Back to Phelps.
What about his try at changing his crawl technique prior to the worlds. Could this be the reason for his very good but as most say his (poor???) 200 fr swim? May have been bad judgement by the coach or the swimmer? I did not like what I saw during the changing style period, it looked Helter Skelter.
I thought he did OK in the 200fr, he just was not at his best that day.
I don't know if Phelps' stroke change had anything to do with his "poor" 200 meter free. In fact I argue his 200 freestyle was excellent - he came within .3 of his time in Beijing. It just looked substandard because Paul Biedermann's swim qualifies as one of the greatest in history, akin to Mary T.'s butterfly world records at Brown Deer in 1981. However Biedermann's swims have a gigantic question mark attached to them because of the suit. To his credit Biedermann seems to recognize this and wants to race without it. But until he does we won't know how fast he can really go, nor how fast Phelps can really go.
Back to Phelps' stroke - I would have to say, from my vantage point, that Phelps' attempt to remodel his freestyle has been a failure thus far. He did it to have a faster 100 meter free, but his times have been slower than last year's. (47.5 at Beijing to 47.7 at WC I think.) He did not swim the 100 meter race at trials, a decision which confused me since he had spent so much time changing his stroke.
If I were Bowman I might have focused less on Phelps' stroke, and simply given Phelps more sprint and power training. His stroke may have evolved naturally as each pull became faster and more powerful. At least mine did - I used to have a classic high elbow freestyle. As I added sprint and power training, my stroke slowly evolved into a partial straight arm. I realize I am a subset of one, but it is a theory.
Back to Phelps.
What about his try at changing his crawl technique prior to the worlds. Could this be the reason for his very good but as most say his (poor???) 200 fr swim? May have been bad judgement by the coach or the swimmer? I did not like what I saw during the changing style period, it looked Helter Skelter.
I thought he did OK in the 200fr, he just was not at his best that day.
I don't know if Phelps' stroke change had anything to do with his "poor" 200 meter free. In fact I argue his 200 freestyle was excellent - he came within .3 of his time in Beijing. It just looked substandard because Paul Biedermann's swim qualifies as one of the greatest in history, akin to Mary T.'s butterfly world records at Brown Deer in 1981. However Biedermann's swims have a gigantic question mark attached to them because of the suit. To his credit Biedermann seems to recognize this and wants to race without it. But until he does we won't know how fast he can really go, nor how fast Phelps can really go.
Back to Phelps' stroke - I would have to say, from my vantage point, that Phelps' attempt to remodel his freestyle has been a failure thus far. He did it to have a faster 100 meter free, but his times have been slower than last year's. (47.5 at Beijing to 47.7 at WC I think.) He did not swim the 100 meter race at trials, a decision which confused me since he had spent so much time changing his stroke.
If I were Bowman I might have focused less on Phelps' stroke, and simply given Phelps more sprint and power training. His stroke may have evolved naturally as each pull became faster and more powerful. At least mine did - I used to have a classic high elbow freestyle. As I added sprint and power training, my stroke slowly evolved into a partial straight arm. I realize I am a subset of one, but it is a theory.
