End of Controversy - No catch-up or straight arm catch
Former Member
I know everyone has been watching the Olympics and if anyone sees someone (in any stroke and at any distance) not showing an Early Vertical Forearm (EVF) stroke please point it out to me. In the men’s 400 Fr Relay, Lezak’s better EVF stroke helped him touch the wall before Bernard who dropped his elbows in the last few strokes. These Olympic Games should put to rest the controversy of the catch-up stroke (never once performed by any freestyler in these Olympics). So what you see someone do in a drill (catch-up) is not done in competitive swims when it counts!! The high elbow at the front quadrant of every stroke is so pronounced that every lay-on-a-straight-arm proponent has to become a convert (I know it’s not ever going to happen). I’m anxious to hear the rationalizations and support from the opposition. If you’re watching with your eyes open, there’s no catch-up and no straight-arm catch - PERIOD!!!
If you want to make significant gains in your swimming focus on improving your Early Vertical Forearm technique. Improving your EVF should take about 6 to 8 weeks and when that becomes better you should focus on improving a good streamlined position by spending as much time as possible on your side while making sure that your catch begins early. Of course athleticism goes hand in hand with improvement. But you get my drift. Nuff-said.
Former Member
"An interesting note is that Eric Vendt swims the 1500 with basically a catch-up stroke."
Rick DeMont
Freestyle Technique
The Swim Coaching Bible
This whole argument is becoming pretty ridiculous. It's an argument over semantics. I personally prefer the term "front quadrant swimming". I think people need to look at the definition of front quadrant and why (at least according to Laughlin) it's valuable. A vertical line drawn at the shoulders and a horizontal line at the water line make the quadrants. The anterior lower quadrant should always have an arm in it at all times to be front quadrant swimming. The theory behind it is that it improves efficiency by lengthening the body, just as you go faster kicking in streamline than kicking with your arms at your side. That definition allows a lot of variability in stroke, ranging from pulling when the recovery arm is in full extension to beginning the catch/pull before the recovery arm enters the water but still being anterior to the shoulder when the recovery arm does enter.
The way I have seen most of these swimmers is that their EVF is anterior to their shoulders, so being in the power pull phase when the recovery arm enters is still front quadrant. There are some swimmers who pull a little later, at least from what I've seen, but I think we all agree that none do it to the extent of the classis catch-up drill. This video of Thorpe shows a classic front quadrant stroke, but clearly a pull before the recovery arm has entered the water.
www.youtube.com/watch
Looks to me as front quadrant swimming. You are welcome to call it what you want. I don't think it is a catchup stroke and after putting it into my Dartfish swim analysis program he does actually start the catch phase before the opposite hand enters.
www.youtube.com/watch
Looks to me as front quadrant swimming. You are welcome to call it what you want.
I did not invent the term, and as Kirk pointed out CoachT used it in the title of the thread.
On a side note, I was surprised to see how many world class swimmers didn't have a perfectly symmetrical stroke. I used to feel bad since my stroke is not absolutely symmetrical and I tend to 'lope' a bit. Apparently it's not such a big deal, though, as many of the big names do it too.
probably less so when swimming at less than race pace. i try to breathe equally to both sides when training...to keep things even, avoid injury and to improve my weaker side. when racing (50 yds or 10 miles) i tend to rely heavily on my comfort side.
I actually saw the opposite! I saw a few swimmers with a pronounced catch up stroke. When viewing them on top of the water, they sort of lope along as their right and left sides are not even and symmetrical. Additionally, the underwater footage showed some of the right hands just about to enter the water as their left arm was still at the front of the stroke.
I'm not sure why you think a catch-up style freestyle is antithetical to EVF. Jensen, for one, does a catch-up stroke and also has a very pronounced high elbow stroke.
B) the 400 swimmers all did close to a catch-up stroke with a monster kick.
The monster kick is probably the big thing that sets these guys apart. To be able to kick like that for 400 meters is pretty incredible.
This morning our coach was commenting on the fact that the 400 swimmers were all using a catch up stroke. It was very apparent to me as well. Perhaps you are using a more restrictive definition than the rest of us?
I wouldn't call it "catch up". That's what we do in the drill. I would call it "front quadrant" though. They all have that EVF/EDF thing going though.
It would be real nice (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) if someone with a DVR and a little bit of video editing expertise could splice together all of the underwater footage with simple captions. NBC doesn't show a lot of it, but it does seem instructive.
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I think you need to look again. Not one swimmer put their hand in while the other was still in front (catch-up) or even near it. The entry of the hand for every swimmer started while the other hand was in the EVF or catch position. Even Rowdy commented on the over-the-barrel position as the technique the swimmers were using. It is interesting how we're both looking at the same thing and seeing something totally different.
