I am trying to improve my freestyle. I have been working on balance,timing,counting strokes.
When watching videos of world classs swimmers, I noticed that on swimmers like Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte, that their arm in the water is fully extended(straight) and angled below the corresponding shoulder. It looks as though the arm that is about to catch the water is angled to where it points towards where the pool wall and pool bottom meet. Not pointed directly down but not pointed directly straight out from the shoulder to the wall.
It seems like most of the best freestylers have their extended arms pointed below their bottom shoulder at an angle before the pull. This also appears to only happen once they have finished the rotation to that side.
Has anyone else noticed this or am I way off?
Thanks,
David
Parents
Former Member
Congrats that is a hell of a set. This pace is certainly worth a top 10 at our national in (what I suspect as being) your age group.
And I would agree that it is possible to have a normal sized body swimming freestyle pretty effortless at this speed. Those who can't probably already know about the importance of drilling.
Problem is that at these speeds, for most of us, technical deterioration quickly kicks in, probably as a result of small muscles fatigue (those small muscles responsable for maintaining proper technique). We quickly loose distance per stroke and must start applying greater loads of efforts in order to keep the pace.
Challenge is to mainain a steady distance per stroke throughout the set.
I guess this is another one of those terminology issues. To me the word "effortless" implies a lack of effort which implies not taxing or fatiguing. If you are working hard enough to for fatigue to be causing stroke deterioration aren't you applying some effort? If effortless means something other than without effort is there another way to describe what your describing?
I am honestly not trying to be pedantic, it is just that when people describe swimming as effortless I don't know what they mean if they aren't referring to swimming relatively slowly. :dunno:
Congrats that is a hell of a set. This pace is certainly worth a top 10 at our national in (what I suspect as being) your age group.
And I would agree that it is possible to have a normal sized body swimming freestyle pretty effortless at this speed. Those who can't probably already know about the importance of drilling.
Problem is that at these speeds, for most of us, technical deterioration quickly kicks in, probably as a result of small muscles fatigue (those small muscles responsable for maintaining proper technique). We quickly loose distance per stroke and must start applying greater loads of efforts in order to keep the pace.
Challenge is to mainain a steady distance per stroke throughout the set.
I guess this is another one of those terminology issues. To me the word "effortless" implies a lack of effort which implies not taxing or fatiguing. If you are working hard enough to for fatigue to be causing stroke deterioration aren't you applying some effort? If effortless means something other than without effort is there another way to describe what your describing?
I am honestly not trying to be pedantic, it is just that when people describe swimming as effortless I don't know what they mean if they aren't referring to swimming relatively slowly. :dunno:
