A few weeks ago at a masters workout (I am usually on my own) the coach had us do a 10 2 drill, which I hadn't done before. The idea was to swim free with your arms entering the water at 10 and 2 o'clock to avoid crossing the center line. It felt quite weird. Since that time I have been tracking my stroke more, and I think I do cross the center line, or at least run right along it. The other day I tried to focus on brushing my thumbs along the sides of the black stripe on the bottom of the pool, leaving the stripe itself untouched until my hands/arms passed out of my vision and under my body.
Here's my question. The fact that even this adjustment feels a little weird suggests that maybe I cross the line more than I recognize. What are the physics of this, and should I be trying to reform my stroke in this way? Is this a big deal, or one of the idiosyncracies that we all have?
Thanks!
Crossing over the center is a flaw many people have and have to work on. It feels really odd when you first work on correcting it. I felt like a water bug when I first started working on the 10 and 2, but keep working on it, you will get it.
I like the hand to almost be right on the center line, take you digital camera and have someone do a little movie of you swimming directly to the camera. See for yourself.
I don't like the drill your coach is giving you.
Crossing over the center is a flaw many people have and have to work on. It feels really odd when you first work on correcting it. I felt like a water bug when I first started working on the 10 and 2, but keep working on it, you will get it.
Rather than a 10 & 2, I like to imagine that I'm on railway track
where the rails are as far apart as my shoulders and my entry (in Free) is "on tracks".
If the entry is closer to the centre line, then a little sweep (or "s") is inevitable to bring the arm and forearm back in-line with the shoulder.
Moreover, to achieve EVF (not Extra-Vehicular-Freefloating, but Early Vertical Forearm or High Elbow and as near a 90 degree between forearm and upper arm as possible), the elbow is usually quite a bit "out".
I noticed with Phelps, Hackett and to a lesser degree Thorpe, that even though they get that almost 90 degree angle, the Forearm is almost never truly vertical. (Hacket has one hand that pulls closer to his centreline -almost beneath his navel at a certain stage- than the other.
I had a coach back in high school ask us to imagine a glass wall running down our center line.
The arms could never move beyond the plane of the imaginary wall.
Today I use the same method...and have corrected many of our age group swimmers who stroked down the pool with a bit of a wiggle (fish tail) due to their cross over.
Once they envisioned the glass wall and kept their hands outside of the barrier...the problem disappeared.
Over the weekend, I watched Lindsay Benco's freestyle DVD. In her swimming, I couldn't help noticing that her hands do seem to cross the center line and come back to the shoulder line (through an "S"-shaped outsweep that Ahmed mentions above).
Is my observation correct, or do the hands have to cross the centerline further than Lindsay to be called "crossing the center line"?
I worked on this yesterday. I think there are two issues: one, the position of the hand/arm when it enters the water, and two, the pull under the surface (which relates to the s-curve thing.) I think what I have recognized is that my hands have tended to enter the water close to the center line, crossing over soon after entry below the surface. This produces something like the "fishtail" effect described above. So for me, the entry point has to move out away from the center line, making the 10 2 or the "train track" a good image to work with, at least for me.
I worked on this yesterday. I think there are two issues: one, the position of the hand/arm when it enters the water, and two, the pull under the surface (which relates to the s-curve thing.) I think what I have recognized is that my hands have tended to enter the water close to the center line, crossing over soon after entry below the surface. This produces something like the "fishtail" effect described above. So for me, the entry point has to move out away from the center line, making the 10 2 or the "train track" a good image to work with, at least for me.
A piece of advice:
Read forums.usms.org/showpost.php
It's an article about EVF (Early Vertical Forearm). After reading it (and other articles by USMS user tomtopo and articles in general about EVF) you'll find a possible cure for "crossing the line". Mind you, it's one point of view. Different coaches have different points of view and/or methods. And you'll find that EVF is a bit of a grey area. After becoming more familiar with it, you'll also start noticing that some swimmers (Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett) who use this method or style, have a more pronounced EVF or more-pronounced-elbow-to-forearm angle in one arm than the other.
Good luck
