So earlier at practice I experimented with flat feet coming off every wall. There was a very noticeable difference. I could surface with ease past the flags, without any DKs. In my first two years of swimming, I have used just the balls (and toes) of my feet in coming off the walls.
Flat feet (that is, both ball and heel) feels a little awkward right now, like any technique change, but I think I'm going to start adjusting to it for permanent use.
Thanks to Jim Thornton who suggested I make this a poll!
My response to this poll was incorrect. I paid closer attention this morning and it turns out that I pretty much always push off with the balls of the feet. Who knew? :dunno:
I voted balls, but I would guess that my heal gets within an inch of the wall.
I have strong calf muscles. I just tested a vertical jump to see how I would stand and it was the same way I picture that my feet come into the wall on a turn. heals lift slightly
I have no kick, not even off the walls when swimming free and I always manage to take my first stroke at the flags (5m).
I voted clueless because I am not sure how my feet push off. I will try to figure it out the next time I swim.
Mr. Couroboros, with whom I was chatting on Facebook last night, was curious about my borderline antipathy towards Michael Phelps--not as a swimmer, but as an interview subject.
Ironically, this very poll has caused me to re-evaluate this antipathy!
A quick backgrounding here:
A couple years ago, a magazine asked me to interview Michael Phelps for tips on swimming freestyle. They actually wanted me to swim with him at Michigan and ask him my questions while we were practicing together. That way, he could show me rather than just tell me the answers.
I called up various channels, got nowhere, then asked the magazine's celebrity wrangler to find out who his publicist and/or handler-agent was, and I tried going though this person to set up an interview.
The back and forth, and forth and back, went on forever.
Rommel, organizing his tank campaign in Northern Africa, most certainly had an easier time with logistics than I did trying to get through to Michael Phelps's people's people.
Nightmarish!
Meanwhile, the clock was ticking.
Arrangements were finally made to do a phone interview--actual swimming proved to be out of the question. A date and time were set up. The date and time were changed, and then the changed time was ignored.
And again, the whole change-and-ignore scenario, many more times.
Finally, after endless shilly-shallying and waiting around for nothing, I got a call. It was Mr. MP. He told me his practice was starting in 20 minutes, that he had to get his suit on and thus had to make the interview quick.
I asked my questions, hoping to extract something usable.
Nothing!
At one point, I asked him this:
"In the course of your freestyle stroke, do you exhale slowly throughout the arm cycles, or do you wait till shortly before taking the next breath and blow out all your air in a burst?"
His answer was that he didn't have any idea how he breathed. "Ask my coach," he said.
The interview was so frustrating, I can't begin to tell you!
As a writer, you develop a sense of when you get the goods from an interview, and when you don't. After months of exasperating arrangements to line up this hurried interview, where the subject made it clear he had no interest in participating, I got precisely bupkis in the way of usable material!
And the crowning touch of it all was that he didn't even know how he breathed in the water!
Some 10,000-15,000 meters a day for years, and he referred me to his coach to find out when and how he exhaled!
It occurred to me then that Michael Phelps is a Swimming Savant.
I know, I know: he's a busy fellow, too, all kinds of pressures and demands on his time, etc.
But I have interviewed other swimmers over the years, including Lenny Krayzelburg, who was one of the nicest and most generous interview subjects I have ever had in any field! en.wikipedia.org/.../Lenny_Krayzelburg
So anyhow, here I have been feeling slightly self-righteous and smug for years!
And then Mr. Couroboros asked me which part of my feet I push off the wall with, a motion I must have repeated thousands of times over the years, if not tens of thousands of times.
I had to answer:
"I have no idea. You will have to ask my coach!"
Mr. Phelps, please forgive me for slandering you in my mind!
While I have not put in as much pool time as Michael Phelps or Jim Thornton, I could have sworn that I pushed off with my flat feet, based on how my heel hurts sometimes.
Then I tried it at practice today, and I'm not even flexible to make contact with anything but the balls of my feet, with the exception of when I do a really, really slow backstroke turn.
Should I be worried about the mystery cause of my occasional heel pain now?
Former Member
Well I voted clueless, but in practice I tend to push of lightly with my heels and mainly with the balls against the tiled/concrete wall.
In competition off the slightly springy pads I slam those feet completely against them as hard as I can (at least I think I do)
I go with the flat feet as much as I can. For me I have ankle pain due to an old sprain, in the right ankle, which is also my stronger leg. The more of the foot I get on the wall, the harder a push I get and the less pain I have. It's an adjustment I've made since the sprain happened almost 3 years ago. If I get too far away and just push off with my toes, the pain can be bad.
Former Member
Wow, this forum's got a lotta balls.
Did I give you the goods in our interview, Jim? I hope so!
I did more experimenting today in practice, mostly with flat feet. Tomorrow, I will do a mix of both balls and flat, and compare. I think flat is better.
