouble doing 100-200 meters, knowing that gliding is a viable technique could prove to be invaluable. Perhaps an advantage to gliding (once you master it) is that while gliding you can regularly re-sync your undulation (with your arms) if it gets off course? In this respect, it would be the opposite of what Hines says. Both, even though contradictions, could be true.
The above quote by Hines is given in a discussion where a particular video and gliding style is being discussed:
www.h2oustonswims.org/.../271.html
video (WARNING: 45.2 MB download) is here: http://www.paperhat.org/
The video and discussion are highly interesting. The first 2/3+ of the video is SLOW warmup drills. The last 1/3- is slow gliding smooth fly and unusual undulation from tip to tail. I only want to make a note on the kicking: First kick is sharp with knees bent, second downkick is super weak and seemingly mistimed with almost no knee bend. However, he lifts his legs VERY high. Interesting, and not particularly recommended! Furthermore, for the short distances he travels, I may be ready to take him on!
Ande, Much thanks for coming into this thread per my request which was for being frank and brutal. You were frank but not brutal enough! Some good stuff there - I need to be more aware of where my head is (and it wasn't bad, maybe angled too low if that's possible) and flatten my undulation some more after having beefed it up in order to develop the right motion. I especially can use these too: focus on moving your arms fast, watch the finest flyers and copy them (confirmation I've been doing the right thing - although Matt does have a contrary point), relax, and stay smooth when fatigue sets in (I worked hard Friday on this one). You're welcome to come back to discuss more fly!
I think I had a bit of a misunderstanding about what people mean by gliding. More on gliding later.
Kyra, Thank you so much for your compliment! Getting hips up: I had made a lot of changes and I found my hips were staying up like a pro. I agree that it comes (naturally) with proper undulation. Even more specifically (although I could be wrong), I mostly attributed it to using my legs correctly: doing the up and down nicely - and in particular: bringing the legs up high enough.
some_girl, I tried the side-breathing for two 50's. For my very first (right side) side-breath, my left arm almost didn't come up at all. I think you warned about something like this. But I continued ok and it didn't happen again. At a couple of points I took at least three breaths in row to try to get into the flow of it. I also switched back, without planning to, to a single regular front breath, once each lap. I think my body wanted its regular breath because it wasn't sure it was getting enough air. However, side-breathing seems like it would work just fine if I worked on it. I really don't have any incentive to switch except to find out if side-breathing is better and that would take a fair amount of practice. By the end of the two 50's, I started losing my form due to the side-breathing. Side-breathing seems like it has potential for a drill to work on exhalation. I was more conscious of my exhalation when, midstroke, I switched back and forth to straight and side-breathing.
After my previous swim, I had said 50 meters was in reach. And now on Friday, I had several real good 50's and did well over 1000 meters total fly. I have a bunch of new thoughts to share. Perhaps I won't be saying anything more here after this. I'll be acting like the expert flyers that seem so quiet. Either many forgot how they learned, they don't know what they're doing (which is hard to believe), or they care about "something" else.
The frame/pic#3 of Phelps with his head well below his hands is something I have abandoned, at least for now. I think that is much too low for learning and my natural depth is close enough to that of many top flyers, so I suspect I'm fine. The deep position hinders me in getting my hands back fast and it probably yields too much undulation. All other aspects of the Phelps frames are exactly right.
I think there is one small problem in just saying "deemphasize your kick." It seems to me to be critically important to be raising your legs and bending them as Phelps is shown doing. Ande also says that if you kick too big with the wrong timing it makes things worse. Granted this is true, but once my timing gets off, I haven't yet figured out how to correct it without stopping anyway. For the first kick, I think the kicking force needs to be appropriate (or curtailed) to match or not exceed what's required for the undulation. For the second kick (the one where incorrect timing shows up the most), I'm wondering if a (less restrained) hard kick, at the right time, isn't good thing - a good surge can make recovery a breeze - yet a drag if mis-timed.
Arms. I'm still trying to figure out what is happening to get my undulation out of kilter. Is it my arms fault they aren't keeping up? Am I changing my undulation? Are my legs to blame? One thing I am learning is how true it is that the undulation dictates what the legs and arms must do. And likewise how important it is to have just the right degree of undulation.
Swimming fly slow. Ande says no. Well there goes my one-time most popular drill. I'm ok with that. I drop drills just like I drop cigarettes. But, the best fly I have swum (and not a drill) was at slower than usual speed. This has happened many times. I do a 25 slower than usual and it feels near perfect, effortless, awesome, and elegant. I turn around and do the next 25 and for whatever reason I go faster and not even close to being as good of form. I kind of think that if I didn't have to turn and the pool was 100 meters I would have gone on to do elegant fly for 100 meters.
Gliding. Matt, you recommend gliding and Emmett Hines. I'm not sure the two go together. Yesterday, I came across this by Hines: "The flow of butterfly is really dependent upon maintaining the fluid rhythm of undulation, so a glide phase is really counterproductive." Yet I don't question that gliding is working for you and bud and hundreds of others. I'm not planning on trying to learn gliding for fly, but when I get "good" at fly, if I have trouble doing 100-200 meters, knowing that gliding is a viable technique could prove to be invaluable. Perhaps an advantage to gliding (once you master it) is that while gliding you can regularly re-sync your undulation (with your arms) if it gets off course? In this respect, it would be the opposite of what Hines says. Both, even though contradictions, could be true.
The above quote by Hines is given in a discussion where a particular video and gliding style is being discussed:
www.h2oustonswims.org/.../271.html
video (WARNING: 45.2 MB download) is here: http://www.paperhat.org/
The video and discussion are highly interesting. The first 2/3+ of the video is SLOW warmup drills. The last 1/3- is slow gliding smooth fly and unusual undulation from tip to tail. I only want to make a note on the kicking: First kick is sharp with knees bent, second downkick is super weak and seemingly mistimed with almost no knee bend. However, he lifts his legs VERY high. Interesting, and not particularly recommended! Furthermore, for the short distances he travels, I may be ready to take him on!
