I have a couple of turn-related questions:
1. When you do turns for *** strokes/flies, I understand that you must place both hands on the wall simultaneously. As long as you do that, can you grab on to the edge of the wall with one had so as to pull your lower body towards the wall, or are you only allowed to "touch" the wall with your palms but not to grab?
2. I have the "Go Swim All Strokes with Sandeno and Vendt" dvd. Both of these olympians employ what I would call "side" turns for back to breask transition in IM. Aren't you also allowed to roll over onto your bellyside and do a tumble turn? Intuitively, rolling over and doing a tumble turn would be quicker, but neither Sandeno nor Vendt does that.
3. Again, in that dvd, neither Sandeno nor Vendt appears to stay underwater quite as long (they only did two dolphin kicks before surfacing) after the ***-to-free turn as they did after the fly-to-back turn or back-to-*** turn. Is there any reason to break water sooner after the ***-to-free turn?
Thank you in advance.
They are 400 IMers, so they probably don't work much on staying underwater after the ***. After about three minutes of swimming, it would be hard for most to kick more than a couple of times.
One of our (now former) coaches was a 400 IMer. He said the worst was the last pull out on the breaststroke leg (@ 275 yds). At least at 300 yds you can just shorten up your streamline a touch if you're lungs are bursting. It's a bit harder to do that midway through your underwater pull when your lungs start screaming at you to surface... ;)
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1. When you do turns for *** strokes/flies, I understand that you must place both hands on the wall simultaneously. As long as you do that, can you grab on to the edge of the wall with one had so as to pull your lower body towards the wall, or are you only allowed to "touch" the wall with your palms but not to grab?
Yeah, you can do whatever you want after you touch with both hands simultaneously.
2. I have the "Go Swim All Strokes with Sandeno and Vendt" dvd. Both of these olympians employ what I would call "side" turns for back to breask transition in IM. Aren't you also allowed to roll over onto your bellyside and do a tumble turn? Intuitively, rolling over and doing a tumble turn would be quicker, but neither Sandeno nor Vendt does that.
No, in IM you must finish each stroke like you would if it were an individual event. In backstroke you aren't allowed to finish on your front, so you aren't allowed to do so in the back/*** turn in the IM either.
3. Again, in that dvd, neither Sandeno nor Vendt appears to stay underwater quite as long (they only did two dolphin kicks before surfacing) after the ***-to-free turn as they did after the fly-to-back turn or back-to-*** turn. Is there any reason to break water sooner after the ***-to-free turn?
The main reason is probably fatigue.
3. Again, in that dvd, neither Sandeno nor Vendt appears to stay underwater quite as long (they only did two dolphin kicks before surfacing) after the ***-to-free turn as they did after the fly-to-back turn or back-to-*** turn. Is there any reason to break water sooner after the ***-to-free turn?
They are 400 IMers, so they probably don't work much on staying underwater after the ***. After about three minutes of swimming, it would be hard for most to kick more than a couple of times.
Hmmm, for me the worst part of the 400 IM is the SDK to start the backstroke. Maybe I'm swimming the fly too hard, or not going hard enough on my breaststroke. Meditate on this, I will.
