The Butterfly Lane

Not that you would ever seeing me doing a 200 fly again, but here are my two cents as a sprint flyer. You need to limit your undulation that you are doing --- no piking at your hips so much, so that there isn't a dive down with the hands. The hands of the best flyers (Sjostrom, Phelps, LeClos) are soft on entry and the last thing to enter the water. If you look at any still shots of Phelps or LeClos from head on, their hands are the last thing to enter the water, and they do so in a soft manner. The undulation (the chest press part) comes from the upper thorax, not by flexing the waist/hips. If you look at the slow motion of Sjostrom (vk.com/video-27087137_171526398, her neck and shoulders are always at the surface, but she has the flexibility to still press her chest down because of her upper thoracic mobility. It's not shoulder flexibility per se, it's more of this upper thoracic mobility. Your excursions --- how deep your feet go on the downkick, and the hands go down on the entry ---- is way too much. I guess one drill you could try (I just made this up) is to hold a kickboard sideways, so that your hands are grabbing it shoulder width (where they should enter on distance fly), face down, and work on the undulation pattern by alternating pressing your upper chest down (hands still on the board) as you downkick, then squeezing your glutes to thrust your hips down as you upkick. See if you can keep the excursions of your chest, hips, feet much more limited in depth instead of a deep sine wave. You could also work on your upper thoracic mobility (we all lose it --- a lot --- as we age) by visiting Dr. Google and searching for exercises to do it. Cobra pose helps, but we're really talking about spine flexibility from between the bottom of the shoulder blades to the top of them. Then I would go to a psychiatrist and find out why you voluntarily swim the 200 fly, and do so repeatedly. Good luck!

Not that you would ever seeing me doing a 200 fly again, but here are my two cents as a sprint flyer. You need to limit your undulation that you are doing --- no piking at your hips so much, so that there isn't a dive down with the hands. The hands of the best flyers (Sjostrom, Phelps, LeClos) are soft on entry and the last thing to enter the water. If you look at any still shots of Phelps or LeClos from head on, their hands are the last thing to enter the water, and they do so in a soft manner. The undulation (the chest press part) comes from the upper thorax, not by flexing the waist/hips. If you look at the slow motion of Sjostrom (vk.com/video-27087137_171526398, her neck and shoulders are always at the surface, but she has the flexibility to still press her chest down because of her upper thoracic mobility. It's not shoulder flexibility per se, it's more of this upper thoracic mobility. Your excursions --- how deep your feet go on the downkick, and the hands go down on the entry ---- is way too much. I guess one drill you could try (I just made this up) is to hold a kickboard sideways, so that your hands are grabbing it shoulder width (where they should enter on distance fly), face down, and work on the undulation pattern by alternating pressing your upper chest down (hands still on the board) as you downkick, then squeezing your glutes to thrust your hips down as you upkick. See if you can keep the excursions of your chest, hips, feet much more limited in depth instead of a deep sine wave. You could also work on your upper thoracic mobility (we all lose it --- a lot --- as we age) by visiting Dr. Google and searching for exercises to do it. Cobra pose helps, but we're really talking about spine flexibility from between the bottom of the shoulder blades to the top of them. Then I would go to a psychiatrist and find out why you voluntarily swim the 200 fly, and do so repeatedly. Good luck!