Gennadi Turetski, whose two most successful swimmers are Popov and Klim, made recently a presentation for Russian swimming coaches with a video demonstration. Below are a few points from the freestyle part of this presentation that I found insightful but practical in the same time.
Swimming movements originates from the mass center – the lower back.
Having entered the water from a dive you must transfer the motion into a horizontal vector as soon as possible. Popov’s first movement underwater is his legs’ moving up to throw away the water that is trailing his body
A javelin thrown from the deck enters the water through a hole and glides in a horizontal direction without any unnecessary force it is rigid. In the pool Gennadi showed a start drill that I found very good for the development body as a rigid part and learning to forward your energy to the other end of the pool. You put one foot on the edge of the pool and the other leg kneels on the deck and push off. You should be able to do a long horizontal glide.
During your swim you focus on forward movement, not on forward force.
During pull you position your thumb outward for a more efficient catch.
One hand’s catch and the other’s exit occur simultaneously
In freestyle you don’t pull. Instead you move yourself forward over the pulling hand.
While finishing you don’t shorten you stroke to increase the rate. Instead you lengthen the stroke and turn on an intense kick
In a 50m sprint the most important indicator is the swimmer’s speed at the 15m mark
Rhythm is very important during a turn because the right rhythm helps you to push off the wall with the rebound wave thus gaining a 0.5m advantage. You count like: One (first hand entry), Two (second hand entry) and Three (rebound. Not push off, but rebound). Popov seems to do that amazingly well at both low and high speed.
Gennadi believes that fast kick has low amplitude and high rate.
And I like this statement of his:
“In the race you don’t go to the wall, you go through the wall” Probably like in life.
Dmitri
Parents
Former Member
I'm sure we will get into a war about technique shortly as a result of the original post, but I didn't want this point to get lost in the resulting mayhem. Simply put, this is a brilliant drill. It is brilliant for 2 reasons:
1) It teaches transfer of momentum to extend the horizontal glide - that's obvious.
2) Less obvious is that due to the shallower angle at which one hits the water, it causes the hole you make when you hit the water to be bigger, thereby forcing you to concentrate on getting the hole as small as possible to extent the glide.
Both points would really help someone starting off the blocks. If I were a sprinter (I'm not, thank God), I'd practice this quite a bit.
Just my $0.02.
-LBJ
I estimate the actual worth of your 2 cents to be approximately 1.793 cents LBJ....but its only a rough approximation I admit LOL!:D
Newmastersswimmer
I'm sure we will get into a war about technique shortly as a result of the original post, but I didn't want this point to get lost in the resulting mayhem. Simply put, this is a brilliant drill. It is brilliant for 2 reasons:
1) It teaches transfer of momentum to extend the horizontal glide - that's obvious.
2) Less obvious is that due to the shallower angle at which one hits the water, it causes the hole you make when you hit the water to be bigger, thereby forcing you to concentrate on getting the hole as small as possible to extent the glide.
Both points would really help someone starting off the blocks. If I were a sprinter (I'm not, thank God), I'd practice this quite a bit.
Just my $0.02.
-LBJ
I estimate the actual worth of your 2 cents to be approximately 1.793 cents LBJ....but its only a rough approximation I admit LOL!:D
Newmastersswimmer
