In this video:
www.youtube.com/watch
Dave Scott talks about four common faults:
head position
overreaching
overextension
dropped elbow
In this video:
www.youtube.com/watch
the videographer analyzes Ian Thorpe's stroke, and while I disagree with much of his analysis it is great slow motion video of Thorpe.
BUT, Thorpe enters his right arm fully extended with the elbow and forearm actually entering the water just before the hand does, see attached video frames. This is exactly what Dave Scott describes as overextension.
I am wondering whether it actually makes any difference how you enter the arm if you are fully extending the arm before starting the catch?
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Former Member
See, that's the thing. I don't think you should really extend fully. It's sort of like extending the finish of the pull down past your hips, you just aren't getting much extra propulsion during those last few inches and maybe you should just think about recovering the arm at the hip instead of past it.
So maybe we can say that if one is using a style where one fully extends before the pull then it isn't really a fault to fully extend prior to hand entry? It does seem to me that Thorpe does fully extend each arm, do you want to call that a fault in his stroke? The way I would expect it to be explained is more in reference to streamlining than propulsion, and that little period of extension might be filling in a little gap to make the timing of the rest of the stroke all fit together sort of the way that some people enter their hands closer together and then outsweep when swimming fly, they aren't getting much propulsion but the time that bit of outsweep takes makes their overall timing work. Then again you can argue that they ought to adjust the rest of their timing to allow their arms to move into a propulsive phase more quickly...
See, that's the thing. I don't think you should really extend fully. It's sort of like extending the finish of the pull down past your hips, you just aren't getting much extra propulsion during those last few inches and maybe you should just think about recovering the arm at the hip instead of past it.
So maybe we can say that if one is using a style where one fully extends before the pull then it isn't really a fault to fully extend prior to hand entry? It does seem to me that Thorpe does fully extend each arm, do you want to call that a fault in his stroke? The way I would expect it to be explained is more in reference to streamlining than propulsion, and that little period of extension might be filling in a little gap to make the timing of the rest of the stroke all fit together sort of the way that some people enter their hands closer together and then outsweep when swimming fly, they aren't getting much propulsion but the time that bit of outsweep takes makes their overall timing work. Then again you can argue that they ought to adjust the rest of their timing to allow their arms to move into a propulsive phase more quickly...
