Please critique

well, ideally, you want the timing of your overarm recovery to match up with the timing of your pull, so that you can ensure smooth and consistent perpetual motion. thus, as pull times get faster, recoveries must equally get faster. the bent elbow recovery promotes smoother entry, for one thing, and, for another, it promotes a quicker approach to the catch point. if you sidearm your overarm recovery, the curvilinear path that your arm takes will take longer to follow, theoretically, than the more straight path followed by a bent-arm recovery. however, it is my opinion that there is a bit of range here. if your elbow is bent too high and your hand kept too close to your body, then the motion will lose its fluidity as the recovery becomes a mechanical transition from unnatural arm positions. thus, it seems to me that the best course of action is somewhere between a sidearm recovery and a very high-elbow recovery. There's been some debate in these forums regarding bent-arm to straight-arm, but for me it is definitely bent-arm with the advantage, but the question is how bent. If your hand is too far out or too far in, you have a slower recovery, so you need to find that golden mean where the overarm recovery path is fluid and natural but not too long a distance to travel, either. In the context of Rada Owen, I haven't seen a video of her, but I would guess that she simply has accustomed herself to a bent-elbow path within that range that is closer to the sidearm side of things than to the highest-elbow. --Sean 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.

After reading thru all this and looking thru the USMS Swimmer magazine, I have come to the conclusion that MY CATCH SUCKS!!!! But I mean this in the best possible way. I'm doing times that are only about 10% my lifetime bests with poor technique (big shocker as I was always a muscle swimmer) so if I can improve my technique, then I might have a shot at closing that gap even more. The problem here is that without actually seeing my stroke, I can not even begin to process what changes I need to make. Need to find someone with an underwater camera to video tape me.

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 also bought a GoSwim video with Ronald Schoeman, and one of the things he does is throw the shoulder. I agree that it wouldn't be the main source of momentum, but would it not be like swinging your arms forward while jumping? I think most of us can jump higher and farther with an arm swing than without. In the case of jumping, the legs are the main propulsive element but the arms do contribute propulsive work. In swimming, the catch arm is the the main propulsive element, but similarly I would think the right arm could do the same. A little experiment to try; stand up straight but don't try to dig your feet into the ground. Then do an forward overarm swing, and watch how you lean forward. Again, I'm not in any way advocating a strong throw or anything. But I think a little velocity or swing on the recovery will add to propulsion. Now if the timing is all off the energy could be completely lost.

After reading thru all this and looking thru the USMS Swimmer magazine, I have come to the conclusion that MY CATCH SUCKS!!!! But I mean this in the best possible way. I'm doing times that are only about 10% my lifetime bests with poor technique (big shocker as I was always a muscle swimmer) so if I can improve my technique, then I might have a shot at closing that gap even more. The problem here is that without actually seeing my stroke, I can not even begin to process what changes I need to make. Need to find someone with an underwater camera to video tape me. I have been using the Olympus Stylus. It's a small, digital, 8 megapixel still picture camera that is water resistant to 5 feet. Also has video function which is decent. Great for these types of things. Runs about $300.

I have been using the Olympus Stylus. It's a small, digital, 8 megapixel still picture camera that is water resistant to 5 feet. Also has video function which is decent. Great for these types of things. Runs about $300. I have that same camera. The issue is with your basic underwater cameras at best you can get about 10-15 feet of someone swimming at race pace as it is really difficult to stay on the swimmer. What I meant when I referred to underwater camera is a boom mounted camera with an external screen where it is much easier to remain centered on the swimmer.

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.

Lindsay: in talking to eamon sullivan's biomechanist, he seemed to agree that the sidearm recovery took longer than the traditional bent-arm recovery, but: a) he didn't think it would affect the pull rate of eamon, and b) he didn't explain to me why he felt that such a recovery would take longer. My guess is that your upper arm may follow the same path in both, and your lower arm may be along for the ride, but the catch starts at the fingertips, and it takes longer for those finger tips to get into position if they are following a more curvilinear path. In bent-arm recovery, the fingertips follow tangentially to the smaller semicircular path created by following the movement of the elbow. in sidearm, the fingertips follow parallel to the elbow's path in a larger semicircle. Essentially, where sidearm follows the perimeter of that larger semicircle, bent-arm streaks down the diameter. turuky: to my knowledge, the rotation of the body does a few things. first, it reduces your drag by narrowing the amount of surface area splitting the water. second, it allows your reaching hand to reach that little bit farther that you could only reach by dropping that shoulder. third, it helps convert the pulling hand's final push to the outside to a push behind by changing the positioning of the body and therefore the effect of the push. it's really quite useful.

Sean, try this: hold your arm out straight to the side, keeping it straight swing it to straight in front of you. The hand travels a longer path than the elbow but they both arrive at the front at the same time. The hand simply moves along its path faster. It does require more torque or the same torque applied for a longer duration to accelerate the hand to the higher speed, but I see no evidence that that is a limiting factor. Since your arm can't actually generate any propulsive force in the fully extended position, isn't that extra little extension more about stretching and engaging the lat? The only way to generate any force out there is to flex your wrist, but even then you have to be pulling it back faster than you're moving forward through the water.

Sean, try this: hold your arm out straight to the side, keeping it straight swing it to straight in front of you. The hand travels a longer path than the elbow but they both arrive at the front at the same time. The hand simply moves along its path faster. It does require more torque or the same torque applied for a longer duration to accelerate the hand to the higher speed, but I see no evidence that that is a limiting factor. Since your arm can't actually generate any propulsive force in the fully extended position, isn't that extra little extension more about stretching and engaging the lat? The only way to generate any force out there is to flex your wrist, but even then you have to be pulling it back faster than you're moving forward through the water. as far as the sidearm vs the bent-arm goes, i'll agree that it requires greater force to accelerate the hand to the higher speed that would be required in such a stroke. however, i imagine such a stroke would limit one's ability in distance events, as the greater force required would fatigue the swimmer that much faster. The speed that the hand must travel to keep up with the speed of the elbow would take its toll on the swimmer. my understanding of that extra stretch is that it gives that much more runway for your pull while not affecting the timing of your stroke, since the pull is finishing out at the same time. it's definitely not about, in itself, generating propulsive force, though. no portion of the recovery is. --Sean

The difference with land based versus water based movements is that when you jump you throw your arms up while your feet are still pressing on the SOLID ground. If you swung your arms up after you feet left the ground the would reduce the height of your jump. Unless you launch your arm by pressing against the water you are essentially doing the recovery in the air and as your muscles throw the arm forward an equal and opposite force is pulling backward on your shoulder and body, so you slow down when you start the recovery and then speed up at the end as the momentum in your arm pulls your shoulder forward. In any case, the magnitude of the forces involved in your arm momentum are going to be relatively small in relation to the forces in your pull, I would concentrate your efforts there. I also bought a GoSwim video with Roland Schoeman, and one of the things he does is throw the shoulder. I agree that it wouldn't be the main source of momentum, but would it not be like swinging your arms forward while jumping? I think most of us can jump higher and farther with an arm swing than without. In the case of jumping, the legs are the main propulsive element but the arms do contribute propulsive work. In swimming, the catch arm is the the main propulsive element, but similarly I would think the right arm could do the same. A little experiment to try; stand up straight but don't try to dig your feet into the ground. Then do an forward overarm swing, and watch how you lean forward. Again, I'm not in any way advocating a strong throw or anything. But I think a little velocity or swing on the recovery will add to propulsion. Now if the timing is all off the energy could be completely lost.