The first loss of a master is memory, the second...I forgot. I probably have already asked this question, but here goes:
Does anyone bring their arm straight down and out after the grab? I am talking no sculling, no lateral movement, just bringing the arm straight parallel with the line maintaining the elbow high position. This would be to avoid crossing the midline with your forearm. Even though I breathe on the left, I still rotate fully to the right (a learned and trained and voluntary movement), but even so my right forearm tends to the middle, while my left arm has less pull and is erractic. When I learned the crawl it was from watching Tarzan movies, later when I was 16 and in a USA high school they taught the S shaped movement or the straight down and back. In those days the breathing was to one side. Last question: aside from timing both methods, what are your preferences on the long dolphin versus "less dolphin" emerging sooner method of starts and turns on a 50 meter short course freestyle race? Thanks, billy fanstone
Former Member
the reason why I said earlier that I like to see a the swimmer before recommending any *alternative* way of swimming, is that straight arm recovery doesn't solve all issues. In fact, personally I didn't use it that much with adults.
Let's dig down a bit more...
At the end of the push phase, beginning of the recovery phase, the shoulder must be in a certain angle to avoid that some articular tissues be squeezed.
What do I mean by squeezed?
Picture yourself trying to recover with the palm of the hand facing up, little finger first. That's an exageration of course. A closed angle of the shoulder articulation while recoverying cause a serious risk for injuries. I've used straight arm recov as an extreme measure to solve this. It may work as it eases the process of breaking the wrong kinetic pattern.
Before trying this, I prefer to use the "Carry your briefcase" drill. Recover as if you were carrying a briefcase. Thumb first. The mere fact of recoverying thumb first *unlocks* the shoulder articulation.
One other cause of injuries as for the recovery portion of the stroke is limited body roll. We often see it for unilateral breathers.
The recovery should really be a lateral raise. Picture yourself in a gym, doing some dumbell lateral raises. Sitting on the tip of a bench of standing up, you raise the arm laterally, bringing this very small dumbell up to the shoulder level. The mechanics of recovery should be the same. The arm doesn't really rotates (thus stretching the shoulder articulation at each passage), it simply raises laterally. The body roll allow for this simple and safe action to be enough for the arm to exit the water.
These are the two causes of injury I see in freestyle recovery. Straight arm can more or less address these (but it has to be supervised). But there are other causes of injuries as well involving underwater action. And straight arm recovery won't address these at all.
I think y'all'll agree that Doc Counsilman described it best in saying that the freestyle recovery begins with pulling the hand out from deep in one's pocket, pitching it forward ballistically as with a baseball, and entering the water thumb first, (thus avoiding the dreaded dropped elbow with the commencing of the stroke). He was, of course, describing the recovery of the best swimmers as observed by underwater filming.
George and Solar:
Under the coaching section, there is a thread entitled "shoulder injuries." It has some good posts. One in particular says that straight arm free may be better for shoulders. There's a post on what you should avoid doing on fly, but I don't think I'm doing any of those no, nos. the reason why I said earlier that I like to see a the swimmer before recommending any *alternative* way of swimming, is that straight arm recovery doesn't solve all issues. In fact, personally I didn't use it that much with adults.
Let's dig down a bit more...
At the end of the push phase, beginning of the recovery phase, the shoulder must be in a certain angle to avoid that some articular tissues be squeezed.
What do I mean by squeezed?
Picture yourself trying to recover with the palm of the hand facing up, little finger first. That's an exageration of course. A closed angle of the shoulder articulation while recoverying cause a serious risk for injuries. I've used straight arm recov as an extreme measure to solve this. It may work as it eases the process of breaking the wrong kinetic pattern.
Before trying this, I prefer to use the "Carry your briefcase" drill. Recover as if you were carrying a briefcase. Thumb first. The mere fact of recoverying thumb first *unlocks* the shoulder articulation.
One other cause of injuries as for the recovery portion of the stroke is limited body roll. We often see it for unilateral breathers.
The recovery should really be a lateral raise. Picture yourself in a gym, doing some dumbell lateral raises. Sitting on the tip of a bench of standing up, you raise the arm laterally, bringing this very small dumbell up to the shoulder level. The mechanics of recovery should be the same. The arm doesn't really rotates (thus stretching the shoulder articulation at each passage), it simply raises laterally. The body roll allow for this simple and safe action to be enough for the arm to exit the water.
These are the two causes of injury I see in freestyle recovery. Straight arm can more or less address these (but it has to be supervised). But there are other causes of injuries as well involving underwater action. And straight arm recovery won't address these at all.
George:
With all the Canadians and Francophiles and anti-Francophiles on this site, you better be careful choosing your french words or the french speakers on this site will be telling you to "fermez la bouche." Or maybe this is a new way to do on line PM-ing? P.S. I like how you added "Keep it simple" to your signature!
George:
I speak French like a 9th grader nowadays. Je parle francais tres mal maintenant. I would like to be in Mexico too.
Er, on swimming, what's so great about the 100 free?
I have a meet coming up and I was going to enter 3 events on one day if they were reasonably spaced apart, but there is nothing I want to swim in the first half of day 2. (I don't want to do the 200 *** or the 400 free.) The only option is the 100 free. (I did sign up for my very first masters 200 IM and the 50 fly. Solar would not like me doing these events.) But why the heck should I swim the 100 free before them? I think that I will just be tres, tres lazy and swim deux events.
George:
You had an amazing career. This is good advice. But here's the thing, "winning" is a relative concept at masters meets. As you know, you don't swim by age group although you are later declared the "winner" by age group. So I would be swimming against the 25 year old whiz kids if I did not commit the unspeakable crime of sandbagging. I do not think I would be winning that race with the young speed demons we have like SwimmerAvsFan. I don't want to get all tired out before I have to swim the breaststroke leg in the IM ...
Plus, you still didn't say what's so great about the 100 free besides being easy. Why is is such a glamor event?
We usually swim by time without regard to age and sometimes without regard to age or sex. No one will be winning my age group with a 1:18. My secret nemesis, if she's swimming this meet, is really, really fast. I think you're right about the 100 taking skill though. Much tougher than the "don't think just go caffeine-laden" 50 free I sometimes enter.
You can make mistakes in middle distance swim but can not when swimming the 100.
This is so true. I was in a 100 a year ago where I missed 2 turns by starting my flip a bit too early and just barely caught the wall with my feet. NO push off. It turned what would have been a PB into my second fastest 100.
I prefer to use the "Carry your briefcase" drill. Recover as if you were carrying a briefcase. Thumb first. The mere fact of recoverying thumb first *unlocks* the shoulder articulation....But there are other causes of injuries as well involving underwater action. And straight arm recovery won't address these at all.
Solar:
You must be producing some good USS freestylers! I'm going to try this "carry the briefcase" drill as well as the drill you posted on the "drill dictator" thread for freestyle. (For the most part, though, I think that I'm not really doing straight arm recovery anymore after the hammering.) What is the underwater action you were referring to? A straight arm pull?
Solar:
Seulement un petit peu. Mais ma brasse est vraiment mauvaise. Peux-je s'il te plait le 50 papillon? Peut-etre je peux utiliser le francais si je jamais besoin de appeler un imbicile pour insulter moi?
Whew, that was hard to remember. Don't know if I got that quite right. Forgetting how to conjugate. If not, ***.
Sprinter & Ancestral Frog. (Mais j'aime toujours la Lance.)
Kids used to call me "nailmaker" in french class if they wanted to bug the *** out of me.)
You have to remember I am a very liberal, conservative, social activist
thinking person. I have so many friends in Quebec and am not anti anyone, the French Canadians said I speak French like an Englishman. They also used ask me when I lived there are you from France. I am a Canadian who loves the USA but I like to be in Mexico. 3 of my brothers lived and worked legally in the USA and several family members, their children still live there. I almost became a USA citizen in 1989.
