Overextension - fault or not

I now understand that masters swimmers actually believe they are supposed to be looking at the bottom of the pool. I guess I will just have to get used to the collisions and start swimming with a helmet and shoulder pads :). When I was in college, it was considered good form to have your head up. Now it's considered good form to look down at the bottom and I have to say that I agree with that. It sure feels smoother. Things change. Also I find that unless I'm really zoning out I can feel when someone is close enough in front of me when my head is down -- even if they're stopped.

I now understand that masters swimmers actually believe they are supposed to be looking at the bottom of the pool. I guess I will just have to get used to the collisions and start swimming with a helmet and shoulder pads :). I think you'll have a difficult time finding many coaches who agree with your definition of proper head position abc! Even collegiate coaches!

I am still fighting to keep my head down. Nothing like trying to overcome 15 years of 'have the water break on your forehead' programming. Gah.

One of worst things I've noticed in masters swimmers is head position. They always run into objects that are directly in their path because most of them are probably looking all the way back to their feet. I have no idea why this is so common amongst us old people. If you stop in the lane, you will get run into b/c the person behind isn't actually looking at what's ahead. Even at the end of a swim when your standing at the wall you will get run into b/c they are loking down and back. Basically, at all of my masters practices, you will get run into. In college, this was never an issue b/c we didn't bury our heads. It's like people are swimming drunk out there. How can you possibly swim freestyle and not know what's in front of you? Do some good today and tell a fellow master's swimmer to pull their head out of their *ss. The life you save just might be your own.

That aside, if you look at 8 swimmers, you'll see 8 different entry points. That's really one of those things that you have to test to see what works best for you. That's my thinking as well, my point was really that if it works for Ian Thorpe it shouldn't really be considered a fault that needs to be fixed. I think it's a fault. Just try to put your arm straight out like Thorpe's and then bring it down as in a catch compared with doing the same thing with a slightly bent elbow. I think you'll notice much more power with the elbow slightly bent because you're employing the pecs. But isn't that something that can happen after the extension rather than before? I'm thinking that if you are going to reach to full extension it doesn't really matter a lot how you get there, what matters is how you bend your elbow coming out of the extension? Do you keep your elbow slightly bent even when your arm is fully extended or do you extend and then bend?

This is one of my favorite Thorpe videos, the guy has an unbelievably smooth and relaxed stroke. www.youtube.com/watch Well, I would argue that that is not his racing stroke, he's doing a nice relaxed demonstration of breathing. It is of course possible that the other clips are from the end of some race where he's exhausted and his technique is falling apart, but I suspect not. And yes, it is a bit hard to tell exactly when the hands enter watching the video, even in slow motion, but I watched it frame by frame and it isn't hard to see that way. Look at the images I attached to the first post, one is the frame before his hand enters, the second is the frame after. Oh, and by the way, see the guy at the very end of the second video, although I wouldn't say he has good form if you watch the way he is trying to put a lot of effort into the pull you can imagine that he is probably puffing and panting by the time he finishes a 50, a bit of what I was trying to get at in the other thread - it's like he is trying to climb a hill in a high gear by extreme application of force.

I've got to disagree with you. I think ideally your head should be in line with your spine and that means looking directly down at the bottom of the pool. If you do this it's very difficult to look straight ahead. If anything I think swimmers (all swimmers, not just masters) have a tendency to look forward a little too much--simply because they want to look ahead even though it compromises body position a little bit. This is what I'm talking about people. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

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...

This is what I'm talking about people. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. You are not taking crazy pills - you are just wrong. If you swim Freestyle and you see what is happening in front of you, either your head is too high or you are playing waterpolo.

I now understand that masters swimmers actually believe they are supposed to be looking at the bottom of the pool. I guess I will just have to get used to the collisions and start swimming with a helmet and shoulder pads :).