The Butterfly Lane

Does anyone know of anyone who swam from Alcatraz without a wet suit? I see some that have with a wet suit. Support Special Olympics! Lots of people (myself included) have swam it without a wetsuit. But butterfly, that is impressive!! You will want to get good advice on currents and what to sight on, depending on your speed. The wrong line at the wrong time can make your swim much harder or much longer.

Yeah, I know, this is an old thread; however, Ande started the "Lane" threads up for this purpose. This is the place to talk stroke and ask for advice. I know what I am doing wrong with my fly stroke; however, I can't figure out how to fix it. After recovering my arms, they are entering the water and diving down right along with my chest. I try to keep them higher in the water, but I am obviously failing. My flexibility is good; I am doing yoga and a lot of stretching, so it's not that I don't have the flexibility. Past surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome and a past dislocated clavicle (collar bone) at the sternoclavicular joint (where the collar bone meets the sternum) do make me a bit protective of my shoulders to avoid a reinjury, though. Perhaps I will never be able to master fly for those reasons, but I would like to at least try to improve my technique as much as possible. Swimming fly with my current stroke, I can swim forever; distance is not the issue, but speed is. Although I only want to race 200 fly, I would like to improve my pokey time. Are there any drills you have found that work to improve my problem? Any suggestions? My husband shoots video of my for feedback, but even when I think I have improved, I watch the video and see the same problem.. Thanks for your help, Forumites! www.youtube.com/watch

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!

Then I would go to a psychiatrist and find out why you voluntarily swim the 200 fly, and do so repeatedly. Seeing a psychiatrist to find out why I would voluntarily swim 200 fly? Nawww. :shakeshead: The time to have done that was when I voluntarily swam 2,000 fly (in addition to 1,000 fly, and 900 fly) and joined the Butternuts! :afraid: If that doesn't prove I'm crazy, at least it proved that Dr. Braun did an awesome job on my first rib resection for T.O.S! :applaud: How is your post-op shoulder doing, by the way? As for your critique and recommendations for my fly, thank you very much! :agree: Your feedback is very helpful and well-received, especially given the outstanding swimmer that you are (even after T.O.S.!!!). :bow: P.S. I consulted Dr. Google, and several of those upper thoracic mobility exercises are already on my daily dryland menu. I use a foam roller before every swim workout, and I do dryland exercises after my swim that include PT exercises I learned after my shoulder and hip surgeries as well as yoga. Many of those overlap with what I saw in my Google search. I'm pretty darn flexible at this point!

One drill I do is one arm fly with the other arm at my side. I try to "land" my hand on the surface rather than "enter" the water. Eventually you can try this with both arms, "landing" your hands on the surface rather than "entering". You will end up with a much stronger pull if you think about "landing". Hope this helps!

One drill I do is one arm fly with the other arm at my side. I try to "land" my hand on the surface rather than "enter" the water. Eventually you can try this with both arms, "landing" your hands on the surface rather than "entering". You will end up with a much stronger pull if you think about "landing". Hope this helps! ​Thanks, Ganache, I'll give it a try.

You guys are doing great out there. Keep on swimmin!

Does this look any better? www.youtube.com/watch

After my DQ at spring nationals in the 200 fly at age 70, I now question my technique. After many have watched the video, some comment on the turn judge calling it not the stroke judge. I have been doing fly for 30 years as a masters swimmer and never been DQed before. Lots to think about in the off season!!!

I wanna do this! You could do it, no problem! :agree: I looked you up; you're ranked #20 in the men's 50-54 age group for 200 fly, I am 54 and ranked near the bottom. Add that to being a former TOS sufferer who had a first rib resection (I know you know what that is!), and I am a very unlikely candidate to qualify as a Butternut. Take a look at my fly video, and you will also see I have a very long way to go before I nail down a decent fly stroke. I qualified for Butternuts several times though. My first was 900 (my husband stopped me out of fear for my shoulders), my second was 2000 (I convinced my husband to let me go as long as it didn't hurt, but the camera card was full AND the battery died), and my third was 1000 for a challenge on this thread. I have also done a few 500's, but I didn't send them in, because they were unsupervised and undocumented. The key is this: GLIDE! Don't swim it like you race the 200. Take it slow and easy, and glide as long as you can. Stay relaxed! If I can do it, any 200 flyer can do it! Go for it, Evan, and let us know how you did. :cheerleader: