I have been reading and watching posts and replies, on the General forum, as well as Coaching forum, that seem to dismiss the importance of having developed triceps. I may be wrong, but what I surmised is that even though having a longer stroke is of great importance (and I am an advocate of a longer sroke depending upon the distance and actual stroke being swum), that many people including Kaizen making statements that a long stroke is better, there is much conclusion that "finishing" the stroke lower on the leg has several problems: 1) it takes tricep strength so avoid it and 2) finishing shorter and closer to the waist area is the way to go.
Now granted, a 50 free sprint probably needs a lesser SPL than a 200 or 400, but my concern in this topic is that there may be a message to other swimmers that finishing later on the body requires more strength in the back of the arm (triceps) so avoid it. My Word: Wrong!!
Every great, great swimmer I have ever seen has the arms of Hercules, both in biceps, shoulders and triceps. And even at my older age and a fatter body, the one remaining muscle group that is ripped is the triceps on my arms because they have been trained over years and carry me through even now. Having these great muscles developed continues to aid in my powerfully finishing my stroke and setting up for the next one. Triceps DO provide propulsion in the stroke finish/recovery portion of the stroke, so making sure they are developed, as well as other components of your body, is extremely important. Just one swimmer's point of view....and open for discussion.....
donna
And what would you expect these sources to state exactly?
I suspect Tim is reacting to the following statement you make:
"Ability to do pushups probably has some correlation with ability to swim fast butterfly, since it does target arm adductors as well as triceps. Also, let us not forget that correlations work both ways. Can a swimmer that never does any pushups perform better at a pushup test than a runner that never does any pushup? Of course. Take any elite swimmer that doesn't perform any pushups, they can probably book over 60pushups in 1 minute."
You are simply making an unsupported statement; Tim is saying, in other words, "show me the data!"
I seriously doubt that you can grab any elite swimmer at random and say with near-certainty that s/he can perform over 60 pushups in 1 minute. In fact, I strongly suspect that most could NOT perform this feat.
By the way, I am not at all trying to belittle the importance of triceps in swimmer, particularly butterfly. Other than lats, I don't think there is a more important muscle for butterfly. (HOWEVER, I agree with a post that you make talking about "bottlenecks." In many cases you are only as strong as your weakest link. Which is one reason why I think all the tricep exercises in the world don't take the place of actually DOING BUTTERFLY in practice, as a method of training to race it in a meet.)
And what would you expect these sources to state exactly?
I suspect Tim is reacting to the following statement you make:
"Ability to do pushups probably has some correlation with ability to swim fast butterfly, since it does target arm adductors as well as triceps. Also, let us not forget that correlations work both ways. Can a swimmer that never does any pushups perform better at a pushup test than a runner that never does any pushup? Of course. Take any elite swimmer that doesn't perform any pushups, they can probably book over 60pushups in 1 minute."
You are simply making an unsupported statement; Tim is saying, in other words, "show me the data!"
I seriously doubt that you can grab any elite swimmer at random and say with near-certainty that s/he can perform over 60 pushups in 1 minute. In fact, I strongly suspect that most could NOT perform this feat.
By the way, I am not at all trying to belittle the importance of triceps in swimmer, particularly butterfly. Other than lats, I don't think there is a more important muscle for butterfly. (HOWEVER, I agree with a post that you make talking about "bottlenecks." In many cases you are only as strong as your weakest link. Which is one reason why I think all the tricep exercises in the world don't take the place of actually DOING BUTTERFLY in practice, as a method of training to race it in a meet.)
