How many use the early vertical forearm method?
How many believe it is less prone to shoulder injuries?
I tried it for the first time today and it wore my butt out! I did feel like I had more surface area to pull with and the force felt more horizontally directed toward my feet. I have a lot of work to do if I continue to adopt this stroke method.:bolt:
www.youtube.com/watch
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Former Member
OK I have done about 4.5 hours working almost exclusively on using a early vertical forearm technique over the last 3 days. It does feel like I'm learning freestyle swimming over again. I am using different muscles and it takes full concentration just to stroke and keep my elbows up. I already know this is the right thing and makes so much sense. I can't believe I haven't encountered it before now. I believe basic laws of physics apply here and this technique is far superior to the "dropped elbow" and straight arms most, formerly including myself, swim with.
My right arm seems to be learning faster than my left. I use a pull bouy alot, concentrating only on my strokes and only taking a breath when necessary. My motions feel very "robotic" at this stage which I know will smooth out with a rhythm soon. The best way I can describe the freestyle stroke motion I'm making, is my arms feel like a robot spider's legs walking on an imaginary surface, a forearm and hand's depth below the water surface!
Think of yourself standing with one arm fully extended in front of you and how little force it would take for someone to push up on your hand. Now bend your elbow at a 90 deg. angle and imagine how much more force your hand would resist. By measuring my arm motions, the cantilever distance of the hand position alone is cut in half, making application of force much less effort!
I will be in the water at 5:30 am tomorrow and again at 4:30pm to work on it for about 3 more hours. It's supposed to be in the mid 50s tomorrow morning, considered quite brisk here, so it should be a great swim!
Georgio
(Incidentally "spellcheck" doesn't seem to work so I hope there are not too many errors!) :bitching:
OK I have done about 4.5 hours working almost exclusively on using a early vertical forearm technique over the last 3 days. It does feel like I'm learning freestyle swimming over again. I am using different muscles and it takes full concentration just to stroke and keep my elbows up. I already know this is the right thing and makes so much sense. I can't believe I haven't encountered it before now. I believe basic laws of physics apply here and this technique is far superior to the "dropped elbow" and straight arms most, formerly including myself, swim with.
My right arm seems to be learning faster than my left. I use a pull bouy alot, concentrating only on my strokes and only taking a breath when necessary. My motions feel very "robotic" at this stage which I know will smooth out with a rhythm soon. The best way I can describe the freestyle stroke motion I'm making, is my arms feel like a robot spider's legs walking on an imaginary surface, a forearm and hand's depth below the water surface!
Think of yourself standing with one arm fully extended in front of you and how little force it would take for someone to push up on your hand. Now bend your elbow at a 90 deg. angle and imagine how much more force your hand would resist. By measuring my arm motions, the cantilever distance of the hand position alone is cut in half, making application of force much less effort!
I will be in the water at 5:30 am tomorrow and again at 4:30pm to work on it for about 3 more hours. It's supposed to be in the mid 50s tomorrow morning, considered quite brisk here, so it should be a great swim!
Georgio
(Incidentally "spellcheck" doesn't seem to work so I hope there are not too many errors!) :bitching:
