Swim Myth #8....Busted!

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Former Member — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:49:39 GMT

Can anyone name the last Olympic gold medalist in the men's 100 fly who did not breath every stroke? (I can't, but I'm guessing it was more than four Olympics ago). .. Denis Pankratove-1996 Atlanta Olympics.

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Former Member — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:30:08 GMT

In support of off-topicness regarding breathing/fly/efficiency. As beginner testimony I'm an extreme example: able to push 25M of fly below 16 sec yet cannot complete an entire 50M (I can do just 2 meters shy of a 50). I blame this on not knowing how to breath with fly yet. I do 25 without a breath, but if I do breath it's like slamming on the brakes. To bring this on topic, is there any drill I can do to assist efficient fly breathing? I would like to swim the fly someday in a race. No-arm-fly is like aspirin. It's a cure for several issues, breathing is definitely on the list. Here's my fast execution of this drill: Butterfly Kick - NAD (No Arm Drill) Fast - YouTube It's fly, without the arm action. All other elements remain the same. It teaches you when to breathe (in relation to your kick timing), how to breathe (ref: up-and-down head movement) and for how long you should breathe when you do (ie, the blink of the eye, breathing at fly must be done very rapidly, if you don't want to loose speed in doing so). More importantly, it teaches you to use 0% of your arm pull to breathe. At the moment, if a portion of your arm pull is used to lift yourself to breathe, that may explain why you endup being slower during this phase. Breathing can be done without the arms, as clearly demonstrated by this drill. Finally, this drill can be done with speed in mind. It's a fast drill. On the clip above, I think I'm swimming 41sec for a 50m, but I wasn't in a great shape then. I can certainly go down under 40 with more training. Benefits on full stroke swimming are immediate!

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Former Member — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:24:37 GMT

Can anyone name the last Olympic gold medalist in the men's 100 fly who did not breath every stroke? (I can't, but I'm guessing it was more than four Olympics ago). If your stoke isn't efficient enough to breath a lot, then it might make sense to work a bit on stroke technique and core strength (and that might help address other underlying problems at the same time). My vote: air is good ... In total agreement here, especially for fly (which ain't the main topic of this thread though)

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Former Member — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:01:23 GMT

I guess it's a question of how much trade off there is between any inefficency caused by breathing and the benefits of getting oxygen in. If your stroke efficiency is not adversely affected by breathing more often it makes perfect sense to do it. If Sun Yang can break the world record breathing off his turns, and doing the odd bit of one stroke per breath, it can't be all bad! Additionally, if you are desperate to breathe when you do so, you may be more likely to create an inefficiency as you gulp in as much as possible. However, not many of us are that effecient when we breath, so it's a case of working it out on an individual basis. I'm happy with 2-3 in training but will take the odd extra breath. On fly, though, I know that I'm inefficient when I breath, so am trying to do at least 2 strokes per breath as often as possible so that I can do at least that in a race. I'm not going to improve my flexibility enough at this stage to improve any other way!

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

__steve__ — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 10:51:21 GMT

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

james lucas — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 10:20:11 GMT

I guess it's a question of how much trade off there is between any inefficency caused by breathing and the benefits of getting oxygen in ... If your stroke efficiency is not adversely affected by breathing more often it makes perfect sense to do it ... On fly, though, I know that I'm inefficient when I breath, so am trying to do at least 2 strokes per breath ... Can anyone name the last Olympic gold medalist in the men's 100 fly who did not breath every stroke? (I can't, but I'm guessing it was more than four Olympics ago). If your stoke isn't efficient enough to breath a lot, then it might make sense to work a bit on stroke technique and core strength (and that might help address other underlying problems at the same time). My vote: air is good ...

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Former Member — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 09:50:00 GMT

Thanks Allen! Much appreciated. I plan to read that thread carefully, will let you know how I do with the drills. In regards to breathing and butterfly... I got this interesting passage from the ASCA World Clinic notes compiled by Scottish Swimming. It's from Bob Bowman's speech. Michael breaths every stroke on b/f because he finds this most comfortable and it is the most efficient way in which he can do butterfly. This is due to his long torso and that he cannot get a 90 degree knee bend for his downward kick (most effective angle) if he breaths every 2nd or 3rd stroke. Beware justifying doing something like breathing off the walls or breathing every stroke in butterfly... The reason why people are usually told to hold their breath in/out of the walls is because many people slow down significantly when they breath. They take their head out of the body line, whether that entails lifting the head , over rotating (whole face vs half face out of water), etc... and then they lose the momentum the had from the underwater pushoff. Breathing right before the turn tends to lead to flipping too close to the wall, so you pushoff at a lousy angle. Sun Yang can breath right out of his turns partly because it's a long race, he needs all the oxygen he can get because the slight momentum trade (he's losing a lot less momentum that the average swimmer when he turns his head) is better than building up that extra lactic acid/ rushing those first 2 arms just to get a breath. And Michael Phelps (at least according to Bowman) has a biomechanical reason to breath every stroke. (the above is mostly based on personal experience, particularly discussions with my coach. Please feel free to ask for clarification/disagree.) On that note, I am having trouble understanding the concept of not breathing in breaststroke races, as advocated by fellow breaststroker Wayne McCauley (breastroker) on these forums... I'm familiar with his website but not with these forums, so I guess I"ll have to do some poking around to see if he's answered this already... if anyone knows where he (or anyone) went over this already I would be most appreciative if you could share the link here. But basically every time I do a breaststroke insweep my torso rises out of the water anyways, which has my head attached to the end of it... and this angle is always steeper than what the body would look like midway through a butterfly pull. So how is that a person could have their head come out of the water and not breath during a breaststroke arm cycle? It might be helpful to find a video of someone swimming a lap of fast breaststroke who isn't breathing. (I am asking this question as a person who has gone 29 seconds in the 50 yd breaststroke for 2 years straight and I'm trying every trick possible to get down to 28 or 27.) Anyways, hope I didn't get too off topic/break forum rules. Thanks in advance for anything you guys find. (because only the mediocre are always at their best- jean giraudoux)

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

That Guy — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 09:44:16 GMT

Hey, I was away when you posted this and just saw it now. It's interesting to me because I've made a very similar discovery about my swimming. In attempt to get more comfortable under water coming off turns, as part my wu, (typically 1000 yds these days) I started taking more strokes off every wall before breathing. (In free of course, not ***, that would be practicing to DQ.) First I incresed from 2 to 3 strokes, and later to 4 strokes. Then something interesting happened: My SPL went up! I was just stroking quicker to get to the breath. I realized that is stupid, so I dropped it back down. Very recently I found out something even more interesting. If I breathe on strokes 3,6,9,12,15,18, I take 19 SPL, but if I breathe on strokes 2,5,8,11,14,17, I take only 18 SPL, and I am just as fast if not faster with no increse in effort. That's the same number of breaths per length, so presumably I have the same oxygen availability, but my stroke count drops. Based on this data I agree that hypoxic work is only valuable as long as you don't deterioriate your stroke to accomplish it. :applaud: I breathe every 2 strokes in freestyle. I typically breathe right off the turn, and sometimes I take an extra breath before a turn if my last stroke is to my weak side. I remember all the time that my coaches spent preaching against this back around 1982, but I can't recall any actual reason that this makes a swimmer slower. The only time I'll consciously restrict my breathing is when I'm swimming a 50 and/or taking the last few strokes before a finish.

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

That Guy — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 05:06:16 GMT

Anyways, hope I didn't get This is my favorite sig ever. :applaud:

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Allen Stark — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 03:33:56 GMT

Would you be willing to share this list? The only drills that my various coaches have offered consistently are 2 kick 1 pull (which doesn't really have a focus point, it's just slow breaststroke) and breaststroke with a body dolphin instead of whip kick. I have written them on the Breaststroke Lane thread.Peter McCoy was kind enough to compile them as a list forums.usms.org/showthread.php post # 405.If you need a better description let me know.

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

__steve__ — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 01:56:12 GMT

No-arm-fly is like aspirin.Thanks for the morphine SolarE, I'll do the NAD kick drill next time in the pool. Before, I was doing a similar drill but with the arms/hands dragging at the sides. It forced me to look fwd too much and I developed a wrong fly breath. With arms fwd it mimics position more. this will definitely be worth a shot

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Former Member — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 09:49:09 GMT

I have quite recently found hypoxic drills useful - they make me mindful of unnecessary energy expenditure - whether because I need to relax everything that doesn't need to be engaged (relaxed arm recovery, for example), or find a better streamline body position (trying to find path of least resistance). I feel things like head position making a big difference in hypoxic. (and yes, if my stroke starts to degrade, then I consider it a failure/I'm not ready, and go to a lower stoke number). Exactly right. Hypoxic work should be done relaxed. I read a paper (can't recall where) that studied the effect of hypoxic work on masters swimmers. Essentially, you can improve your ability to hold your breath, but as we get older we will lose this capacity and no matter how hard we try we will not reverse the process. Don't force it.

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Former Member — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 09:44:06 GMT

High elbows on recovery? I naturally swing my arms wide (butterflyer), but this tends to cause my hips to swing a bit too. I do fingertip drill, but revert back to more straight arm recovery when I am tired on a hard set. Suggestions? Continue a habit I've had for years or a different drill? Gary's point: If a particular drill corrects a defect in your technique, do it.

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Former Member — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 07:49:08 GMT

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

orca1946 — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 04:52:06 GMT

I do better at 65 now in distance events where going deep into oxygen debt does not pat off.

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Karl_S — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 01:10:18 GMT

2. When you get to the longer 7 and 9 breathing schemes, you'll naturally shorten your strokes and quicken your turnover to get your next breath sooner. This is a negative, not a positive. 3. I typically take 11-15 strokes per 25 yards in freestyle. So on the 7 and 9 lengths, I should take only one or two breaths. Why does it matter when I take them? 4. If you want to restrict your breathing in a way that will have a positive effect, do it on every pushoff and take as many dolphin kicks as you can. Hey, I was away when you posted this and just saw it now. It's interesting to me because I've made a very similar discovery about my swimming. In attempt to get more comfortable under water coming off turns, as part my wu, (typically 1000 yds these days) I started taking more strokes off every wall before breathing. (In free of course, not ***, that would be practicing to DQ.) First I incresed from 2 to 3 strokes, and later to 4 strokes. Then something interesting happened: My SPL went up! I was just stroking quicker to get to the breath. I realized that is stupid, so I dropped it back down. Very recently I found out something even more interesting. If I breathe on strokes 3,6,9,12,15,18, I take 19 SPL, but if I breathe on strokes 2,5,8,11,14,17, I take only 18 SPL, and I am just as fast if not faster with no increse in effort. That's the same number of breaths per length, so presumably I have the same oxygen availability, but my stroke count drops. Based on this data I agree that hypoxic work is only valuable as long as you don't deterioriate your stroke to accomplish it.

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Former Member — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 12:27:32 GMT

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Former Member — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 13:38:01 GMT

High elbows on recovery? I tend to agree here. I would add though that finger trailing will help you shaping your high elbow recovery whilst helping you to achieve the right angles of body rotation during the process. Suggestions? Continue a habit I've had for years or a different drill? That really depends on your body type, size of your arms etc... Some swimmers perform exceptionally well with a straight arms/swinging sort of stroke. www.swimtypes.com/swinger.html A fair example here YouTube- Richard Quick introduces Freestyle Nowadays, more and more swim specialists recognize that different body types call for entirely different stroke techniques. Trying to go against your nature might end up making you loose a lot of time.

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Former Member — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 05:43:29 GMT

Myth #8: All swimming drills are good for you. Or what does sliding your finger tips across the surface of the water (finger tip drill) teach you that helps you swim faster? Gary Sr. The Race Club High elbows on recovery? I naturally swing my arms wide (butterflyer), but this tends to cause my hips to swing a bit too. I do fingertip drill, but revert back to more straight arm recovery when I am tired on a hard set. Suggestions? Continue a habit I've had for years or a different drill?

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Former Member — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:37:29 GMT

First, there is no 4 beat kick. You either have 6 beat or 2 beat. Rarely, one will see a swimmer use a 6 beat for one cycle followed by a 2 beat for another....which technically averages out to a 4 beat kick. It's rather 6beat for half a cycle (while breathing usually) followed by two beat for the other half. So it ain't an avg over 2 complete cycles, it's really 4 actual beats, 3 (half of 6) + 1 (half of 2). And I find it rather common, especially among male swimmers. Perhaps one of the most notorious would be Hackett. In fact, if you key in Hackett as a key word in youtube, your first hit should be this one: YouTube- Grant Hackett Front Crawl Technique And it shows Hackett switching between 6beat and 4beat. Very clearly in fact. I believe he uses some 4beats here and there to lower energy expenditure.

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Former Member — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 14:49:00 GMT

Maglischo describes the four beat kick in Swimming Fastest. I had an old school two beat kick until about six or seven years ago when I converted to a four beat kick (which required less effort than a six beat kick). At the time I was faster with a pull bouy than I was swimming without one, so I reasoned that I needed to kick more to achieve better balance and body position.

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Rich B. — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 10:01:28 GMT

Guy, I'm with you on the pull buoy, and I'm curious about why 3-5-7-9 hypoxic drills are bad.

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

That Guy — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 09:54:38 GMT

That Guy: thanks for answering. 1.-3. So true. I completely agree. 7 and 9 especially are havoc on stroke technique. 4. That is a great idea. Thanks! Notice that #4 is also one of the main reasons to never, ever, EVER use a pull buoy. Every pushoff you do with a pull buoy is a wasted opportunity.

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Rich B. — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 07:44:42 GMT

1. Bilateral breathing does not make you faster. How many elites do you see bilateral breathing? Some do, but most do not. 2. When you get to the longer 7 and 9 breathing schemes, you'll naturally shorten your strokes and quicken your turnover to get your next breath sooner. This is a negative, not a positive. 3. I typically take 11-15 strokes per 25 yards in freestyle. So on the 7 and 9 lengths, I should take only one or two breaths. Why does it matter when I take them? 4. If you want to restrict your breathing in a way that will have a positive effect, do it on every pushoff and take as many dolphin kicks as you can. In practice, I normally start backstroke swims by dolphin kicking well beyond the 15 meter limit. I sometimes do this in fly and free swims as well. The idea is to make the 12 dolphin kicks that I can do in competition feel easy. That Guy: thanks for answering. 1.-3. So true. I completely agree. 7 and 9 especially are havoc on stroke technique. 4. That is a great idea.

RE: Swim Myth #8....Busted!

Former Member — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 05:13:06 GMT

1. Bilateral breathing does not make you faster. How many elites do you see bilateral breathing? Some do, but most do not. 2. When you get to the longer 7 and 9 breathing schemes, you'll naturally shorten your strokes and quicken your turnover to get your next breath sooner. This is a negative, not a positive. 3. I typically take 11-15 strokes per 25 yards in freestyle. So on the 7 and 9 lengths, I should take only one or two breaths. Why does it matter when I take them? 4. If you want to restrict your breathing in a way that will have a positive effect, do it on every pushoff and take as many dolphin kicks as you can. In practice, I normally start backstroke swims by dolphin kicking well beyond the 15 meter limit. I sometimes do this in fly and free swims as well. The idea is to make the 12 dolphin kicks that I can do in competition feel easy. Thank you That Guy, that was very well put. I love #4 and would like to add that a real breath control set would be executing your race breathing pattern on a high rest set.