Myth #6: In order to reduce the air bubbles behind your hand underwater, you must enter the hand delicately.
Many beginner swimmers are taught to enter the hand into the water just in front of their head and slide it underwater forward as the elbow extends. Or some are told to slow the hand down before it enters the water, kind of like one of those new toilet seats with the spring shock absorber on it. The reasons, I can only assume, are to try to reduce the number of air bubbles one gets when the hand pulls through the water.
Having a lot of air bubbles behind the hand reduces the amount of propulsive drag one can generate as the hand moves backward in the propulsive phase of the pull. And, if you haven't already noticed, most of the great swimmers have little or no air and the not-so-great swimmers often have lots of air. Why?
Well, it doesn't have to do with laying the hand in slowly or sliding it out from the head forward, because none of the great swimmers do that. In fact, quite the opposite, they move the arms/hands aggressively and quickly forward through the recovery, hurrying to get them back into the water again.
So how do they manage to get rid of the air? Good question. My old coach, Doc Counsilman at Indiana U., used to evaluate swimming talent by how much air he saw on the hand underwater. Proprioception is what he thought made the difference. Great swimmers could sense where to find and hold water....that includes getting rid of the air.
Many swimmers enter with the thumb down and roll the hand (externally rotate the shoulder) to accomplish this. Others spread or move the fingers slightly. And of course the small amount of movement of the hand in the saggital plane as the hand goes through the underwater cycle also helps.
Bottom line, as much as I hate to say it, is that one is mostly born with this ability. Just don't try to get it by being delicate with your hand or slowing your stroke cycle, because that just leads to creating more problems than it helps.
Even great swimmers have some air bubbles. Just accept what you have and move on to the things you can control.
Gary Sr.
Former Member
The pressure in an air bubble is exactly the same as in the surrounding water.
Maglischo and others have written about being "patient" and not hurrying the catch. One perhaps unintended consequence of this is allowing sufficient time for bubbles to clear.
For what it's worth, I consider myself a mediocre swimmer but have been told I have very few bubbles around my hands. Come on Gull, you are far from being a mediocre.
Yes, one of the benefits of unloading the catch, one of Maglischo's big... huge thing in fact, is that it allows for some of the disturbance to go away before the Effective Pulling Range be reached.
All this can be read through the link that was posted by I don't remember who (I think it was QBrain) in the Thread where an OP wanted to have book recommendation for returning to swimming *sans coach*.
Angle of attack being the biggest thing, shortly followed by an unloaded catch, and change in pitch angle (like ocra mentioned). It's all good to get rid of bubbles, based on Maglischo's researches. Now don't shoot on the messenger.
I had words that Maglischo was now accessible for chat through forums. If Gary wants to challenge him on his numerous myths bustings, he could probably easily do so by registering to Swim Smooth Discussion forums.
The pressure in an air bubble is exactly the same as in the surrounding water.
Lindsay,
That may be true, but aerated water is much less dense than non-aerated water. This is the principle behind diving sparge systems that ensure divers won't be hurt if they land flat while trying something new. Without knowing the science, swimming certainly feels faster when your hands/forearms establish a solid purchase on dense water rather than pulling through bubbles.
Rich
I don't believe that the ability to clear water from your hands is some sort of mystical ability that you are born with or not. If your hands enter in the same way and follow the same path the effect on bubbles will be the same. It may take a swimmer with good proprioception to figure out how to do it but once that is done I don't see a scientific reason why that technique can't be imitated by others.
It is somewhat "un-American" to believe that hard work can't overcome or equal innate talent, so Gary's comment also struck a wrong cord with me.
And yet...
Anyone who has spent time with beginner and age-group swimmers knows what he is talking about. Call it natural "feel" for the water or whatever you want, there are certainly some people who have the knack.
I am less sure exactly what constitutes this innate feel. I certainly wouldn't have said "clearing bubbles," though maybe that's a part of it. I guess I would have said it is better than usual proprioception (nice word, Lindsay) coupled with paying more attention to subtle feedbacks between body & water that many people ignore.
Can someone without this knack overcome the lack? I don't know the answer to that. What Lindsay says seems reasonable and I would like to believe it ("hard work trumps talent!"). But I wonder if there are not just so many variables that someone without the gift will always fall a little behind. It is like the cook who always faithfully follows all the steps in a cookbook and prepares perfectly nice dishes, compared to the master chef who instinctively knows what will work (and often ignores the cookbook, or at least improvises on it).
I would argue that it is us sub-specimens who really have a feel for the water. You assume the ability to shed ones hands of air bubbles in a good thing. And it probably is, if speed is your goal.
But for those of us who want to avoid shoulder injury, maximizing hand bubblage--intentionally or innately--is our way of swimming through what is essentially the whip portion of Jell-O Whip 'n Chill.
Lindsay,
That may be true, but aerated water is much less dense than non-aerated water. This is the principle behind diving sparge systems that ensure divers won't be hurt if they land flat while trying something new. Without knowing the science, swimming certainly feels faster when your hands/forearms establish a solid purchase on dense water rather than pulling through bubbles.
Rich
You are entirely correct of course, I should avoid posting after midnight. :doh:
The viscosity of a mixture of air and water will be much less than that of only water.
Taking another tack, I don't believe that the ability to clear water from your hands is some sort of mystical ability that you are born with or not. If your hands enter in the same way and follow the same path the effect on bubbles will be the same. It may take a swimmer with good proprioception to figure out how to do it but once that is done I don't see a scientific reason why that technique can't be imitated by others.
It is somewhat "un-American" to believe that hard work can't overcome or equal innate talent, so Gary's comment also struck a wrong cord with me.
...
What Lindsay says seems reasonable and I would like to believe it ("hard work trumps talent!").
...
My point is not really about whether an untalented swimmer can compete with a more talented swimmer, I tend to believe that the talented swimmer who also works harder will win in the end. I suspect that one of the most important "talents" is tolerating heavy training.
My point is that talent isn't some mystical force that you can use to move bubbles, talent may allow you to learn how to clear bubbles faster, possibly without even consciously working on it, but in the end you have a physical hand interacting with a physical world and if a talented swimmer and a less talented swimmer execute the same movement the bubbles will act in a similar way.
Is the sweep to the outside to get rid of bubbles?
It certainly helps. Although, not to trigger a debate on sweeping, I want to clarify that I am not in favor or in disfavor of sweeping.
But yeah. the sweeping (voluntary or not) does help.
Nothing should be mystical to a coach. This is exactly what coaching is about. Understanding as opposed to mystifying. Bubbles issue under the palm is something that is addressed very early in a swimmer's development. It is something absolutely basic that certainly isn't worth being mystified.
Just read Swimming Faster, Even Faster, or Fastest to find sound explanations about this phenomenon, as well as several phenomenons covered by the Myth busted articles.
And yes. Hand entry certainly plays a huge role in creating more or less bubbles. It should not be retained obviously, but angle of attack of the hand/forearm upon hand entry will, based on Maglischo's 30 years of research, the level of bubbles a swimmer does upon entry.
Maglischo and others have written about being "patient" and not hurrying the catch. One perhaps unintended consequence of this is allowing sufficient time for bubbles to clear.
For what it's worth, I consider myself a mediocre swimmer but have been told I have very few bubbles around my hands.
