Freestyle Stroke Question

I don't care for his head position, but it certainly does look effortless.

I don't care for his head position, but it certainly does look effortless. Do you think he is anchored or is he in the Fow motion?

One way to think of this is to consider a simple pendulum. In the absense of friction or drag a pendulum, once started will continue to swing back and forth indefinately. If you immerse the pendulum in a very viscous fluid it will settle to the bottom and stop. In a less viscous fluid it will swing past a ways but will swing less each stroke until it stops. With a free swinging pendulum if you move the hinge at the top back and forth with the correct timing you can cause the weight at the bottom to swing back and forth. But if the pendulum is in a very viscous fluid you can't build momentum this way, the fluid just absorbs the energy you put into the system. I believe that undulation in the fly works the same way, energy you put into the chest or hips is not transmitted down to the feet, it is absorbed by the water, you have to power each segment of the body/pendulum to produce the desired undulation and movement below the knees, which is the only part that is producing significant forward propulsion. If you do a simple geometric analysis of the movement of your upper leg during butterfly the downward movement of the upper leg doesn't produce forward propulsion because there is no backward component to the movement, but the downward movement can help lift your hips and it positions your knees below your ankles so that the downward movement of your lower legs does have a propulsive backward component to it. Even with no transmission of energy the movement plays an important role in making the whole stroke work through positioning. Butterfly seems to me to be a wonderous dance of many body parts, each playing a role, not all the roles are propulsive, some just position other body parts, and the lovely thing is that a complicated and intricate series of coordinated movements can be described simply as a wave moving down the body.

In 1969 or 1970 Doc Counsilman filmed Mark Spitz at IU with an underwater camera. He attached lights to Spitz's hands and had him swim against a grid backdrop so his hand movements would show up clearly. When he developed the film he was stunned to see that Spitz's hands exited the water ahead of where they entered. After observing that, Doc theorized the idea of "lift" vs. "drag" propulsion for the first time. "Lift" has since been discounted as an explanation, but all the same there's no question that Spitz could not have been pushing water back but had found a way to make his hand stand still (anchor) and move his body past it. While not disputing that zero slippage is what you should aim for and what you want it to feel like, I think your conclusions are as erroneous as Doc's were. The key words here are "enter" and "exit" not "catch" and "release". Consider the catchup drill, the hand enters the water, moves forward slightly if it wasn't fully extended at entry and then, along with the rest of the body, moves forward a large distance as the opposite arm executes the pull, then moves forward some more as the swimmer continues to kick as the opposite arm recovers, it then makes the catch and pulls. Even a not very skilled swimmer can probably slip less than the distance the hand has moved forward since entry. I am not suggesting that Spitz was swimming in this fashion but illustrating that the analysis is flawed by failing to take into account the contribution of the opposite arm and the kick. When an explanation violates basic principles of physics the explanation needs to be reexamined. The people who argued for lift over drag and talked about Bernoulli would have been wise to check with someone in their physics or engineering departments who could have told them that the hand is not shaped in a way that allows Bernoulli's principle to apply. They might also have observed some swimmers and noted that no one was approaching race speed while doing their sculling drills. They might also have done some experiments on the magnitude of forces generated by sculling and compared that to the forces needed to move a body through the water at race speed. I suspect that the "value" of the "vault over your arms", in addition to setting up hand and arm positions for maximum drag/minimal slip is that this mental image causes people to picture a movement in which they make use of their lats. When you picture pulling yourself up on the edge of the pool or vaulting over a lane line you intuitively tense your lat muscles. On the issue of power from hip rotation, it is interesting to consider butterfly, where there is no long axis rotation. Is there a totally different explanation for the very similar arm action based on short axis rotation? Or is the rotation more about positioning than transmission of power? I think it was in Swimming Fastest that the author cited a study that showed that the "kinetic chain" may be a viable "feel" but that it isn't feasible in terms of physics. Again, I'm not disputing the utility of the anchored hand "feel", its just that if you get to the point where one actually believes that Spitz's arms were moving forward during the pull then that leads one off in a wrong direction, witness the whole lift based swimming dead end. And again, I am not being adversarial, I am just attempting to explore this topic.

Do try to be more civil. Would that include references to the lard bomb and cousin marrying that pops up now and again on this forum, or just to TI?

In watching videos of the world fastest swimmers I have noticed that there arms are like anchors. It's unreal their arms seem to stay in one place and their bodies move forward. Go to youtube and search for some swimming videos, there's tons of crap on their, but some great stuff, too. I heard this theory alikend to climbing a ladder once. Your arms are basically staying put while your body moves forward. Obviously there you are getting your movement from your legs, but you get the idea. I have enjoyed reading the different ideas posted here.

Would it be fair to say that other coaches, like Dave Salo and Mike Bottom are also openly critical of the traditional methods of training? Yes, depending on who you ask. Add Terri McKeever to that list as well.

I would be neither annoyed or upset if any swim coach, whether of a large program or tiny, came to these forums and shared ideas; engaging in a dialogue that is open to discussion. It is part of what I want to see here (as well as human interest stuff) and that has been, at times, what this thread has consisted of. Other times, there has been 'way too much reading between lines, doubting other's sincerity or good intentions and general innuendo. Earlier on, I mentioned that much of these (& other) technique discussions revolve around finding the analogy that works for you. I have taken some of Terry's analogies, tried them on, and then adapted them to my mental landscape (weight-shift for me becomes a pivot for example)and used that in my workouts. This is not about whether you become an unblinking acolyte of a swimming guru, this is about technique, for gawds sake. Do try to be more civil.

Do try to be more civil. That's not as entertaining.

I have really tried to be civil but it is very difficult.