Myth #4: The reason you keep the elbows high on the underwater pull is to increase power.
I hear this often from both coaches and swimmers. When one looks at the underwater shots of the world's fastest swimmers, sprint or distance, one finds the recurring position of high underwater elbow, also called Early Vertical Forearm (EVF). The elbows are not just high, they are unusually high...almost in a contorted position with extreme extension (negative angle) of the shoulder joint, particularly when coupled with the body rotation in the opposite direction. it begs the question, can one really be stronger in this almost contorted position? I believe the answer is no. To test this, one can go in the gym and using the Free Motion pulleys, that many gyms now have, pull as much weight down with your arm relatively straight forward, then try it with your arm at the side, shoulder extended and elbow up. You will not be able to pull as much weight in that position. With the shoulder fully extended (negative angle), it is simply not in a good mechanical position of strength.
So if this weird high elbow position is not about power, what is it about? Drag. By changing the position of the arm as it moves through the pull cycle, one can reduce the drag coefficient significantly...not eliminate it. To prove this, kick with fins all out for 25 yards extending one arm above the head and the other straight down toward the bottom of the pool. You will soon learn how significant the drag of your protruding arm becomes when it is at right angles to your long axis. In fact, you will have to work to keep the arm in the position and with any speed at all, it will shake in the water like a palm tree in a hurricane in the Keys. Now try the same drill, but instead of putting your arm straight down, let it protrude straight out to the side but bend the arm 90 degrees at the elbow, as if you were swimming with a high elbow. You will feel considerably less drag in this position. Same arm...different position...a lot less drag.
Now I realize that this is not quite the same as while swimming, when only the upper part of the arm is moving forward throughout nearly the entire underwater part of the pull cycle (In order to cause frontal resistive drag, the object must be moving forward). However, the upper arm is also the largest part of the arm and changing it's orientation in the water also reduces the drag coefficient. Achieving an EVF is simply maintaining the upper arm in a position closest to the line of motion and thus creates the least frontal drag.
The good news is that most coaches are telling you the same thing, pull with your elbows high underwater. Now you know the real reason.
Gary Sr
Former Member
The objective in swimming is to get the water to push us forward, rather than move it backward.
Anyhow, I wonder if the chief value of EVF is not so much in either reducing drag or maximizing propulsion but rather in forcing you to put much more of your effort into horizontal propulsion with very little in the way of verticle vectors thrown in for no good reason other than to increase turnover maybe. It's hard to tell, probably because it's little bit of all that.
I am yet to see a good execution of this technique by someone on this site, that had seen a favorable impact on performances though. Last time I attempt it, who know it may have reduced drag, but damn I was far slower than usual, and saw my stroke count going up to 18 per 25m, which is very unusual for me.
So a lot of talking, not much demonstrating....
Grant Hackett has an incredibly good stroke to demonstrate this elbow approach:
YouTube- Grant Hackett Front Crawl Technique
If you look at sprinters, on the other hand, the underwater stroke looks more like the conventional kind most learned back in the day. Here is a good view on 2008 European champ in 50 lcm free:
YouTube- Bernard 50m free underwater 0.25 speed
To me, what this suggests is that cutting drag forces is much more important in distance freestyle, whereas maximizing propulsion is much more important in sprints.
That Hackett would be so elegant with the EVF and Bernard much less so furthermore indicates that the high elbow catch is better at cutting drag than increasing propulsion.
When I try the EVF approach in the pool, it almost feels like cheating. I think I am so used to pulling at least a little bit of each stroke cycle in a downwards vector that when I concentrate only on the horizontal vector (promoted by EVF), it feels almost too easy to be true.
I would like to use this more, but it takes time to change your stroke, and it also seems to take my aging body time to adjust to the change in forces on the stroke, too. If I were to suddenly go 100 percent of the time with Hackett like EVF, I have no doubt I would get new shoulder problems of a sort I have not experienced before.
Anyhow, I wonder if the chief value of EVF is not so much in either reducing drag or maximizing propulsion but rather in forcing you to put much more of your effort into horizontal propulsion with very little in the way of verticle vectors thrown in for no good reason other than to increase turnover maybe.
I believe that the position of greatest propulsive power is a deeper pull like Bernard (and also Bousquet) does, but the position of least drag is with the elbow extremely high. That may be one of the reasons that Bousquet and Bernard are usually hurting at the end of the 100. Cielo, Nystrand and others sprint with a high elbow and less drag. In distance events, the drag likely takes a much bigger toll and so is why nearly all use such high elbows, with Hackett's being the extreme. As is so true in nearly all aspects of swimming, finding the right position of the elbow is a compromise between power and drag, and hinges on shoulder extension flexibility...but in distance events, drag trumps power for sure.
Gary Sr.
Gary, how has your own freestyle evolved since your Olympic medal years? Did you used to swim with the high head position and the slight S-curve sculling kind of maneuver that seemed to be advocated back then?
What about your own elbow position then and now?
If you have made shifts, did you have any orthopedic twinges and/or shoulder problems getting used to the changes?
Knowing what you know now about optimal form (or at least as optimal as top swimming minds have been able to yet figure), how much faster do you think you could have been back in the day if you trained by today's standards?
Perhaps most importantly, to what extent would you have been able to humble your son in the 50?
Grant Hackett has an incredibly good stroke to demonstrate this elbow approach:
YouTube- Grant Hackett Front Crawl Technique
If you look at sprinters, on the other hand, the underwater stroke looks more like the conventional kind most learned back in the day. Here is a good view on 2008 European champ in 50 lcm free:
YouTube- Bernard 50m free underwater 0.25 speed
To me, what this suggests is that cutting drag forces is much more important in distance freestyle, whereas maximizing propulsion is much more important in sprints.
That Hackett would be so elegant with the EVF and Bernard much less so furthermore indicates that the high elbow catch is better at cutting drag than increasing propulsion.
When I try the EVF approach in the pool, it almost feels like cheating. I think I am so used to pulling at least a little bit of each stroke cycle in a downwards vector that when I concentrate only on the horizontal vector (promoted by EVF), it feels almost too easy to be true.
I would like to use this more, but it takes time to change your stroke, and it also seems to take my aging body time to adjust to the change in forces on the stroke, too. If I were to suddenly go 100 percent of the time with Hackett like EVF, I have no doubt I would get new shoulder problems of a sort I have not experienced before.
Anyhow, I wonder if the chief value of EVF is not so much in either reducing drag or maximizing propulsion but rather in forcing you to put much more of your effort into horizontal propulsion with very little in the way of verticle vectors thrown in for no good reason other than to increase turnover maybe.
I believe that the position of greatest propulsive power is a deeper pull like Bernard (and also Bousquet) does, but the position of least drag is with the elbow extremely high. That may be one of the reasons that Bousquet and Bernard are usually hurting at the end of the 100. Cielo, Nystrand and others sprint with a high elbow and less drag. In distance events, the drag likely takes a much bigger toll and so is why nearly all use such high elbows, with Hackett's being the extreme. As is so true in nearly all aspects of swimming, finding the right position of the elbow is a compromise between power and drag, and hinges on shoulder extension flexibility...but in distance events, drag trumps power for sure.
Gary Sr.
..but in distance events, drag trumps power for sure. Gary Sr.
Perhaps in a perfect artificial enviroment such as a pool, however, in the ocean where the current works against you, power is necessary as many now realize.
Gary, how has your own freestyle evolved since your Olympic medal years? Did you used to swim with the high head position and the slight S-curve sculling kind of maneuver that seemed to be advocated back then?
What about your own elbow position then and now?
If you have made shifts, did you have any orthopedic twinges and/or shoulder problems getting used to the changes?
Knowing what you know now about optimal form (or at least as optimal as top swimming minds have been able to yet figure), how much faster do you think you could have been back in the day if you trained by today's standards?
Perhaps most importantly, to what extent would you have been able to humble your son in the 50?
Jim,
I strive to keep learning. I recently watched an old super 8 movie taken of me from the 1969 Louisville Nationals (400 IM world record...we put it on our recent DVD...Fundamentals of Fast Swimming, just for a laugh) and I did nearly everything I tell my Race Club campers not to do. We were almost oblivious to drag issues back then.
Doc Counsilman was really the first to advocate the S-shaped pull underwater because he thought it was lift (Bernoulli's principal) that was most responsible for our speed, and the S pull would provide more lift. Today, we know that both lift and propulsive drag are responsible for our speed. Lift occurs in the early phase of the arm pull (as the arm/hand is moving forward or down) and with the kick and helps reduce drag significantly (think how much faster we are in a wetsuit or in salt water). While we only use one arm/hand at a time to create the propulsive drag force (ie hand moving backward), because we spend about half of our stroke cycle time in the front quadrant, we always have one hand lifting us at all times. Typically, depending on whether one is using a hip-driven, hold-in-front stroke, or a shoulder-driven, fast catch stroke, when one hand enters the water, the other is at the shoulder or in front of it. As the hand quickly transitions from lift (moving forward) to drag (moving backward) it moves around a circle so that there are vectors of lift and propulsive drag going on simultaneously.
My strokes have changed a lot in 40 years. I now swim with a much higher elbow than I ever did and lower my head much more. Fortunately, I have never had shoulder problems but also don't do much more than 2,500 meters per practice. The biggest challenge to getting and keeping the EVF position is having enough extension of the shoulder to get there (along with internal rotation) and then not letting the arm/hand follow your body rotation and slide underneath you. The amount of side to side movement underwater in the saggital plane is much less than it was years ago and should be no more than a 6 to 8 inches, in other words, pretty much straight back. I think some movement is needed to help maximize the propulsive drag, but I may be wrong on that.
I have been particularly intrigued with experimenting with the hybrid freestyle that Phelps, Lezak, Biedermann and many others are using whereby they use a hip driven technique on one side and a quick-catch shoulder driven technique on the other, resulting in a jerky appearing swim. It appears to combine the best of the two different techniques and is ideal for middle distance.
I am afraid that even if I had perfected my stroke, my slow-twitch muscles and 36 inch vs 39 inch arms would not have allowed me to ever have been successful competing against my son, except when he was 14 or younger. That is when I gave up on racing against him.
Regards,
Gary Sr.
Perhaps in a perfect artificial enviroment such as a pool, however, in the ocean where the current works against you, power is necessary as many now realize.
Power is necessary everywhere, but in an ocean swim, same as a pool, reducing drag is extremely important. I would opt for high elbows on any open water swim, even with some reduced power.
Gary
Power is necessary everywhere, but in an ocean swim, same as a pool, reducing drag is extremely important. I would opt for high elbows on any open water swim, even with some reduced power.Gary
No problem with that, as long as swimming parallel to current, but once the buoy turn is made and it's all uphill, many swimmers will start to mark time in place or come to all stops, no matter how streamline or picture perfect the stroke. No worries though, just give me the signal and I'll come fish you out into my kayak?:bump:
