Butterfly timing

My fly looks a lot like that of swimmer 2. Two drills have helped me with the timing issues: 1. "No kick" 25s. Swim a 25 concentrating on not kicking at all. The body naturally undulates anyway, and seeks its own more naturally correct timing. This also helps to cure the overkicking. Press the chest and keep the hips up. 2. "Full stop" drill. Float prone with arms overhead, then initiate one stroke by pressing down with the chest, kick, pull, and recover arms to overhead prone float position. Float, regroup, think, and take another stroke. Repeat for a length. I like to follow up with a length or 2 of whole stroke between 25s of drill. YMMV.

Damn Lyndsay, are we neighbors or what? Damn, this Alphonso, could it be the same Alphonso with whom I sometimes train? DAMN, the read head guy, is it Simon? You picked a fast one there (1:05 in Montreal's Cup 2009, with no preparation whatsoever). Too bad, you missed the best fly swimmer this team has seen so far. Pablo can beat Simon (hope Simon won't read this though, hell he's going to be mad) especially over 200. I think he already delivered a sub 2:30 performance over 200SCM in 2009 (age 45). Over 100, he's probably going to do 1:02, maybe even 1:01.something in April. Hey mate, let's schedule for a beer some day to solve all of our butterfly issues in one shot! -- edit -- I understand now. You're based in Moncton and was visiting our outdoor pool installations last year, where you could meet few members of ACC Masters since they train in this pool throughout the summer. Please, drop me an email next time you're scheduled for a trip here. In the mean time, will you be in Quebec City in April for Prov Championship?

Now that I'm less in shock(!), and to get the discussion going, for sure Alphonso is way too late on catch. This is probably due to the fact that this hands seek forward in front (dead spot). During this, the kicking cycles continues. Therefore he ends up giving a second kick that is too early. Both forces (pulling push and second kick) can not sum up. Very very bad timing indeed. Like most, Alphonso rarely practices longer distances in practice. And when he does some fly, it is often this strange fly where the swimmer leave the hand in the front, perform few kicks then a pull then arms in the front again (long dead spot) kicks some more than a pull etc. Simon, well Simon is a former varsity national level swimmer. He's worth 1:05 on both 100m BF and 100m IM. He can afford committing to this bad practice (this strange butterfly execution). The hundreds of thousands meters done at BF full stroke over his career (which began at a very early age) allows him to execute very decent butterfly even if he doesn't practice it on a regular basis.

I just was at a clinic by Dennis Baker and several participants had a similar problem to Alphonso's.He brings his hands too close together on the recovery,then he drops them too deep and brings them back up before the recovery.If his entry was shoulder wide and he kept his hands at the surface until beginning the pull his timing would be better.

I have seen many swimmers with similar strokes patterns, mostly swimmers who didn't swim in their youth and learned butterfly as adults. With the swimmers in my club that I have tried to work with there seem to be a couple obstacles to correcting it. One is that they want a glide/rest in their stroke, either because they aspire to swim longer events or complete tougher sets than their combination of fitness and technique allow them to complete without a rest/glide phase, or because they seem to serialize stroke components that should occur in parallel, i.e. "kick, kick, pull" instead of the pulls and kicks happening concurrently. I think Bill's no-kick 25s might be a good approach, or possibly just one kick, for the couple guys I've got that can't seem to get away from the two kicks before the catch timing. I'll try that with them. I also find that a lot of these swimmers do a big out and in scull at the front of the stroke, I imagine this has its origins in the "keyhole" pull pattern, but it gets exaggerated into almost tracing the outline of a capital T, i.e. straight out and straight back in and then back. Alfonso does this. Allen, having looked at Phelp's stroke I understand the idea of a wide entry with the chest descending and the hands remaining near the surface, but no one I know personally has the shoulder flexibility to do that, I certainly don't. I think you're right that Alfonso would benefit from eliminating the down and up and most of the out and in with his hands and just catch and pull. This changes the timing of the stroke so much that a lot of swimmers struggle with it and often end up rejecting this change as it feels all wrong to them compared to what they are used to. I'm still working on this myself. I will try Bill's full stop drill next time I'm in the pool, I can't entirely visualize it at the moment. Solar, yes that's the Alfonso and Simon from ACC, and yes I'm based out of Moncton but visit Montreal a few times a year. Simon has a 2:18.94 SCM 200 and a 1:01.50 SCM 100 so I figured he must be doing something right! I am sure he was loafing it in the video so that may have affected his stroke. Solar, if you were Alfonso's coach what approach would you take? Thanks for your suggestions Bill and Allen, more comments welcome!

I would agree with the need for a wider entry. The hands coming together puts a ton of strain on the shoulders and will cause problems in the long run. BTW you need less shoulder flexibility when your entry is farther apart... ;-) Also, in looking at the video it looks like your swimmer has no flexibility in his back (no backward bending). He is going to need more core/ab strength and shoulder flexibility to compensate. He is currently bending his knees to compensate They could try a cat/camel stretch to begin to increase flexibility.

I think the knees are too bent & too early . The timing should be more balanced.

Solar, if you were Alfonso's coach what approach would you take? Huge question really. My approach to butterfly is so different to that you'd normally find, it's hard to reconcile the two. But if I was indeed his coach, I'd modify his drilling/swimming strategy in a way that he'd gradually bring him to eliminate the dead spot in the front. That alone could allow him to finish the pulling on time so that it would synch with the second kick. First thing I'd do is that for all sets meant to be swam at your best stroke (Alphonso would probably love doing them at BF), I'd make sure that the conditions under which these sets are performed allow for butterflyers to try them at butterfly. I know it may sound obvious, but you'd be surprise at how fast BF specialists are asked to swim during these sets. Often, when I swim with these guys (which occurs once every 2 weeks roughly), I mention to the 5 other swimmers in my lane that I want to do the set at BF. Backstroke specialists often tell me: all right then, go first. Are you crazy? Let the breaststrokers go first, I'll go last. Well Charles, butterfly is a fast stroke isn't it? No it's not. If you want to maintain good form and finish the set, this stroke (at least for me) is even slower than *** stroke. Back to the days I was squad coaching, every swimmer would often have to change lanes depending on the set. In other words, you could be in lane 6 (the fastest) for warming up, but if you're a *** stroke specialist you would move to lane 4 for the main set. That sounds trivial I know but there again, taking me as an example, I can cruise in lane 6 during a free style set, especially using a pull buoy, but I absolutely need to downgrade to lane 4 in order to find send off intervals that suit >1000m set done at my specialty.

What I found was that if instead of working to lift the front end of the torso up I simply pressed downward with the hips instead I got from the downhill to an upward orientation, and that with that orientation even a relaxed pull easily brought me up enough to get a breath and recover my arms. I'm very glad that you found your way to easier breathing/recovery whilst eliminating the need to rely on your hands to support you whilst being at the front. For me, I like to use another very simple trick, and that is how I coach as well. I just teach to look at where you plan to breathe, prior breathing. So that qualifies me as a "head-leads-the-undulation" coach. I know I know. I read at numerous occasions that the head should remain still during the whole undulation, to me, that makes no sense. Even Phelps, who is often quoted as keeping his head still and fix whilst swimming BF does indeed moves the head up and down. So that's my trick. Look at where you plan to breathe, prior breathing. But I'll try to think about your trick tonight and see how good it feels. That's enough for now, I'm already going to feel real silly if I see video of this and it's all wrong! Colleague, if I can issue one little advise, if you are to take the slow butterfly route to improve stroke mechanics, give yourself plenty of time before achieving some nice Form (video feed back). 1 thing that you may notice is how difficult to get the hips to surface (during the first kick) when you're swimming slow. You may not like yourself very much but after time, something nice (although slightly different than if you were swimming power fly) should come out of this process.

But I'll try to think about your trick tonight and see how good it feels. I'm not optimistic that it's going to be helpful for an experienced flier who already has a good stroke, I'm more hopeful that it will help those of us who never had good mechanics and have fallen into the rut of a long pause out front. Tonight I'll see if the feeling that I could do it for longer distances has any reality. It occurs to me that one benefit of eliminating the pause out front is that it shortens the stroke cycle so you have less time between breaths. Perhaps that partially explains why I was not at all out of breath after a 25. At the MSO swim camp in January the coach had us basically looking where you will breath, he had a different description, which I can't remember, but I think it was the same idea. I think my literal mindedness and talent for missing the point kicked in and perhaps I was doing this too much with the neck and not enough as a lead for the body. Looking closely at the Phelps Butterfly 01 video there is a definite head/neck movement, although it doesn't really look as though he is tilting his head as though looking forward as much as extending his neck down and then lifting it up with minimal tilt. Hmm, sitting upright at my desk here and tilting my head back to look at the ceiling I can feel a stretch and my chest starting to be pulled back once my head gets tilted back to a certain point. If I move my head back without tilting it I can feel that engagement somewhat earlier. In any case, tonight I will experiment with moving my head as a way to lead the undulation instead of as an independent movement and see how that feels. It's great to have multiple ways to think about these things!