Finishing Free Hand Stroke

Pushing water up is indeed counter-productive but pushing the water back (extended) and at an angle away from your body can produce important inertia. If your hand position is not correct then the extension of your hand past your navel isn’t important. Great swimmers make better use of their finish than other swimmers and produce important and propulsive drag forces throughout their underwater stroke. If you look at your had as a paddle and you should, the drag force it produces throughout the stroke is all important. You are correct in that, a hand put in a position that does not produce drag is not efficient but that means you need to correct that position. Each competitive stroke can be separated into four different segments or quadrants. The front quadrant is where propulsion initiates; the beginning of the second quadrant and the end of the first quadrant is where power from the stroke occurs; the third quadrant where the recovery is initiated and the fourth quadrant is where the recovery makes the transition to the entry. The first quadrant is critical because it's where you set-up your stroke, if you don't set it up correctly power and efficiency is compromised. “Setting-up” your stroke simply means that you need to achieve an Early Vertical Forearm and contrary to belief, everyone must, at some point, get their forearm and hand vertical during the first and second quadrant of their stroke. The external rotation of one’s forearm or the angle of from the shoulder, elbow, forearm and hand, is dependent upon the physical limitations of the individual (shoulder strength, flexibility, body height, body type and some other factors). But it’s very important to note that every single swimmer using their arms has some degree of EVF and that’s not debatable. The drag force is kept more constant by applying lift forces or movements that go away and toward the midline of the body. For you see, applying force directly backward creates a vortex behind the hand that reduce its drag potential. I know this sounds complicated and I guess it is, but you need to know that your pulling pattern is extremely important to speed. If you can improve your pulling pattern by making it a little more efficient you will swim faster. Good luck Coach T. National Science Foundation announces study results on corporate America: 1. Sport of choice for maintenance level employees - bowling 2. Sport of choice for front line workers - softball 3. Sport of choice for supervisors - baseball 4. Sport of choice for mid management - racquetball 5. Sport of choice for corporate officers - golf CONCLUSION: The higher you are in corporate structure, the smaller your balls!

Pushing water up is indeed counter-productive but pushing the water back (extended) and at an angle away from your body can produce important inertia. If your hand position is not correct then the extension of your hand past your navel isn’t important. Great swimmers make better use of their finish than other swimmers and produce important and propulsive drag forces throughout their underwater stroke. If you look at your had as a paddle and you should, the drag force it produces throughout the stroke is all important. You are correct in that, a hand put in a position that does not produce drag is not efficient but that means you need to correct that position. Each competitive stroke can be separated into four different segments or quadrants. The front quadrant is where propulsion initiates; the beginning of the second quadrant and the end of the first quadrant is where power from the stroke occurs; the third quadrant where the recovery is initiated and the fourth quadrant is where the recovery makes the transition to the entry. The first quadrant is critical because it's where you set-up your stroke, if you don't set it up correctly power and efficiency is compromised. “Setting-up” your stroke simply means that you need to achieve an Early Vertical Forearm and contrary to belief, everyone must, at some point, get their forearm and hand vertical during the first and second quadrant of their stroke. The external rotation of one’s forearm or the angle of from the shoulder, elbow, forearm and hand, is dependent upon the physical limitations of the individual (shoulder strength, flexibility, body height, body type and some other factors). But it’s very important to note that every single swimmer using their arms has some degree of EVF and that’s not debatable. The drag force is kept more constant by applying lift forces or movements that go away and toward the midline of the body. For you see, applying force directly backward creates a vortex behind the hand that reduce its drag potential. I know this sounds complicated and I guess it is, but you need to know that your pulling pattern is extremely important to speed. If you can improve your pulling pattern by making it a little more efficient you will swim faster. Good luck Coach T. National Science Foundation announces study results on corporate America: 1. Sport of choice for maintenance level employees - bowling 2. Sport of choice for front line workers - softball 3. Sport of choice for supervisors - baseball 4. Sport of choice for mid management - racquetball 5. Sport of choice for corporate officers - golf CONCLUSION: The higher you are in corporate structure, the smaller your balls!