Please critique

I was really referring to her underwater catch. As far as the recovery, I'm not thinking so much in terms of the arm position on recovery as much as the speed and momentum of the recovery (shoulder and elbow moving forward). Rotating the body alone doesn't really provide much forward propulsion it seems to me. Given that the catch arm is really supposed to be holding water, there must be a source of momentum somewhere. Let's say that someone very slowly and deliberately moves their recovery arm forward. The only way to get propulsion would be to push backward with the catch arm. However, if there is forward momentum to the recovery, the catch arm can more or less hold water while the body glides past. I think one of the things I really need to remember when swimming is to hold off on rotating until my recovery shoulder/arm has slid forward more. That's what Marsh was mentioning and what I see from the better swimmers. I'm in no way thinking that I should really throw the shoulder mercilessly and risk injury. I just need to think in my mind "more forward momentum". Does that make sense, or am I way off here. I need to get to the pool today and test this out. No! You do not get propulsion from the recovering arm! Any forward momentum you gain as the arm decelerates at the front is momentum you lost as you accelerated the arm forward in the back. Propulsion comes from the force you are applying to the arm that is anchored. Think of hanging on the edge of the pool with your hands on the edge as you pull yourself up out of the water, you want your hands to stay in the same position and your body to move past them. This is easy on a solid wall. The nature of fluids is that they move when you apply force to them, the idea of your hand actually staying still as you pull is physics nonsense but you want to get as close to that as possible. The larger surface you press/anchor with, i.e. hopefully your hand plus your forearm, the less slip you will get for a given amount of force applied, that is the purpose of the high elbow pull, to maximize the area of the surface that is oriented backward and applying backward force. If you take a picture from directly behind you the area that your arm takes up in the image is the effective surface area that you can use to exert force on the water. If your forearm is in a plane parallel to the plane of the wall at the end of the pool that area is maximized. If your arm is extended directly toward the wall the area is very small, which is good for reducing drag/streamlining. Any angle in between will produce an intermediate sized effective area. Think of pushing a kickboard through the water, when the largest side is facing the direction you are pushing it you have to push quite hard before it moves fast or far, turn it so that the edge is facing forward and the effective area becomes quite small and even small forces will slip it through the water easily. If the board is at 45 degrees an intermediate amount of force is needed to move it, and sideways forces are also generated. Remember that pressure forces in a fluid are always at right angles to the surface, so if your arm is at a 45 degree angle the forces generated will be equal parts upward and forward even if the direction of movement is straight backward. With your arm extended directly in front of you any force that you generate will be straight down and pretty much wasted effort. With a straight arm pull the majority of the force you generate will be vertical until you get to 45 degrees, so it's not an economical way to swim. And you are correct, rotation in itself doesn't provide propulsion, what it does do is improve your streamlining and put your arm in a position where you can apply larger muscles. Extend your arm directly out in front of you and press down on something, feel the lat under the arm you are pressing with, it isn't engaged. Extend your arm directly out to the side and press down on something, immediately your lat is engaged. By positioning your elbow out to the side prior to the power phase you can effectively utilize your nice big lat muscle instead of the relatively small shoulder muscles. Experiment with lifting yourself up at the edge of the pool with your arms straight out or with your elbows pointed downward versus with your elbows wide out to the side, you should feel quite a difference.

I was really referring to her underwater catch. As far as the recovery, I'm not thinking so much in terms of the arm position on recovery as much as the speed and momentum of the recovery (shoulder and elbow moving forward). Rotating the body alone doesn't really provide much forward propulsion it seems to me. Given that the catch arm is really supposed to be holding water, there must be a source of momentum somewhere. Let's say that someone very slowly and deliberately moves their recovery arm forward. The only way to get propulsion would be to push backward with the catch arm. However, if there is forward momentum to the recovery, the catch arm can more or less hold water while the body glides past. I think one of the things I really need to remember when swimming is to hold off on rotating until my recovery shoulder/arm has slid forward more. That's what Marsh was mentioning and what I see from the better swimmers. I'm in no way thinking that I should really throw the shoulder mercilessly and risk injury. I just need to think in my mind "more forward momentum". Does that make sense, or am I way off here. I need to get to the pool today and test this out. No! You do not get propulsion from the recovering arm! Any forward momentum you gain as the arm decelerates at the front is momentum you lost as you accelerated the arm forward in the back. Propulsion comes from the force you are applying to the arm that is anchored. Think of hanging on the edge of the pool with your hands on the edge as you pull yourself up out of the water, you want your hands to stay in the same position and your body to move past them. This is easy on a solid wall. The nature of fluids is that they move when you apply force to them, the idea of your hand actually staying still as you pull is physics nonsense but you want to get as close to that as possible. The larger surface you press/anchor with, i.e. hopefully your hand plus your forearm, the less slip you will get for a given amount of force applied, that is the purpose of the high elbow pull, to maximize the area of the surface that is oriented backward and applying backward force. If you take a picture from directly behind you the area that your arm takes up in the image is the effective surface area that you can use to exert force on the water. If your forearm is in a plane parallel to the plane of the wall at the end of the pool that area is maximized. If your arm is extended directly toward the wall the area is very small, which is good for reducing drag/streamlining. Any angle in between will produce an intermediate sized effective area. Think of pushing a kickboard through the water, when the largest side is facing the direction you are pushing it you have to push quite hard before it moves fast or far, turn it so that the edge is facing forward and the effective area becomes quite small and even small forces will slip it through the water easily. If the board is at 45 degrees an intermediate amount of force is needed to move it, and sideways forces are also generated. Remember that pressure forces in a fluid are always at right angles to the surface, so if your arm is at a 45 degree angle the forces generated will be equal parts upward and forward even if the direction of movement is straight backward. With your arm extended directly in front of you any force that you generate will be straight down and pretty much wasted effort. With a straight arm pull the majority of the force you generate will be vertical until you get to 45 degrees, so it's not an economical way to swim. And you are correct, rotation in itself doesn't provide propulsion, what it does do is improve your streamlining and put your arm in a position where you can apply larger muscles. Extend your arm directly out in front of you and press down on something, feel the lat under the arm you are pressing with, it isn't engaged. Extend your arm directly out to the side and press down on something, immediately your lat is engaged. By positioning your elbow out to the side prior to the power phase you can effectively utilize your nice big lat muscle instead of the relatively small shoulder muscles. Experiment with lifting yourself up at the edge of the pool with your arms straight out or with your elbows pointed downward versus with your elbows wide out to the side, you should feel quite a difference.