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
Former Member
Gee I did not know we had any obnoxious people on here, since when is dicussion obnoxious??? I always held my togue and try not be obnoxious.
Former Member
George:
I love your typos. I will try not to be obnoxios as well. Discussion is not obnoxios. We all agreed on the fact that most of our "discussion" was in the "righful challenge" sector. But there might have been a little stuff that dribbled into obnoxios. Maybe he needed a mental break from "discussion."
I let my fingers do the walkng and forget to ask Chuckie how to spell and if you catch me in the morning you really have to watchout. To many letters are close together and it is hard when you just pluck a finger at a time like I do in the dark.
Former Member
Congratulations Terry !
Former Member
For the record here's the conclusion of the aforementionned study.
Abstract available here www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/.../query.fcgi
Again you're not the only one disputing this theory. Maglischo prefers to think of undulation as being a reversed wave starting from feet traveling up the the head :rolleyes:
It would be interesting to see the whole article because it is dangerous to draw conclusions from an abstract. But that hasn't stopped me yet! :D
I question whether you can draw conclusions about transmission of force based on timing, as they seem to be doing. Not only is it clear that you can produce the same movement and timing based on power applied at each link or transmission of power down links but you would expect the timing to be the same for an efficient swimmer. Any variance from the timing that would transmit a wave down the body would result in segments working against one another.
Actually I wonder if people doing one kick fly are swimming as though they are transmitting force down the chain, but the "looks like they are dragging their legs" or "half kick" is the actual result; and actively powering the chain is necessary to produce an apparent kick. There, a unified theory! ;)
Alison
The water temp was a bit below 80. I had what I felt was an excellent race. Drafted well off a younger, faster woman on the first 400m or so, til she slackened her pace a bit then passed another four or five swimmers on the way to the turnaround. Passed only one more on the 2nd half - him after following him way outside. Then I didn't see anyone in passing range the rest of the way.
I won the 55-59 age group in 1:24, but I think the course was a bit long as the overall winner was around 1:16, which would be a more typical 5k time for me, in races where the winner is under 1:10.
The course could have been better marked as they had a large yellow buoy only every 750m or so, with small orange buoys at about 400m intervals.
Terry:
Congratulations on your swim. Just a quick ? I noticed that the overall winner was Rick Walker, who is 56, with a time of 1:14.45, which is excellent regardless of age. Is he not listed as the winner of the 55-59 age group because he wore a wet suit? That looks strange that he would be the overall winner and not the age group winner.
home.earthlink.net~dixiezone/.../0610TropicalSplash.pdf
Lindsay: It was for the particular swimmer. It sure seemed to work for him. He almost beat Jim McConica at Nationals last May.
Frank:
Thanks. I went back and read that thread. I wasn't clear on what to take from it though. I am a flyer (or former flyer) and have always been a bit naturally straight armed on free. But I have had people constantly hammering away on me as a youth and master swimmer to bend my elbows more. I am told this will reduce shoulder problems. I am told it is the only proper way. When I sprint, as I'm purposefully "not thinking" during a race, I tend to lapse back into my prior habits and have more of a straight armed recovery, probably to increase turnover. But I sure seem to go faster that way. Hmmm...
One of my teammates, who likes and is a freestyler, told me that he had intentionally switched to a straight arm recovery on free on the advice of a college coach. I thought this was old school. Is anyone else teaching this?
One of my teammates, who likes and is a freestyler, told me that he had intentionally switched to a straight arm recovery on free on the advice of a college coach. I thought this was old school. Is anyone else teaching this?
Fortress:
Rather than take a trip down memory lane and start a long post about this, I will link you to another thread for you to read and see how the people in the USMS community feel about this subject. Some of the responses were taken from an article in Swimming Technique that was written 2 years ago by Bill Volckening, who is the current Editor of USMS Swimmer.
forums.usms.org/showthread.php
Former Member
One of my teammates, who likes and is a freestyler, told me that he had intentionally switched to a straight arm recovery on free on the advice of a college coach. I thought this was old school. Is anyone else teaching this?
The important question to ask here is did the coach say that this particular swimmer should try a straight arm recovery or that all swimmers should use a straight arm recovery? Lately there has been a lot of coaches saying that some swimmers do better with a straight arm recovery, far fewer saying everyone should do it.