Butterfly Help/Video Analysis

Thanks Ande, I have to say I'm tempted to catch a plane to Texas! Timing has been difficult because the pace clocks are way out of sync, but I'll see what I can do when I get back to the pool, right now I'm going through a large box of kleenex a day... jmeyer, I think you are right about breathing late, I'm trying to work on that. Did you really mean entering too wide? Generally feedback has been to enter wider, which I've been working on and am finding feels better. I found an amazing slow motion shot on the Go Swim Butterfly with Misty Hyman that perfectly illustrates the timing of the kick during the recovery, the downward movement of the thighs is definitely what pops her hips up (along with the shoulders coming down), and then her knees go up as much as her ankles go down, which keeps that kick relatively shallow. Phelps' kick is similar. My knees don't go back up so my ankles end up really deep. And my kick is too late, my hips have already sunk. Lots to work on!

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.

Thanks Zegmal, I've always found it paradoxical that the one-kick fly style eliminates what two-kick fliers call the "big" kick (kicking the hands out of the water). One would think that you would drop the "little" kick (kicking the hands into the water). This probably says something about the importance of the little kick in reorienting the body out of the elevated shoulder position and the role of the kick in issues other than propulsion. The drill in the video deals with the second (hands exit) kick, while I'm referring to the first (hands enter) kick. Possibly it might just come down to focusing on finishing the kick at the same time the hands reach full extension and enter the water. I'm feeling much better today and am looking forward to getting back in the water and playing with this. Provided the current heavy snowfall warning doesn't close things down... :frustrated:

I found it was easy to pick up the sequence for the kicks by letting the body do what came naturally when I concentrated on the arms. Clean entry clean exit and not hitting the water when they travelled foreward to the entry. My coach of the day always made sure the feat did not exit the water. Firby always talked about the legs being in the second wave. This was after I had started to swim in the marathon races and I only did butterfly with Dan Sherry when he was getting ready to break the world record for the 100 yards butterfly.

Lindsay, A couple of things to try that may or may not help, no guarantee………. 1) On your pull, pull to under the body before exiting at the hips. Think of almost touching your hands together under the body at hip level. This stops the hips from dropping and interfering with your pull. The video of your team mate from the front shows that she does this. 2) Try fly breathing on the side (like freestyle) to keep flatter more easily, and experience the feeling of always moving forward and not up (to breath) and down. Ian

Thanks George. Unfortunately for me, I think that I have practiced the bad timing so much that a lot of the time when it starts to "feel natural" I'm actually slipping back into my old pattern. After watching the team videos several times over in slow motion it seems pretty plausible that a lot of the slamming the arms into the water, diving down, excessive gliding and sculling, etc. is an attempt at compensating for the hips sinking due to the late kick. If so, I think if I fix the kick the "hard entry" should go away, and that should be a good check on whether I've got it right. Thanks Ian, the difference in how close our hands come together is pretty easy to see, I'll have a go at getting them closer. I've experimented with side breathing in fly, but had troubles with not keeping level and one hand hitting the water every so often, especially when swimming through other people's wakes. I actually swam breaststroke breathing to the side for a while... :eek: Oh, to be coordinated. :shakeshead: Just got an email that the pool has closed for the day due to the storm. :frustrated:

My guess is you've already seen this Go Swim video. It's a tough drill, but does help visualize the timing of the second kick. www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp

Well George it turns out you were right, I do much better when I concentrate primarily on the front end and mostly let the kick just happen. When I tried concentrating on the kick timing it was fairly disasterous. Still a long way to go but I think I'm making progress. Thanks for the good advice!

Lindsay it sounds like you are getting it. The legs do workout fine for sure without thinking about the kick. They will just fall into place, when you keep the front end clean and kick from the shoulders and not allowing the kick to exit the water. The kick is a little thump an A BIG THUMP and it will let you know exactly when it feels right.

it looks good. try to clean it up and make as little splash as possible. stretch your back so you can move more like a dolphin. the major thing you're missing is intensity. Maybe you just weren't trying very hard, but that looked like you were half asleep.