The Butterfly Lane

Does water pressure go up as you get deeper,yes.Is this a significant issue at racing depths,no. I think there's a misconception here. The water pressure has no bearing whatsoever. I don't care how deep you swim. Maybe part of the misunderstanding is thinking about air rather than water. We know an airplane can fly faster at high altitude because the air is "thinner." By thinner what is actually meant is the air is less dense. Water, on the other hand, is (effectively) incompressible. So, yes, when you go deep the water is exerting more pressure on your body, but density is the property that matters. Since the density is constant you won't need to apply more force to move forward at increasing depth. Consider a submarine. Its operating depth limit is solely dictated by the strength of its hull. At some point the water pressure will crush the hull, however the sub will be able to travel just as fast at its max depth. In fact a sub is more efficient below a certain depth becuause the increased pressure means there will no longer be any cavitation on the prop.

I think there's a misconception here. The water pressure has no bearing whatsoever. I don't care how deep you swim. Maybe part of the misunderstanding is thinking about air rather than water. We know an airplane can fly faster at high altitude because the air is "thinner." By thinner what is actually meant is the air is less dense. Water, on the other hand, is (effectively) incompressible. So, yes, when you go deep the water is exerting more pressure on your body, but density is the property that matters. Since the density is constant you won't need to apply more force to move forward at increasing depth. Consider a submarine. Its operating depth limit is solely dictated by the strength of its hull. At some point the water pressure will crush the hull, however the sub will be able to travel just as fast at its max depth. In fact a sub is more efficient below a certain depth becuause the increased pressure means there will no longer be any cavitation on the prop. Well said!

Elaine, Your fly looks fine. Just needs some practice. Bottom line: you're improving in a hurry. Be happy. Wow, an e-mail and a post! :D Thanks, Woofus! As you may know by now, I responded to your e-mail. But, just a shout out here, though, to say again how much I appreciated the time you took to watch the videos and respond. Your advice, as always, is greatly respected and appreciated. :chug: As for your assessment (above), :ohyeah: :groovy::wiggle: :bliss:, yeah, I guess you can say I'm "happy"! :D I can't wait to get back to the pool and practice! :bolt:

Elaine, Your fly looks fine. Just needs some practice. A couple of thoughts. Off the wall, try to really streamline in an arrow, needle, missile shape. When you feel yourself slowing down, take one big undulation/kick, then a second undulation/kick as you make your first pull, and the third undulation/kick as your arms finish their first recovery. Those three undulation/kicks and one armpull and recovery should combine to get you way past the flags with lots of momentum. Try to imagine that first arm recovery like a sea monster surfacing. The first glide after recovery can be a little longer as you enjoy the triple-kick momentum. If you watch your armpulls on the videos, notice that they slip side-to-side as they attempt to pull. Try to get a big stretch-catch and hold the water as your arms and hands deposit it behind you at your thighs. Stretching slightly upward as you reach to pull will cause you to elongate the front of your body. Accentuate that stretched feeling across your stomach and hip bones. Your cross-slap as your arms enter is creating a lot of turbulence you then need to swim through. Either lay them gently into position, or if you're looking for a glide, have them knife quietly in thumbs-first at a 45 degree angle, and hold that position for a moment. Undulate all you want. "Hips go up as the hands go in" is still good gospel. In order to try to make each stroke more powerful and longer, keep starving your stroke count in practice. Your video showed 11 strokes. Try to pare that number down while feeling more and more powerful and slippery with each stroke. When you race you'll just ignore the count and flap your wings as best you can, but in practice starve the count. As you do consecutive lengths, insist that you maintain your count. Added strokes means your efficiency is waning. The air inevitably comes out of everyone's balloon doing fly, but try to resist that tendency by holding your count constant. Dana Vollmer's fly mantra is "Strong, light, fast." Bottom line: you're improving in a hurry. Be happy.

Elaine, Here is 100 meter race with Phelps in Bejing in 2008. Michael Phelps - 100m Butterfly final - Beijing 2008 - YouTube Perhaps it indicates a faster arm rotation that would help you, regardless of concerns about crashing your arms in. I can only offer that my 1,000 yard fly, like yours, includes a necessary glide for recovery. It might be as long as a full second. But the few times I sprint a 25, I kind of follow the windmill style of some butterfliers. That is, no more soft hands. No gliding. The faster hands at the entry can provide momentum to pull deep and hard. I have to use a lot of energy to double dolphin kick in a sprint of 25 or 50 for the amount of propulsion I get out of my kick. My kicks are shallower and therefore faster, but do not propel me as much as my single kick in the 1,000. The shorter the distance, the less I rely on my kick. I get a lot more bang out of my arm stroke in a sprint for the amount of energy used than I do out of my kick. If I sprint 100, the stroke is a lot less of a windmill. It seems to me that the style is extremely dependent on the distance. A 25 is different than a 50 and a 50 is different than a 100. I breathe every other stroke on a 25, but rarely can I continue this all the way to the end of 50. On a 100, I would more likely breathe a lot from the very beginning before it is too late. The main reason I say this is only from my experience the last few years in trying to find what works for me at different distances. I am no great swimmer. Isn't butterfly intriguing? An analogy is how a whip kick is better for sprinting *** stroke because it is a faster kick, but a frog kick might be more efficient for long distances. The faster whip kick allows for faster, harder arm strokes in a *** stroke sprint. Our approach to butterfly sounds quite similar; we seem to have made the same discoveries, depending on the distance. The faster I attempt to go, my arms are more like a windmill, like you describe. And, I, too, breathe every other stroke on a 25 or 50. But, like you, I may not make it through the 50 without breathing every stroke at the very end. And, like you, my kick isn't strong. I have to breathe every stroke to survive anything longer than a 50. Thanks to Ande's advice, once I started doing that, I could just keep on going, and going, and... I felt like the Energizer Bunny! :bliss: Yes, butterfly is intriguing, because the stroke really changes, depending on the distance. Discovering what speed I can maintain over distance has been a lot of trial and error. But, I love the challenge. :agree: Thanks for your feedback, Yosemite! And, thanks for the video link, too. Cheers! :chug:

Hey flyers, this frog is trying to jump out of the lily pond and morph into a buttefly- at least some of the time. I have the endurance fly thing down; it may not be pretty, but my last attempt at continuous fly was 2,000 yards. But, it was slowwww. I would like to improve my fly technique for race pace fly, for faster speed on my 50 and 100. My current 25 from a push off is :20 and my best 50 fly race was :39. One of my flaws, I know, is not getting my hands close enough together on the pull. When I do, it is more stressful and exhausting on my shoulders, due to my TOS (thoracic outlet syndrome) problem. (Don’t even get me started; it’s on another thread…) Another flaw is diving down with my arms, rather than landing them softly forward. I just don’t know how to correct it. Any advice, suggestions, or constructive criticism is appreciated! :D Here are some videos: Topside: http://youtu.be/b-mSQw8-OCo Underwater side view: http://youtu.be/TMFmU_RS9hE Underwater front view: http://youtu.be/vYanZqTrpho (Note: the noise you hear at the end is me laughing, because I completely drenched my husband who was bent down with the camera.:D :bolt:) If anybody out there would like to play armchair "coach", feel free to check out my other stroke videos and have at it: www.youtube.com/playlist All I ask is you provide constructive criticism and don't :lmao:!

Hey flyers, this frog is trying to jump out of the lily pond and morph into a buttefly- at least some of the time. I have the endurance fly thing down; it may not be pretty, but my last attempt at continuous fly was 2,000 yards. But, it was slowwww. I would like to improve my fly technique for race pace fly, for faster speed on my 50 and 100. My current 25 from a push off is :20 and my best 50 fly race was :39. One of my flaws, I know, is not getting my hands close enough together on the pull. When I do, it is more stressful and exhausting on my shoulders, due to my TOS (thoracic outlet syndrome) problem. (Don’t even get me started; it’s on another thread…) Another flaw is diving down with my arms, rather than landing them softly forward. I just don’t know how to correct it. Any advice, suggestions, or constructive criticism is appreciated! :D Here are some videos: Topside: http://youtu.be/b-mSQw8-OCo Underwater side view: http://youtu.be/TMFmU_RS9hE Underwater front view: http://youtu.be/vYanZqTrpho (Note: the noise you hear at the end is me laughing, because I completely drenched my husband who was bent down with the camera.:D :bolt:) If anybody out there would like to play armchair "coach", feel free to check out my other stroke videos and have at it: www.youtube.com/playlist All I ask is you provide constructive criticism and don't :lmao:! I don't think that the amount of undulation that you're doing is a bad thing. Some sprint flyers undulate and some don't. Milorad Cavic, 50 m Zlatna Medalja ,Rim 2009. - YouTube 50 LCM Butterfly - World Record - YouTube Can you increase your stroke rate?

I don't think that the amount of undulation that you're doing is a bad thing. Some sprint flyers undulate and some don't. Milorad Cavic, 50 m Zlatna Medalja ,Rim 2009. - YouTube 50 LCM Butterfly - World Record - YouTube Can you increase your stroke rate? I'm going to have to, if I want to go faster!:bolt:I do find that when I increase my stroke rate, my hands fly out to high in the back, causing me to crash my arms down more in the front, before the next pull. So, I need to figure out how to still keep my arms low to the water as my stroke rate increases. Thanks, That Guy!

Elaine, Here is 100 meter race with Phelps in Bejing in 2008. Michael Phelps - 100m Butterfly final - Beijing 2008 - YouTube Perhaps it indicates a faster arm rotation that would help you, regardless of concerns about crashing your arms in. I can only offer that my 1,000 yard fly, like yours, includes a necessary glide for recovery. It might be as long as a full second. But the few times I sprint a 25, I kind of follow the windmill style of some butterfliers. That is, no more soft hands. No gliding. The faster hands at the entry can provide momentum to pull deep and hard. I have to use a lot of energy to double dolphin kick in a sprint of 25 or 50 for the amount of propulsion I get out of my kick. My kicks are shallower and therefore faster, but do not propel me as much as my single kick in the 1,000. The shorter the distance, the less I rely on my kick. I get a lot more bang out of my arm stroke in a sprint for the amount of energy used than I do out of my kick. If I sprint 100, the stroke is a lot less of a windmill. It seems to me that the style is extremely dependent on the distance. A 25 is different than a 50 and a 50 is different than a 100. I breathe every other stroke on a 25, but rarely can I continue this all the way to the end of 50. On a 100, I would more likely breathe a lot from the very beginning before it is too late. The main reason I say this is only from my experience the last few years in trying to find what works for me at different distances. I am no great swimmer. Isn't butterfly intriguing? An analogy is how a whip kick is better for sprinting *** stroke because it is a faster kick, but a frog kick might be more efficient for long distances. The faster whip kick allows for faster, harder arm strokes in a *** stroke sprint.

Back when I was swimming age group, my events were the 200 fly (I did the 100 as well, but was better at the 200), 100/200 back, and 400 IM. I took a few years off from competing, and just started competing again last year. I've done the 200 fly once since I started competing again, back in March, and had a horrible swim. Managed to avoid dying and sinking to the bottom of the pool, but my time was laughably slow. The practices on my team are only an hour long and the lanes can get pretty crowded, so I could never get any good fly endurance training in. With that limitation, I trained for sprint fly instead. My 50 fly is now faster than it ever was in high school, and my 100 is only a couple seconds off my highschool time. When we switch back to training short course in September, I'm going to start training for the 200 fly again. I've been working on my backstroke this summer, since it has been deplorable. My goal is to swim both the 200 fly and 200 back at spring Nats in Indy. Come September, I'll keep the 1 hour team practices for stroke speed training, but swim a few hours on my own each week to train endurance. I remember a challenge my coach gave me as a result of some long since forgotten stupid bet in highschool--I lost the bet, so I had to do a 2.5 hour Saturday morning practice all fly, but he did let me wear fins. I ended up doing somewhere north of 10,000 yards fly (that's as high as I counted before zoning out), and actually managed to maintain somewhat decent technique the entire time without relying on 5 kicks per pull. My goal is to get my fly endurance up enough to the point where I can do one of our 1 hour practices all fly without fins.