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.
Parents
Former Member
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.
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.
