Anyone experimenting with this? It seems like maybe Chris Stevenson does some undulation in his stroke, but I can't tell if it's an intentional effort to continue the body dolphin.
www.floswimming.org/.../124868-backstroke-breakout
Former Member
Posted yesterday is a video on floswimming.org concerning butterfly kicks for first two strokes on backstroke. Video is on LadyVols from U of Tennessee. I haven't watched it yet other than the first few seconds.
Woops, I guess I didn't read BillS' post entirely before I posted. Sorry.
What?! lol I think The Little Devil made that video. Actually, I've always thought your breakout was extremely powerful and explosive, albeit unconventional and counter-intuitive. But some things that are unconventional are nonetheless successful, no? I've never thought there was one "correct" way to swim.
This approach seems in total contrast to the advice Eddie Reese recently gave Ande about pressing your head and shoulders back on the breakout. I even recall Lefty remarking that this was one of the single best pieces of advice he'd read on the forum recently ... For myself, I feel (and have been told) that I start decelerating right before the breakout and thus am not going at top speed when I start stroking. Frankly, I'm inclined to try this approach (despite the unconventional popping up) to attempt to counteract this problem.
I have to agree with you here! One thing that we work on time and time again are the breakouts for all of our strokes and I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to see swimmers pop at their breakout. I think I've lost my voice a couple of times this year trying to correct that! That being said, I don't believe there is one "be all, end all" for breakout...
Anyone experimenting with this? It seems like maybe Chris Stevenson does some undulation in his stroke, but I can't tell if it's an intentional effort to continue the body dolphin.
www.floswimming.org/.../124868-backstroke-breakout
I just have to laugh about this. Fortress ridicules my backstroke breakout, she even made a video about it. Jim Miller constantly tries to get me to settle down and not "pop up" on the breakout. Certainly the conventional wisdom is that such breakouts represent wasted energy at best (and are slower, at worst).
Then again, as an age grouper I was regularly ridiculed for doing dolphin kicks off the walls in freestyle events...and that is pretty standard practice nowadays.
I don't believe I do a dolphin kick on backstroke even though it appears that way; I think it is just a very asymmetric stroke, with a lot of rotation (my shoulders come way out of the water). The asymmetry is not conscious on my part; I remember being shocked the first time I saw myself on video (well into my swimming career, I think I was 20 or 21 at the time). Local age-group and masters coach Dudley Duncan -- he coaches SwimQuest, has known me since I was a HS swimmer -- says he thinks my unorthodox backstroke and freestyle engage my core more. I have no idea if he is correct, but I respect him as a coach a lot.
I definitely do a dolphin kick on freestyle. I have always swum that way. It is a disadvantage in sprints since I don't do a 6-beat kick (although I split a 44-mid on a 400 free relay in college, which isn't bad for someone who never trained to sprint free). As an young age-grouper when I swam at Santa Clara, Bill Thompson once spent almost an entire year trying in vain to get rid of the undulation in my freestyle.
By the way, Matt Kredich was the coach at U of Richmond (where I work) for a few years. We also swam in college at the same time. I think he is an excellent coach, despite the clear evidence of his poor judgment in choosing to attend Duke.
I just have to laugh about this. Fortress ridicules my backstroke breakout, she even made a video about it. Jim Miller constantly tries to get me to settle down and not "pop up" on the breakout. Certainly the conventional wisdom is that such breakouts represent wasted energy at best (and are slower, at worst).
Then again, as an age grouper I was regularly ridiculed for doing dolphin kicks off the walls in freestyle events...and that is pretty standard practice nowadays.
I don't believe I do a dolphin kick on backstroke even though it appears that way; I think it is just a very asymmetric stroke, with a lot of rotation (my shoulders come way out of the water). The asymmetry is not conscious on my part; I remember being shocked the first time I saw myself on video (well into my swimming career, I think I was 20 or 21 at the time). Local age-group and masters coach Dudley Duncan -- he coaches SwimQuest, has known me since I was a HS swimmer -- says he thinks my unorthodox backstroke and freestyle engage my core more. I have no idea if he is correct, but I respect him as a coach a lot.
I definitely do a dolphin kick on freestyle. I have always swum that way. It is a disadvantage in sprints since I don't do a 6-beat kick (although I split a 44-mid on a 400 free relay in college, which isn't bad for someone who never trained to sprint free). As an young age-grouper when I swam at Santa Clara, Bill Thompson once spent almost an entire year trying in vain to get rid of the undulation in my freestyle.
By the way, Matt Kredich was the coach at U of Richmond (where I work) for a few years. We also swam in college at the same time. I think he is an excellent coach, despite the clear evidence of his poor judgment in choosing to attend Duke.
What?! lol I think The Little Devil made that video. Actually, I've always thought your breakout was extremely powerful and explosive, albeit unconventional and counter-intuitive. But some things that are unconventional are nonetheless successful, no? I've never thought there was one "correct" way to swim.
This approach seems in total contrast to the advice Eddie Reese recently gave Ande about pressing your head and shoulders back on the breakout. I even recall Lefty remarking that this was one of the single best pieces of advice he'd read on the forum recently ... For myself, I feel (and have been told) that I start decelerating right before the breakout and thus am not going at top speed when I start stroking. Frankly, I'm inclined to try this approach (despite the unconventional popping up) to attempt to counteract this problem.
Bill I have watched this video several times and I really don't think the swimmer is popping up at all, its a very smooth and powerful transition that just continues the underwater dolphin for a couple more kicks on the surface. If a swimmer is already dolphining underwater off the wall and start then it would be easy to use this breakout, but I still think a strong flutter kick can be just as effective. Every swimmer will reach his or her own point of diminishing returns on the underwater part, when you either slow down enough and need to start stroking or you need to rate your oxygen debt over the course of a race - whatever you spend underwater will have to be paid back at some point, hopefully not before your race is over!
Bill does this mean you are starting to like backstroke after all and want to swim more of it at practice??
Bill does this mean you are starting to like backstroke after all and want to swim more of it at practice??
No. This means we have a pentathlon coming up and I'm trying to figure out ways of reducing 50 interminable yards of backstroke to no more than 25 yards of actually swimming that damned poor excuse for a stroke (sic). Any time I can spend doing anything other than trying to swim the actual stroke (sic) -- and I mean anything at all that doesn't get me deked -- can only reduce my time.
