I haven't heard it mentioned recently but I have heard people drawing a parallel between swimming and paddling a kayak. In the YouTube- Alexander Popov swimming technique the narrator talks about a rigid transfer through the back of forces from one hand to the other (starting at about the 30s mark). This seems to me to be similar to the way one paddles a kayak, which involves a similar rolling of the shoulders with the majority of force coming from core muscles rather than the shoulder muscles.
This explanation makes more sense to me than the explanation that some people give for how the roll generates power that involve potential energy in the elevated recovering arm. It also provides a more direct justification for the advantage of swimming with a roll than reducing drag forces.
When I'm swimming it feels to me like I am doing this and that the arm recovery is not just a way to get the arm from the back to the front. I find that timing the recovery so that I can do this makes a huge difference in the pulling arm, and in timing the roll so that the pulling arm bends for a shallower pull and in more of a straight back direction.
It also helps explain the advantage of front quadrant timing in that the timing of a "kayak" stroke is a front quadrant timing. I should note that the analogy doesn't hold entirely in that the recovering arm will move faster than the pulling arm, again leading to front quadrant timing.
Finally, it gives an explanation for the benefit of arm/shoulder extension at the front of the stroke that I find more satisfying than saying that you add an extra inch or two to the length of your pull.
I am curious as to whether other people have the same feel of a kayaking motion?
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You may be right about paddling a kayak being more about twisting, I have limited experience with kayaking and none of it is recent. Still, I don't think the motion is limited to twisting around the long axis, there is also a simultaneous shifting of one shoulder upwards and forward and the other arm backwards and down. Interesting that in kayaking you twist the torso rather than rotating the body, necessitated by the fact that you are sitting.
If you take out the rotation around the long axis you are left alternating shrugging one shoulder upward while dropping the other shoulder downward and then vice versa.
If you start with this alternating shrugging of the shoulders and then add in moving the shoulder forward as you raise it, and the other shoulder backward as you drop it you'll have the motion I'm thinking of. Or you can move each shoulder in a circle (with one shoulder at the top when the other is at the bottom).
All of the above is described for a person in a vertical position, for a horizontal swimming position up becomes forward, forward becomes downward, down becomes backward and backward becomes upward.
In swimming I think there is a point just after the catch where the shoulder of the pulling arm is low (due to rotation around the long axis) and extended forward, while the recovering arm is raised (due to rotation around the long axis) and . As the recovering arm moves forward there is a point where it feels like the whole torso is moving in unison. To me it feels like the recovering arm is helping draw the other shoulder and arm backward.
Hmmm. Let's try a simpler explanation: stand up with one arm raised in the catch position, the other arm just starting the recovery. As you raise the recovering arm in a recovery motion there is a point where if you lock your shoulders together the act of lifting the one arm will cause the other arm to come down.
Note that if you want to you can shrug the shoulder of the recovering arm up and down without causing the other arm to move just by keeping your back muscles relaxed. But if you tense your back muscles the pulling shoulder will drop as the recovering shoulder is raised.
I don't know how to better describe how you lock the shoulders together but it is mentioned in the Popov video so it isn't a figment of my imagination. Even doing a simple twisting of the upper torso there appears to be a set of muscles that can lock them relative to one another rather than simply moving them simultaneously.
It is also interesting that the lock seems to be stronger if the upper arm (when standing) is raised with the elbow rotated outwards and the shoulder extended far enough that you feel a stretch in the lats, and, interestingly it also seems to be stronger if the shoulders are rotated around the long axis so the pulling arm is lower (forward if you are standing) and the recovering arm is higher (backward if standing).
I see that Elaine has posted while I've been writing this, it's good to hear that a kayaker agrees with the analogy!
You may be right about paddling a kayak being more about twisting, I have limited experience with kayaking and none of it is recent. Still, I don't think the motion is limited to twisting around the long axis, there is also a simultaneous shifting of one shoulder upwards and forward and the other arm backwards and down. Interesting that in kayaking you twist the torso rather than rotating the body, necessitated by the fact that you are sitting.
If you take out the rotation around the long axis you are left alternating shrugging one shoulder upward while dropping the other shoulder downward and then vice versa.
If you start with this alternating shrugging of the shoulders and then add in moving the shoulder forward as you raise it, and the other shoulder backward as you drop it you'll have the motion I'm thinking of. Or you can move each shoulder in a circle (with one shoulder at the top when the other is at the bottom).
All of the above is described for a person in a vertical position, for a horizontal swimming position up becomes forward, forward becomes downward, down becomes backward and backward becomes upward.
In swimming I think there is a point just after the catch where the shoulder of the pulling arm is low (due to rotation around the long axis) and extended forward, while the recovering arm is raised (due to rotation around the long axis) and . As the recovering arm moves forward there is a point where it feels like the whole torso is moving in unison. To me it feels like the recovering arm is helping draw the other shoulder and arm backward.
Hmmm. Let's try a simpler explanation: stand up with one arm raised in the catch position, the other arm just starting the recovery. As you raise the recovering arm in a recovery motion there is a point where if you lock your shoulders together the act of lifting the one arm will cause the other arm to come down.
Note that if you want to you can shrug the shoulder of the recovering arm up and down without causing the other arm to move just by keeping your back muscles relaxed. But if you tense your back muscles the pulling shoulder will drop as the recovering shoulder is raised.
I don't know how to better describe how you lock the shoulders together but it is mentioned in the Popov video so it isn't a figment of my imagination. Even doing a simple twisting of the upper torso there appears to be a set of muscles that can lock them relative to one another rather than simply moving them simultaneously.
It is also interesting that the lock seems to be stronger if the upper arm (when standing) is raised with the elbow rotated outwards and the shoulder extended far enough that you feel a stretch in the lats, and, interestingly it also seems to be stronger if the shoulders are rotated around the long axis so the pulling arm is lower (forward if you are standing) and the recovering arm is higher (backward if standing).
I see that Elaine has posted while I've been writing this, it's good to hear that a kayaker agrees with the analogy!
