The Backstroke Lane

We used a drill to teach kids to hit the water, basically a backstroke windmill as fast as they could. Adding the pinkie first to this thought process really seems to work pretty well. Sounds like a drill for me to try, with the pinkie added. Thanks!

So why the difference with backstroke? The only thing I can think of is that stroke rates in backstroke are distinctly lower than in freestyle so maybe it is more natural or efficient to breathe twice/cycle? By breathing every stroke, I can take more SDK's off each wall in backstroke than I can in any other stroke. My current practice protocol is 11 SDK's off each wall and no more than 9 strokes per 25 yards. I seem to have hit some kind of personal limit because after many months of this same protocol, I've never gotten used to it - around the 125 mark of any backstroke swim, I feel like I've been punched hard in the chest. Doesn't stop me though :D

Hold on, I'm going to need a LOT more caffeine before I fully decipher that... :anim_coffee: Chris - Upper Upper quadrant (Above waist, above water) "finish recovery" Upper Lower quadrant (Above waist, below water) "catch" Lower Lower quadrant (below waist, below water) "bottom of pull" Lower Upper Quadrant (Below waist, above water) "start recovery" Essentially, in backstroke, the arms are opposite, and when fully extended at top and bottom of axis, they pull the chest cavity, expanding it in a natural inhale tendency. In freestyle, the arms are never at such extremes. The recovering arm is above the waist before the pulling arm has crossed below.

Have any of you tried "pinching" your shoulder blades together when swimming backstroke? Mike Bottom talks about doing it in the sprint freestyle stroke. I have found that if I "pinch" my shoulder blades together, my catch feels stronger. Do any of you swim with this feeling?

Wookie - Yep, I heard this quote too... but it doesn't seem to help my "catch" as much as putting the middle of my underwater pull in a deeper, stronger position along my center-line. It tends to wear me out a bit in anything beyond a 100 at the moment. (Or maybe I'm not "pinching" correctly!)

Wookie - Yep, I heard this quote too... but it doesn't seem to help my "catch" as much as putting the middle of my underwater pull in a deeper, stronger position along my center-line. It tends to wear me out a bit in anything beyond a 100 at the moment. (Or maybe I'm not "pinching" correctly!) Redbird, Thanks for the reply. I was always taught to "round" my back to have a smooth surface underwater. I have never understood the purpose or been able to achieve that rounding but I can feel the "pinching" Wook

Natalie Coughlin swims with a straighter, flatter pull than the male backstrokers referenced above. It seems to work for her.

Natalie Coughlin swims with a straighter, flatter pull than the male backstrokers referenced above. It seems to work for her. I was listening to an interview with David Marsh. He seemed to think that the trend among backstrokers was to move toward a straighter pull. He said younger/weaker swimmers should probably stay with a pull with more elbow bend though

So my question is, would backstrokers see an increase in power/speed if we established the EHF, but then tried to maintain the depth of the pull and dropped the "S"? I hope to experiment with this myself, but wondered if any of you fellow backstrokers have already done this work and figured out it was not going to work. Anyone care to respond? I had seen the same interview with David Marsh. And the more shallow horizontal pull works very well provided you've got the arm strength to throw water towards your feet from that position. Aaron Piersol is good example as well. And if you've ever watched him on the last 20 meters of a 100 back, he finishes quite strong with a very rapid turnover. YouTube - Swimming - Go Swim Backstroke with Aaron Peirsol

Bear with me... all the recent posting on freestyle EVF and "S-pulls" got me to pondering... I spent some time watching videos of Lochte, Phelps and Piersol doing backstroke (here's one of Phelps I hope works)... YouTube - Michael Phelps backstroke ... and made the following two observations: All three seem to establish an "early horizontal forearm" EHF which I see equivalent to EVF in freestyle, with a bent elbow relevant to the shoulder and hand, engaging a larger set of muscles. All three seem to use an "S" shape in the pull. The hand starts lower near the shoulder, moves higher through the thorax, and finishes deeper near/below the waist before recovery. (Most noticable with Phelps.) So my question is, would backstrokers see an increase in power/speed if we established the EHF, but then tried to maintain the depth of the pull and dropped the "S"? I hope to experiment with this myself, but wondered if any of you fellow backstrokers have already done this work and figured out it was not going to work. Anyone care to respond?