Sinking hips during recovery in fly

It's a kilo full stroke and 4x200 kick (my 0-arm drill), all done in 3:45 (I was pleased). I was just curious, do you swim 1 kilo in one go, without breaks? Thanks for the link to 0-arm butterfly. Who taught you this? I learnt it myself. As I remember, I started with kickboard held in front with stretched arms and kicking first and second kick. Then I removed kickboard. Lastly, I moved arms next to the body. I think that the breathing moment in this drill could easily go slightly wrong, shifted a little bit late, after the second kick. Do you maybe have underwater footage of yourself doing it? Do you think you bend in hips during second kick? Thanks a lot solar once again. I really appreciate your advices.

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. Thanks pwolf, I am not saying I wouldn't try, but for me, I think that the reason my palms are facing down on exit is to be able to totally unlock the shoulder upon recovery. I typically swim >1kilo of butterfly full stroke per workout these days and it is absolutely crucial that I maintain proper shoulder health. For instance, yesterday my workout summed up to 1.8k, all butterfly, not a single length of free style. It's a kilo full stroke and 4x200 kick (my 0-arm drill), all done in 3:45 (I was pleased). So there are some mechanisms that took place quite naturally for my body to be able to sustain this mileage. I believe that exiting palm down is one of them. I will try playing to the angle pitch a bit to see how it affects my feeling, pleasure and performance but I can not promise that it'll work. As for clapping and distance per stroke, my normal butterfly involves both hands that are touching each other in the front. This is something I've been doing for years, I'm trying to move away from this in order to gain more stroke rate. My current distance per stroke, I'm not satisfied with it. I live on a 10-11 stroke diet. I wish I could take this down to 9-10 but this year, it's already a bit late. Good thing though is that I'm a 200 specialist. 10-11 strokes can bring me near 2:30 this summer (given I hold the rate). I wouldn't break any record over 50m with such a lousy stroke count but for a 200 it should work ok. - - - - 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 ;) Well, since I am not even sure if it's good or bad (duality exists between going up or going forward), it'd be hard to pin point the exact cause. Like I explain earlier to pwolf, there are a certain number of things that your body decides by himself to do to solve various issues. Since you're aware that your hips have a tendency to sink, I believe that sub consciously, this is one solution your body has found to achieve a better position. Thanks for the link to 0-arm butterfly. Who taught you this? - - - - Lindsay, it's been a while... glad to see you back with extremely sound and accurate advises. Thanks!

I'm interested in what led you to try the endurance fly approach versus the more conventional short intervals approach? Hi Lindsay, first thanks for the clip. It's an interesting one. I totally agree with you on the differences that can exist between an endurance based stroke mechanics and sprint based technique. To some extent, it is true for all strokes though. What led me to tackle on this approach? Few things: - I wanted to research on this avenue since very few actually do - I wanted to totally eliminate any fear of being thrown in a 200m event (*) - I wanted to accumulate as much mileage as possible at my specialty stroke - I really love this stroke. I often quit the pool after a ~2k workout without having swam a single length of free style (wup/mainset/cdown all at butterfly) (*) This goal is completely achieved. If I start a 200m too fast now, I slow down (just like with any other stroke) but my arms will recover over the surface without a single doubt. Therefore in the context of a swim squad training set, such as (I donno) 8x200 choice (or specialty) on 4min, I can book the whole set at butterfly. I would just go after the breaststrokers. In such a set, the best I could aim for would be 3:20-3:25 at the moment. So that places me after the breaststrokers. I must say that I'm not entirely satisfied with my performances over 50 so far. 31.7 is my best this year and this is still a full second slower than what I had expected. However, in training so far, I have accumulated maybe 20 50m sprints, no more than that. So I blame this relatively slow 50m on the inefficiency of my anaerobic metabolism (almost untrained). My first attempt at a 50m butterfly (shown on a previous clip) resulted in 31.8 with no previous sprint training whatsoever (I went from pure base endurance to this competition without modifying my schedule and without tapering). But like I said, I specialize over 200 and my goal for this year would be to bring it home in 2:45. I have enough pure speed to achieve this, so I'm not overly worried. As soon as I work toward bringing my 100m well under 1:10 (that 100clip was worth 1:14 in practice, no warmup whatsoever, dry dive so to speak), I expect my 50m to go under 30s which is my goal for this year. As for your comment about pulling patterns, I share your views 100% (agree on all counts). I am currently working very seriously to achieve pretty much the same hand/arm entry as Phelp's. I think that this guy really set what could be considered as the most perfect butterfly stroke actually available. Lots of power but yet, very little drag, almost no splash on entry, amazing!! I want no more outward scull. A wide entry with no dead spot whatsoever in the front.

I was just curious, do you swim 1 kilo in one go, without breaks? I could and I did a few times. But usually I prefer to split the distance into smaller chunks, mainly to break the boredom and also to improve comfort (after a while, I loose my bathing cap etc... it's good to have a short rest interval to put it back in place). Last summer, my only swim workout (I train as a triathlete) was 5x200 butterfly endurance pace. Looks hard, but it's not. The key is slowing down the butterfly execution so that more mileage can be done at full stroke. That clip was taken during one of these sessions last summer. It's very slowish but it gives you an idea YouTube- Base endurance Butterfly - Full stroke (Side View) These days I like to perform a whole bunch of 50m. Yesterday I did 24x50m and I want to grow this up to 60x50m butterfly on 1min cruising between 45-50s. This is my goal. I learnt it myself. As I remember, I started with kickboard held in front with stretched arms and kicking first and second kick. Then I removed kickboard. Great!!! Lastly, I moved arms next to the body. yack!! (way too slow I hate this one). I think that the breathing moment in this drill could easily go slightly wrong, shifted a little bit late, after the second kick. I agree 100%. I like to teach people to look at where they're going to breathe before breathing. It usually sufficient to sort the timing out. Do you maybe have underwater footage of yourself doing it? No not yet although I fancy buying one of these underwater cam. Do you think you bend in hips during second kick? Not sure I understand this question... Ah you mean doing this little cheat? I most likely do, especially when doing fast mileage. In fact, the reason why I don't try to eliminate it from the full stroke at this point is that I'm also doing it whilst kicking and well. 3min45 for 200 kick, I'm pleased with it. If it's not broken don't try to fix it! Thanks a lot solar once again. I really appreciate your advices. You're very good Predrag, very analytic. Back to the slow mileage, my main goal in approaching BF this way was to accumulate a lot of volume where I can focus on staying at the surface, where I have plenty of time thinking about all those body parts that need to work together in harmony etc.... Could be a good approach for you as well!!

Lindsay (if you're still reading) or anyone that knows about weights... It works my strategy. I'm entering wide now, and I bring the hands together. Feels good. I know the feeling I have to search for. And I sometimes feel it. However, now the tendons of my arm adductors are like. Wow. So sore. Well not sore but sensitive? I don't feel them then suddenly I make a move like grabbing a cup of coffee and I feel something. Not a big pain but. Strangely (cause I've never ever felt anything wrong in this area), it's a small muscle part of the frontal deltoid (sorry, you know what I mean) responsible for arm adduction that feels weirdish. Or it could also be the end of pectorals, where it ties to the arm. It's in this region. Near the armpit. As a prevention, I was thinking of doing just little bit of weights. It's a shift in my technique that brings some of muscles to be more active than before. What would you suggest? Flies I guess? Did another kilo tonight. Felt great no pain whatsoever. I get more pain writing you this text at my computer.

Hey Solar, Your approach of working on your fly through slowing it down and swimming longer distances caught my eye as it goes against the conventional wisdom of swimming small increments of faster fly. The conventional thinking is that your stroke changes when you slow it down, you mention swimming lower in the water for example. One of the things that usually changes is the pull pattern, when people slow down their stroke they usually either throw in a pause of the arms out front or use a more pronounced out-and-in scull at the front to get the same delay. The youtube Michael Phelps Butterfly 01 video is probably the best illustration I've seen of a wide entry with little to no outscull. I looked at your sculling in your various youtube videos but didn't come to any definite conclusions, it was interesting though that there seemed to be significant variation within your 100m fly video, it looked to me like you scull more as you tire. I was looking at this video recently: YouTube- Butterfly Stroke Comparison and I think there are some clues there on timing issues which you might find interesting. Notice the way the top swimmer's hips come to the surface, my theory is that this is achieved by timing. Compare your hip motion in the first 25 of your 100 versus the last 25 or versus your endurance stroke. The bottom swimmer illustrates an extreme out-and-in scull. I'm interested in what led you to try the endurance fly approach versus the more conventional short intervals approach?

Thanks a lot Lindsay for very detailed advise. 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. Actually couple of people in this thread (especially Solar) pointed at my upbeat as possible source of problem. 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. That's very well spotted. I tried yesterday and tonight to press with my thighs during recovery and it looks like my hips easily broke water surface after first kick, but I don't feel it natural yet. I need to make some underwater videos to see how it looks like. I will keep you posted. Best regards.

A short clip illustrating good butterfly kick form with the feet sliding forward while the thighs press down - instead of the feet pressing upward: YouTube- Crocker Leg Recovery

By very far, the best illustration indeed. Very careful on the leg recovery, very explosive on the leg wip kick. BTW Lyndsay, I did my first gym session yesterday prior a 1500 swim workout (mostly but not limited to butterfly). The result went over my expectations. No pain at all, during the swim session and after the swim session. And as a bonus, I lowered the 100m pull down under 1:10 on a 15 stroke per 25m diet. In other words, Weights definitely seem to work well for me. Lyndsay, thanks for having taken the time to detect this little bug about my hips surfacing on second kick. It's been discussed here in post #46 - - - 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. I believe that it is something my body is naturally doing. It origins from my no-arm butterfly drill. I'm still unsure yet if it's good or bad. One thing that I know is that any energy spent at surfacing (my bum) isn't spend moving forward. However, it may still has an indirect and favorable impact since it allows me to stay little more at the surface, I don't know. Not even sure if I'll have time this year to address this. Every flaw takes a long while to be solved and to tell you the truth, this arm entry without splashes is draining all my time available right now.

That was it, the shoulder niggle. 3 weights sessions so far and it all disappeared. I even increased the fly volume up to 1800m per sessions in the same time. Weights seem to have a favorable impact on strengthening the shoulder articulation as well as improving distance per stroke. Way to go!