Sinking hips during recovery in fly

Great drill. You can build on that drill to do three left, three right, three full. It's also much more mileage underwater dolphin kicking since all bf (and "free choice" as far as I'm concerned) kick sets allow you to this. Your suggestion is a great one too since it teaches to transfer this relaxed state you can achieve in 1-Arm to the full stroke. I agree that it may favor learning to better control the depth and the amplitude. Divide and Conquer.

Now that you've been given the advice here, I would retain it....but I still think you need to do a lot of one-arm fly drilling to find your rhythm while you work on incorporating the pieces of advice. One-arm fly drills can help you work on "cleaning up" your catch and follow-thru, as well as help with the timing of your breathing. Also, you won't be laboring so much with the drill (as you would with full fly), so you have the opportunity to go further and work on your stroke mechanics before you "graduate" to doing full fly with your newly-acquired skills. One way to work it into your workout is to do 10x50 one-arm fly drill... and then after doing that for a few workouts, add full-fly following the one-arm drill, and see how it feels. I think you'll notice quite a difference.

Solar: Then you should do 1 arm fly and focus on dragging your thumb on the surface of the water during the recovery.

SolarEnergy, What's the purpose of one arm fly where your arm points nearly vertical? Butterfly is not performed in that manner and by doing it that way you are not ingraining any butterfly related technique. 1 arm fly should have the same recovery path as butterfly. Arms should be recovered low over the water with the thumb pointing down. Even if you breathe to the side during the recovery, the hand should still be held low.

Hey, SolarEnergy, There is more than one way to fly. Your's is very similar to Cseh, who is, after one of the best flyers in the world.

A long time ago , 14 years, I started to breathe to the side on fly like free & it helped to keep my head & down & hips up.

SolarEnergy, What's the purpose of one arm fly where your arm points nearly vertical? Butterfly is not performed in that manner and by doing it that way you are not ingraining any butterfly related technique. 1 arm fly should have the same recovery path as butterfly. Arms should be recovered low over the water with the thumb pointing down. Even if you breathe to the side during the recovery, the hand should still be held low. You're telling me mate. I am working so hard these days in trying to bring my fly recovery near the surface. It became an absolute priority. The goal. Upon arm entry, absolutely NO downward momentum. Just the body weight, to limit the splash. If you look at this clip below, it's me early in the season. Didn't even go under 30s and yet, I splash 3 times more than Phelps. Ridiculous. YouTube- Montreal Cup 2009 - 50m Butterfly

Here is Laszlo from above and underneath. You can see a high arm recovery and splash, but what's happening underneath the water is what's important. YouTube- Roma 2009 - 400m ferfi vegyes - elodonto - Cseh Laci es Kis Gergo YouTube- laszlo cseh vs. ryan lochte || butterfly || underwater view

Your turn was like the last in a 200 fly. You gotta kick off that wall more in a 50. This will establish the turnover frequency on the way back. You have a great body dolphin. I wanted to show you Cseh's stroke so you don't think you need to re invent the wheel. Your fly looks real good.

Thank you very very much for having found this clip for me. I do appreciate it a lot. Apologies to the original poster for what's getting to look more and more like a thread hijack. I hope that you're still finding this discussion interesting. I do agree that what's happening under water is very important. In the same time though, I must follow Newton's third a little bit to you know? Here's my first 50bf of the season. You can clearly see the extent of the problem. Some of the energy expanded during this swim is basically slowing me down. You can't splash that much without creating drag forces. YouTube- First 50m BF early season competition I know that the following clip has been referred to over and over, but it is so hot. Look at this clean arm entry. This is just want I want. I may not cut that much time implementing this change but I'm sure it's a good deal anyway. YouTube- Michael Phelps - Butterfly 01 Best hand/arm entry I've ever seen for a butterfly specialist. My humble analysis on what to do to achieve this: Bring those arm in front as fast as possible (fast recovery) until shoulder width, then feel as if you were simply letting yourself fall in the water. No downward arm momentum upon entry. Just some body weight. An other tricky aspect involves performing a shallow catch while having the entire upper body that sinks deeper than the catch (down hill swimming). I haven't really addressed this. 1 thing at the time ;-)