The Butterfly Lane

To Steve, I have read about trying to swim downhill by getting the head and chest lower as I finish my kick. It gets the hips higher to reduce drag. And it supposedly sets up tension for a good beginning on your arm stroke. That might be somthing your could try. Your hips seem possibly low. It worked for me. I also noticed tension from my hands to my toes for just an instant to help me finish my kick strong by bending at the waist to get my chest down. It gave me a slight sensation of sliding downhill on my chest and preloads my arms for a strong start at the arm stroke. I mostly do 1,000 yards of fly, and not much sprinting of it, so my techniques likely vary from yours. Breathe a lot from the beginning before it is too late.

If you are spreading your fingers, then much of your pulling effort is wasted. Not necessarily, it depends on how much of a spread. www.empowher.com/.../olympics-faster-swimmers-paddle-duck

Whether a swimmer pulls deep or shallow is an individual preference. If your shoulders can handle the stress of a deeper pull, then the increased pressure per square inch of the deeper water I don't agree with this statement. Pressure per square inch of the deeper water isn't an issue. The shoulder will experience more stress with a deeper pull due to the length of the moment arm, not due to increased water pressure.

Hi Knelson, I agree that a straighter arm causes more shoulder stress. But try staniding up in the water sometime and moving your hand back and forth underwater at different depths. You will feel more resistance the deeper you go. This is because you are pushing against more water the deeper you go (i.e., more of your arm is pushing water) not because of increased water pressure. Otherwise you'd go slower swimming underwater the deeper you are and that's not the case.

Changing the pull so that the hands pull more towards the center seem better. It also changed my body position towards the better side of things. Yosemite, The spread fingers thing is a bad habit I developed to ease shoulder pressure during early phase of catch in free (back when I was doing it wrong). It transferred over to fly causing golfers elbow like symptoms, definately need to fix - thank you. Perhaps I'll drill butterfly with fists, that seems to help.

Knelson, If swimming underwater is faster, it is because there is even more resistance for each stroke to be more effective. If you swam in a vacuuum, you would not move. Just like dragsters run faster at lower elevations. I don't know that swimming underwater is faster. I have heard this. But I don't know of any proof. It may depend on the individual swimmer. Does water pressure go up as you get deeper,yes.Is this a significant issue at racing depths,no.You don't need to clear your ears to go 4 ft under the water,the pressure differential isn't that great.Kirk is right that increased lever arm is a much greater factor. Swimming underwater is faster than at the surface because you aren't generating waves.The actual hydrodynamic formulas are more complicated than I understand,but as a general rule of thumb resistance goes up as the square of velocity underwater and as the cube of velocity on the surface due to wave generation.This is why SDK can be so fast even though it doesn't generate nearly the force as full stroke does.This is easy to test,push off underwater,then push off on the surface,which went further.

Hi Knelson, I agree that a straighter arm causes more shoulder stress. But try staniding up in the water sometime and moving your hand back and forth underwater at different depths. You will feel more resistance the deeper you go. This is why the popular S arm stroke taught to me 40 years ago isn't necessarily the best.

Chris, Great article on the boundary layer around the fingers adding some resistance. I don't know if I can keep finger separation down to one-fifth to two-fifths of a finger to use the boundary layer though. Too much going on and too much to concentrate on the way it is. But it is good to know a little relaxation doesn't hurt. I notice the article also discusses a deeper pull that I mentioned to Knelson. Yes, I read Counsilman way back then about the S pull. I eventually gave up on it as I gained strength to stroke deeper. Finally, the article suggests trying to keep the body in air where there is less resistance. I don't doubt this would help, but who can levitate above the water? If one part is up, another is down. I think the better goal is to try to use the deep resistance for stroking and keep the body as straight as practical, primarily the hips up near the top of the water where there is less pressure per square inch to move through. Getting into air? Well, good luck at that, unless you are sprinting really fast I suppose. Michael Phelps has huge feet that flex far behind his ankles, a hugh wingspan with huge hands and sleeps in a hypobolic chamber with the equivalent air pressure of at 8,500 feet when training. His arms appear to be somewhat thinner than I would expect, but shoulder muscles are enornous. Overall, made for butterfly.

Knelson, If swimming underwater is faster, it is because there is even more resistance for each stroke to be more effective. If you swam in a vacuuum, you would not move. Just like dragsters run faster at lower elevations. I don't know that swimming underwater is faster. I have heard this. But I don't know of any proof. It may depend on the individual swimmer.

Interesting clip, Fernando Scherer's butterfly. I see his catch starts with a brief pause, however his pull ends before the hands get close Fernando Scherer - swimming test - butterfly (front view) - YouTube