butterfly and the lower back.

I think the McKenzie form of therapy has similar stretches. I can lay on my stomach and gently flex by pushing up, but fly seems too violent for my back to cope with it. I think I need to find a way to minimize the aplitude of the flex when I fly.

When my lower back has acted up in the past, I had to lay off the dolphin kick in all forms. However, over the past few years, when my back is feeling fine and I can work on dolphin kicking and butterfly, it has really strengthened all those core muscles around my lower back so that I very rarely have a back problem anymore. I think it has really cured my lower back problem. I would say if you have constant back pain, you should find someone to give you the proper stretches for your specific condition, then do them religiously so that you can do at least a shallow dolphin kick til you strengthen those muscles. Anyway, that's all it took for me.

I just read an article about lower back. One of the exercises they suggest is almost the same thing you do flying. The exercise they suggest is to lay on your stomach and lift the legs.

Fly is violent when you swim that way. Just relax when you swim fly.

How can I fly with very little or no undulation? This is where I get into trouble.

With all the fly stuff I have been into lately I am starting to incorporate fly into my workouts. These workouts are all crawl now. I only swim 100 repeats crawl at the momment. Starting today 4 X 100 warm up 5 X 100 rest 15 seconds between 100s after completing each set of 5 rest 30 sec, then 18 sets of 5 X 100s, then 300 cool down swim. During 10 of the sets of 5 I will swim 25m fly first and 75 crawl. Now this fly will not be a violent fly.

With all the fly stuff I have been into lately I am starting to incorporate fly into my workouts. These workouts are all crawl now. I only swim 100 repeats crawl at the momment. Starting today 4 X 100 warm up 5 X 100 rest 15 seconds between 100s after completing each set of 5 rest 30 sec, then 18 sets of 5 X 100s, then 300 cool down swim. During 10 of the sets of 5 I will swim 25m fly first and 75 crawl. Now this fly will not be a violent fly. George, do you really do 18 sets of 5 x 100s?! Or am I reading it wrong? That alone is 9000m, not including the warm up and cool down. That is a huge amount of distance. I am in awe! How many times a week do you do that? Syd

Syd - No I don't. I just thought I would shake the guys up. I will do the 4 X 100 warm up just crawl. Then 5 sets of 5 X 100 and a 300 cool down. During the 5 sets of 5, I will swim 10 x 25s of fly. My brother liked to give his kids the 100 x 100s

George, That is an excellent machine. I used to do roman chairs in the gym. I need to get back to doing them. This machine is similar to a machine power lifters use.

I just saw this item advertised for lower back problems www.mycorevolution.com/ very close to a dolphin kick developer???