Sinking hips during recovery in fly

Thanks a lot SolarEnergy, I like a lot your way of thinking of swimming through physics. I prefer it that way as well. All right. First, I have to slightly disagree with your statement of the facts. Your issue begins well before the arm recovery started. Your hips are already too low just a fraction of a second after hands entry (reference, minute 1:06 from slowmo clip). If you agree with this then we have to start analyzing your movements from this point on. Nicely spotted. I had a thought about it too and it could be that from the moment my head is low and the whole body is downhill, instead of pulling my head up with downward movement of the first phase of the pull, I try to lift my head by "body movement", from hips, basically pushing my hips down. That explains why I feel my hands have nothing to do in the beginning of the pull. The filling is like my hands are going through the air in that phase. It could be that since body "wave" is lifting the head, arms have nothing to do. I kind of had a mental picture of butterfly as "snake" movement, meaning chest follows head, hips follow chest (and go through the points where chest went through), knees follow hips :) Basically, I thought if we would take a picture of flier with a very long exposure (fixed camera), we would get a wavy line. Now, it looks like I was wrong about that. Now. Let us immediately drop all pre-formatted thoughts and stick to Newton's Third here for a moment. Which forces could account for this loss in buoyancy? What particular movements are taking place at this particular moment? I see two things: 1. You're raising your head to breathe, then 2. You're recovering the legs to prepare for the second kick Very interesting analysis of the second kick. If I try to analyze preparation for the first kick (the moment that worried me initially) what forces do we have? Downward forces: 1. gravity 2. upbeat of the second kick 3. hands leaving the water Upward forces: 1. buoyance. But since buoyance decreases at this moment since the arms go above the water, this force's overall contribution is more downward (it has negative change). 2. flow dynamics. The whole body is in "uphill" position after the pull and before the recovery and since the water flows towards the swimmer, water tends to lift the swimmer up. Since my second kick is finished too early, when my arms are somewhere half way through the pull, it could be that I loose lots of speed by the time pull is finished and then the only upward force (flow dynamics) becomes too small. Additionally, rotation of arms from shoulders (beginning of the recovery - upsweep), creates most probably counter force moment in the shoulder to the rest of the body which tends to rotate body counter-clockwise (when watched from the right side), which also brings hips down. Thanks for the no-arms drill. I actually used this drill (I posted this in one of my previous posts on my blog). Although I posted above the water video, probably more interesting would be underwater one. I'll make it and post it. Thanks again, I like long posts, if they are interesting :), and this one definitely was very interesting. Best regards. - Predrag.

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. No worries, just go on with it :) I'm enjoying it as well.

If I try to analyze preparation for the first kick (the moment that worried me initially) what forces do we have? Downward forces: 1. gravity 2. upbeat of the second kick 3. hands leaving the water Upward forces: 1. buoyance. But since buoyance decreases at this moment since the arms go above the water, this force's overall contribution is more downward (it has negative change). 2. flow dynamics. The whole body is in "uphill" position after the pull and before the recovery and since the water flows towards the swimmer, water tends to lift the swimmer up. I like your reading of the facts, and I agree to a large extent. I'd add the following element to your upward forces' list. - Forward momentum The greater the velocity (forward) the less you sink. But this is probably what you meant by flow dynamic. Yep, I think I just understood what you meant. I particularly like the fact that you included upbeat of the second kick. Additionally, rotation of arms from shoulders (beginning of the recovery - upsweep), creates most probably counter force moment in the shoulder to the rest of the body which tends to rotate body counter-clockwise (when watched from the right side), which also brings hips down. Yep. I see what you mean here and I agree. However, the portion preceding this phase is believed to be the most propulsive. Therefore the exit's negative impact is probably very little. I didn't know you knew about principle of physics that much. I voluntarily omitted one element that also brings you down because it does so through an esoteric weight shift, wait let me explain. On catch, if you press the water down, that brings the hip down. You get the same effect as if you were wanting to push against the side of the pool to exit and go home. But in your case, I'm absolutely convinced based on the timing during which the hip sinkage occurs that it has a lot to do with the leg recovery being too sudden and hard. Thanks for the no-arms drill. I actually used this drill (I posted this in one of my previous posts on my blog). Although I posted above the water video, probably more interesting would be underwater one. I'll make it and post it. Would you be kind enough to post a link? I keep claiming the paternity of this drill, being aware that there are certainly over 20 coaches that invented it (I'm not pretentious enough to believe that I'm smarter than other coaches). However, I'm yet to see an execution with arms in the front and total respect of breathing and kicking patterns. Thanks

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. And I really appreciated it. I didn't know that such a successful swimmer was performing this sort of stroke. Thanks a lot. For what it's worth (always little embarrassing to post our bad little clips after that of Phelps and Cseh), I got clipped tonight. That's "dry" (no wup before) after 4 days of inactivity but you can see that there's a slight improvement. I got to keep the pace moderate though otherwise I get back to my old habits. Should be ready for mid April though: YouTube- Just a little 50m Butterfly done at moderate speed Sorry for lazy first kick. My focus was elsewhere. Now, my problem is that after entry, the arm adduction continues. I may enter near shoulder width but continues to bring my hands together hence this small splash. But it's better than it was though. Never ending story, that's why I like this stroke so much. - - - Predrag, if you notice, I cheat on the second kick. I still don't know if it's right or wrong. I haven't addressed that yet. But if you look at my butt on second kick I raise it back to the surface. I am not suggesting this is what you should do though, but since it's inline with your topic. I do that by instinct, again I think it's bad. I think I could get more forward momentum on second kick if I wasn't doing this.

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. Does he splash as much? Anyway, I'm not very gifted on the physical/fitness side. I absolutely need to cut on drag as much as I possibly can in order to book podiums at our next Provincial Championship (equivalent to you guys' State Championship). I think Phelps Butterfly is a better vehicle for folks like me. It is safe (shoulders), extremely efficient and as a bonus, very good looking. I'll soon post some footage of what's been my bf transformation so far. Next big test is a meet in February for which I'd like to take the 50m down under 30sec. Then you should do 1 arm fly and focus on dragging your thumb on the surface of the water during the recovery. Thanks pwolf for this advice. I haven't done a lot of this so far. My strategy lies more on full stroke training. In a 2.5k workout, I usually accumulate at least 1 full kilo of butterfly during which I focus on: - Recovering the arms as fast as possible in order to get both hands in from, at shoulder width asap - Performing this recovery while keeping both hands close to the surface - Making sure I do not add any "arm" downward momentum upon hand entry. I just put my body weights to this entry and that's all.

Solar, I noticed that you exit your hands with your palms down. If you can stop the video at the :20 mark you will clearly see that. At exit your palms should be up and should rotate thru to a downward position (or slightly angled so thumb enters first) as your arms settle into the water. You are trying to muscle the recovery. Do some lengths of fly where you clap your palms together at the end of your recovery. This will promote 2 things 1) Rotation of your palms as your arms recover forward and 2) faster arm recovery. This will also encourage a longer stroke by allowing your shoulder blades to rotate forward.

The greater the velocity (forward) the less you sink. But this is probably what you meant by flow dynamic. Yep, I think I just understood what you meant. I meant fluid dynamics :) sorry for the confusion, but you understood me anyway ;) I didn't know you knew about principle of physics that much. I voluntarily omitted one element that also brings you down because it does so through an esoteric weight shift, wait let me explain. On catch, if you press the water down, that brings the hip down. You get the same effect as if you were wanting to push against the side of the pool to exit and go home. Physics is my hobby. I made a couple of physics simulators, since I'm software developer. I was going to make a simple swimming simulator, but struggling with spare time at the moment, so it's going pretty slowly. In the effect above, I also see Third Newton, upper body tries to pull the arms closer to the body (against water resistance), but also arms tend to pull the upper body closer to arms. On the other hand, downbeat of legs kick tends to lift the hips, so probably it's about the balance between these two. But in your case, I'm absolutely convinced based on the timing during which the hip sinkage occurs that it has a lot to do with the leg recovery being too sudden and hard. Would you be kind enough to post a link? This is my eariler blog post with "above the water" footage of "legs only" exercise with arms in front: http://blog.grkovic.com/?p=18 http://blog.grkovic.com/?p=55 That's what took me so long :) I made some underwater videos. To me, the most relevant to this thread is the exercise where I swim without legs and when I manage to concentrate on relaxing the legs as much as possible, hips stop sinking. Or is it only me seeing ;) Thanks a lot for your time and advices. Best regards. - Predrag.

Predrag, if you notice, I cheat on the second kick. I still don't know if it's right or wrong. I haven't addressed that yet. But if you look at my butt on second kick I raise it back to the surface. I am not suggesting this is what you should do though, but since it's inline with your topic. I do that by instinct, again I think it's bad. I think I could get more forward momentum on second kick if I wasn't doing this. Hi SolarEnergy, I have this "problem" as well. You will see it on my videos in first blog post. I haven't figured out why it's happening. At first I thought I push my hands too deep that I start bending forward, but I doubt it. Then I thought that my second kick (I called it first in my blog post :)) creates too much upforce instead of forward force, so the body jumps up too much. I'm really curious if you have some explanation about it, preferably with some physics ;) Best regards. - Predrag.

At exit your palms should be up and should rotate thru to a downward position (or slightly angled so thumb enters first) as your arms settle into the water. pwolf, could you please explain in more details palm angles during the recovery? As I understood, during exit, fingers point backwards, little finger leaves the water first, palms are facing each other. Then palms are rotated to point upwards (fingers point outwards), with little finger being the first in the line. Then, close to the end, fingers start pointing downwards, with palms pointing backwards. Is this correct? Thanks a lot. - Predrag.

It seems to me that you found a big clue to what your issue is when you noticed (in your blog) that your hips don't sink when you don't kick. If you compare your stroke to Phelps during the phase where you suddenly drop you will see that he is pressing down on the water with his thighs while drawing his feet forward along the surface of the water, followed by kicking his feet back, while you are pressing upward on the water with your feet and lower leg. Between gravity and your feet pushing upward and the fact that you are already too vertical at that point all forces are aligned for a big drop. You might try starting with no kick, adding a little more chest press, and then very slowly easing in a little kick being careful not to kick predominately from the knees. When you dolphin kick on your back it is easier to get the feel of starting the kick at your hips with your knees coming up a bit (as you are on your back) with your feet drawing forward and toes pointing down instead of your feet moving down, and then both your thigh and feet returning to straight simultaneously as if you are thrusting some water back at the wall you are swimming away from. The key point here is to avoid what you are doing now which is pressing your knees down (when you are on your front) followed by the downstroke of the feet without the knees coming back up, which is leaving your feet way too deep and hence your attitude too vertical. Learning to swim with your body rather than your limbs is the idea behind body dolphins - but learn to do these with fins (long or short) before you try without. Note: this advise may be worth what you paid for it! Just another perspective.