Last summer I got some video of various swimmers at a club in Montreal and I put together some videos that compare two swimmers' butterfly timing:
Above water comparison:
YouTube- Butterfly Stroke Comparison
Below water comparison:
YouTube- Underwater Comparison Of Butterfly Strokes
Above and below of just the lower swimmer:
YouTube- Alfonso Split Screen Butterfly
I wrote some thoughts about the differences in timing here:
mymsc.ca/.../butterfly_stroke_timing
In addition to the timing there are some other issues like kicking from the knee, but I am interested in what approach people would suggest to help this swimmer improve his stroke, whether it be an approach to changing his timing or something else.
I've got a couple swimmers in my club that have similar timing issues and are having a hard time changing.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
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Former Member
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.
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.
