We had a videotaping session in practice on Wed and I got some video of my butterfly. I've been trying to work on my butterfly lately but I could really use some pointers and suggestions for specific things to work on and how to work on them.
Clearly the turnover is too slow. Lack of range of motion in my shoulders doesn't allow me to keep my hands at the surface while my chest is down the way that people like Phelps do. In the underwater side view it looks like my hips sink way too much and then don't quite make it back up to the surface, but I don't know what to do about that other than a quicker recovery.
youtube.com/watch
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
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Former Member
I've been sick the last few days and have used the spare time to review the video of the twenty or so swimmers on our team, as well as looking at several videos of elite butterfly swimmers and I noticed something I found a little surprising. Every one of the elite swimmers did a kick in the last half of their recovery, *before* their hands entered the water. Not one of the swimmers on the team with a generally flawed looking stroke did this kick with this timing, most did the kick after the hands had entered. Every one of the elite swimmers had their torsos in a downward angle (shoulders below hips) when their hands entered, none of my teammates with stroke issues did. Pretty much all my teammates sank during the recovery and then pulled various maneuvers in an attempt to get their hips up and their bodies more level (although some never made it out of a tilted up position).
It makes sense that gravity on its own will pull the body down in the same orientation it went up in (shoulders up to get a breath) and that an upward force on the lower body, resulting from the downsweep of the kick, combined with the upper body falling back into the water with an assist from gravity will pivot the body into the desired downhill position. It's also makes sense that a knee-only upsweep, timed to coincide with the body falling back into the water, will actually push the lower body down into water, and this is what most of my teammates (and I) are doing.
So, why is it that novice fliers seem to gravitate toward this flawed timing? And is there any drill or methodology to help us move the kick timing forward to match that of the elite fliers? Is the late kick a symptom or a cause of poor technique? (i.e. will fixing it turn me into an elite swimmer? :D Or will fixing something else fix the late kick automatically?)
I can think of a couple plausible explanations. The recovery is faster than the pull so an even kick timing would produce a late hand-reentry kick. If you are used to landing in the water at an upward angle, and therefore losing a lot of speed/momentum, that late kick is just the thing to get the hips back up and forward movement happening again - so it is kind of a self-reinforcing bad habit.
I've been sick the last few days and have used the spare time to review the video of the twenty or so swimmers on our team, as well as looking at several videos of elite butterfly swimmers and I noticed something I found a little surprising. Every one of the elite swimmers did a kick in the last half of their recovery, *before* their hands entered the water. Not one of the swimmers on the team with a generally flawed looking stroke did this kick with this timing, most did the kick after the hands had entered. Every one of the elite swimmers had their torsos in a downward angle (shoulders below hips) when their hands entered, none of my teammates with stroke issues did. Pretty much all my teammates sank during the recovery and then pulled various maneuvers in an attempt to get their hips up and their bodies more level (although some never made it out of a tilted up position).
It makes sense that gravity on its own will pull the body down in the same orientation it went up in (shoulders up to get a breath) and that an upward force on the lower body, resulting from the downsweep of the kick, combined with the upper body falling back into the water with an assist from gravity will pivot the body into the desired downhill position. It's also makes sense that a knee-only upsweep, timed to coincide with the body falling back into the water, will actually push the lower body down into water, and this is what most of my teammates (and I) are doing.
So, why is it that novice fliers seem to gravitate toward this flawed timing? And is there any drill or methodology to help us move the kick timing forward to match that of the elite fliers? Is the late kick a symptom or a cause of poor technique? (i.e. will fixing it turn me into an elite swimmer? :D Or will fixing something else fix the late kick automatically?)
I can think of a couple plausible explanations. The recovery is faster than the pull so an even kick timing would produce a late hand-reentry kick. If you are used to landing in the water at an upward angle, and therefore losing a lot of speed/momentum, that late kick is just the thing to get the hips back up and forward movement happening again - so it is kind of a self-reinforcing bad habit.
