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Channeling my inner Janet Evans

debaru
I was cruising the Internet last night and somehow got on the subject of straight-arm recovery (SAR). You know, like Janet Evans and a few other prominent swimmers. The most recent being YouTube - Swimming - Go Swim Straight Arm Freestyle with Scott Tucker. From what I read, SAR may help to reduce shoulder strain in older swimmers (i.e., me) and those with less flexible shoulders, so I gave it a try this morning just for fun. I have to say, I like it better than high-elbow. I did several 25 sprints using both techniques and found I wasn't any slower using SAR, and I might actually be slightly faster. The thing I was really struck with is how effortless it felt to swim SAR as compared to high-elbow (for me anyway), and I also found my pull to be more complete. With high-elbow, I have a tendency to shorten my stroke a little bit and not follow-through completely. With SAR, this isn't the case for me. I was just curious as to how many others in Masters-land regularly swim using straight-arm recovery.
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  • I was just curious as to how many others in Masters-land regularly swim using straight-arm recovery. You can count me as one. My race pace free has always been SAR, but my low endurance pace (EN1) is with a high elbow catch. I was taught high elbow catch when I was a kid, but I think SAR comes naturally when I'm going faster. It's hard to remember how I was taught since I was 5 or 6 years old when I started. I've never had shoulder problems and it's worked for me for 20+ years, so I don't think there's anything wrong with it.
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  • I was just curious as to how many others in Masters-land regularly swim using straight-arm recovery. You can count me as one. My race pace free has always been SAR, but my low endurance pace (EN1) is with a high elbow catch. I was taught high elbow catch when I was a kid, but I think SAR comes naturally when I'm going faster. It's hard to remember how I was taught since I was 5 or 6 years old when I started. I've never had shoulder problems and it's worked for me for 20+ years, so I don't think there's anything wrong with it.
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