Sunday, November 12, 2006
Sideways and Kicking
There are two ways to increase speed in the water
1) Reduce Resistance
2) Increase Power
In the past several practices I talked about 2 concepts to reduce resistance. One is being level and the other is being thin (or streamlined). I also talked about to ways to increase power. One being the high elbow position and the other is accelerating from the beginning to the end of the stroke. (You can see more about these at http://gladorca.blogspot.com )
Today I want to discuss Sideways and Kicking.
1) SIDEWAYS
You can swim so that your body is always flat in the water, or you can swim on your side. Swimming on your side is like using a flat bottom boat. Your body is plowing through the water like a barge. The other way is to swim on or towards your side to slice through the water. The reason has to do with displacement of the water. When you are at the top of the water and you swim in a flat position, the water gets displaced in the down, but when you are on your side more water gets displaced to the sides. When you swim freestyle, swimming on your side doesn’t mean completely over on your side, but the body should rotate at least 45 degrees. A great freestyle swimmer will spend about 80% of their times on the sides (40% for each side) and 20% of the time transitioning from side to side. Drills for getting on your side include kicking on your side with one hand up above your head and the other down by your side., kicking with your hands at the side and rotating from side to side, and 12 kicks per stroke drill.
2) KICKING
Any world class swimmer doing a pool event has a powerful and fast kick. Whether you are watching the 50 Meter sprint of the 1,500 Meter event, the underwater view of the swimmers will show a fast, powerful kick. Kicking provides additional power for the swim and makes you go faster, but kicking uses the biggest muscles of the body and therefore a powerful kick will take a lot of energy and air. Should a power fast kick always be used for a masters swimmer? I think the answer is that it depends on your goals and your conditioning. If you plan to do an ironman which involves a 112 mile bike and a 26 mile run, then making sure you have legs for the bike and run become important. In that case a hard kick may improve your performance on the first leg of the race, but you have to decide if the improvement is worth the energy. The swim leg of an ironman is only 1/8th to 1/6th the duration of the race. As for conditioning, if you don’t have good conditioning, then a fast powerful kick will be hard to maintain; however, you should always think about using it in the shorter distances and try to work up to using it in the longer distances. Ankle flexibility is important for swimming. You need to be able to point your toes back and in. To work ankle flexibility you can try pointing your toes when you do your stretching or you can try keeling on the floor with your toes pointed back. Why do the toes need to point in? If they point out, your feet will slice through the water. If they point in, then the feet will act more like flippers.
1) Reduce Resistance
2) Increase Power
In the past several practices I talked about 2 concepts to reduce resistance. One is being level and the other is being thin (or streamlined). I also talked about to ways to increase power. One being the high elbow position and the other is accelerating from the beginning to the end of the stroke. (You can see more about these at http://gladorca.blogspot.com )
Today I want to discuss Sideways and Kicking.
1) SIDEWAYS
You can swim so that your body is always flat in the water, or you can swim on your side. Swimming on your side is like using a flat bottom boat. Your body is plowing through the water like a barge. The other way is to swim on or towards your side to slice through the water. The reason has to do with displacement of the water. When you are at the top of the water and you swim in a flat position, the water gets displaced in the down, but when you are on your side more water gets displaced to the sides. When you swim freestyle, swimming on your side doesn’t mean completely over on your side, but the body should rotate at least 45 degrees. A great freestyle swimmer will spend about 80% of their times on the sides (40% for each side) and 20% of the time transitioning from side to side. Drills for getting on your side include kicking on your side with one hand up above your head and the other down by your side., kicking with your hands at the side and rotating from side to side, and 12 kicks per stroke drill.
2) KICKING
Any world class swimmer doing a pool event has a powerful and fast kick. Whether you are watching the 50 Meter sprint of the 1,500 Meter event, the underwater view of the swimmers will show a fast, powerful kick. Kicking provides additional power for the swim and makes you go faster, but kicking uses the biggest muscles of the body and therefore a powerful kick will take a lot of energy and air. Should a power fast kick always be used for a masters swimmer? I think the answer is that it depends on your goals and your conditioning. If you plan to do an ironman which involves a 112 mile bike and a 26 mile run, then making sure you have legs for the bike and run become important. In that case a hard kick may improve your performance on the first leg of the race, but you have to decide if the improvement is worth the energy. The swim leg of an ironman is only 1/8th to 1/6th the duration of the race. As for conditioning, if you don’t have good conditioning, then a fast powerful kick will be hard to maintain; however, you should always think about using it in the shorter distances and try to work up to using it in the longer distances. Ankle flexibility is important for swimming. You need to be able to point your toes back and in. To work ankle flexibility you can try pointing your toes when you do your stretching or you can try keeling on the floor with your toes pointed back. Why do the toes need to point in? If they point out, your feet will slice through the water. If they point in, then the feet will act more like flippers.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Level and High Elbow
There are two ways to increase speed in the water
1) Reduce Resistance
2) Increase Power
Here are two concepts for to consider and practice
1) LEVEL
For reducing resistance BEING LEVEL is very important. (last time I talked about being thin) Watch other swimmers in the pool from underneath the water. Some swim with their head above the surface and their hips about 6 inches below the water and their feet about 1 foot under the water. This isn't level. In this case, the swimmer is dragging their body through the water. Imagine a kick board. If the kick board is held against (perpendicular) the direction of movement there is lots of resistance. If the kick board is pointed in the direction of movement (parallel to the movement) there is much less resistance. If the kick board is at an angle, there is less resistance than being perpendicular, but more resistance that being parallel. The swimmer I described above is at an angle to the water and could find a swimming position that would create less resistance.
How do you do this? If you imagine your body being in the water horizontal to the bottom, then where would your head be? If your head were out of the water then in order to be horizontal, your entire body has to be out of the water (or at least most of it). But since that can't happen and since part of the body has to be under water, the swimmer's back half of the body sinks to support the head out of the water. Ok, you say "I don't do that!!!", but your head doesn't have to be very far up to cause your feet to sink. When you swim free, fly, or breast, you should be looking at the bottom of the pool. If you look up, you loose the level position. Many of us were taught to swim with the water level just above the eyebrows, but the water level should be in the middle of the head.
A drill for being level. Using fins helps make this drill easier and lets you get a feel of being level. Kick on your side with one arm by our side and one arm above your head. The arm above your head should be 6 to 8" below the water. The arm on your side should be at the surface of the water. Your head should be in line with your spine. You should be looking at the wall. Your body should be perfectly straight. Kick one length of the pool on one side and one length of the pool on the other side. When you need to breath, turn your head up to get a breath and then put it right back down. Do this a bunch of times. This drill is meant to help you get the feel of being level in the water.
2) HIGH ELBOW
High elbow is not referring to the elbow position when your arm is out of the water, but the position of the elbow relative to the wrist. Think about standing up at a table from a sitting position and using your arms to assist you. First stick your hands on the table in front off you , lean towards the table, and then push your body up. Where are your elbows? They should be above your wrists. Try doing this with your wrists below your elbows. It's harder. Now, instead of standing up from a table, imagine you are lying flat in the water and you want to push your body forward with the same movement. In order to repeat what you did before, your wrists should lead in front of your elbow. Most age group swimmers lead with their elbow. This does not provide as much leverage on the water. When swimming crawl, you should reach forward and think about wrapping your arm around a barrel. This will get you to the "high elbow" position. As you pull and your arm passes below your body, the forearm should make a 90 degree angle with the upper arms.
Drills for high elbow.
1) On land
a) reach right arm straight out in front your palm facing down
b) bend the arm at the elbow so the fingers point down
c) repeat with the left arm
d) now extend the right arm to towards the ceiling with the palm facing foward
e) bend the arm at the elbw so the fingers point to the wall in front of you
f) repeat with the left arm
g) do the right arm again
h) do the left arm again
This is the "catch" of the crawl stroke. This positions your arm for power. This is not a power move, but a move to set up for power. The most power comes between the neck and the waist. Power doesn't come from the furthest extention of the arm. The first movement of the arm on the pull is one that sets up the arm for power.
Drills in the water.
Using fins. Do 1 arm free style, but do it slowly. First reach out and bend at the elbow. Then accelerate the arm towards your feet with the wrist leading the elbow.
1) Reduce Resistance
2) Increase Power
Here are two concepts for to consider and practice
1) LEVEL
For reducing resistance BEING LEVEL is very important. (last time I talked about being thin) Watch other swimmers in the pool from underneath the water. Some swim with their head above the surface and their hips about 6 inches below the water and their feet about 1 foot under the water. This isn't level. In this case, the swimmer is dragging their body through the water. Imagine a kick board. If the kick board is held against (perpendicular) the direction of movement there is lots of resistance. If the kick board is pointed in the direction of movement (parallel to the movement) there is much less resistance. If the kick board is at an angle, there is less resistance than being perpendicular, but more resistance that being parallel. The swimmer I described above is at an angle to the water and could find a swimming position that would create less resistance.
How do you do this? If you imagine your body being in the water horizontal to the bottom, then where would your head be? If your head were out of the water then in order to be horizontal, your entire body has to be out of the water (or at least most of it). But since that can't happen and since part of the body has to be under water, the swimmer's back half of the body sinks to support the head out of the water. Ok, you say "I don't do that!!!", but your head doesn't have to be very far up to cause your feet to sink. When you swim free, fly, or breast, you should be looking at the bottom of the pool. If you look up, you loose the level position. Many of us were taught to swim with the water level just above the eyebrows, but the water level should be in the middle of the head.
A drill for being level. Using fins helps make this drill easier and lets you get a feel of being level. Kick on your side with one arm by our side and one arm above your head. The arm above your head should be 6 to 8" below the water. The arm on your side should be at the surface of the water. Your head should be in line with your spine. You should be looking at the wall. Your body should be perfectly straight. Kick one length of the pool on one side and one length of the pool on the other side. When you need to breath, turn your head up to get a breath and then put it right back down. Do this a bunch of times. This drill is meant to help you get the feel of being level in the water.
2) HIGH ELBOW
High elbow is not referring to the elbow position when your arm is out of the water, but the position of the elbow relative to the wrist. Think about standing up at a table from a sitting position and using your arms to assist you. First stick your hands on the table in front off you , lean towards the table, and then push your body up. Where are your elbows? They should be above your wrists. Try doing this with your wrists below your elbows. It's harder. Now, instead of standing up from a table, imagine you are lying flat in the water and you want to push your body forward with the same movement. In order to repeat what you did before, your wrists should lead in front of your elbow. Most age group swimmers lead with their elbow. This does not provide as much leverage on the water. When swimming crawl, you should reach forward and think about wrapping your arm around a barrel. This will get you to the "high elbow" position. As you pull and your arm passes below your body, the forearm should make a 90 degree angle with the upper arms.
Drills for high elbow.
1) On land
a) reach right arm straight out in front your palm facing down
b) bend the arm at the elbow so the fingers point down
c) repeat with the left arm
d) now extend the right arm to towards the ceiling with the palm facing foward
e) bend the arm at the elbw so the fingers point to the wall in front of you
f) repeat with the left arm
g) do the right arm again
h) do the left arm again
This is the "catch" of the crawl stroke. This positions your arm for power. This is not a power move, but a move to set up for power. The most power comes between the neck and the waist. Power doesn't come from the furthest extention of the arm. The first movement of the arm on the pull is one that sets up the arm for power.
Drills in the water.
Using fins. Do 1 arm free style, but do it slowly. First reach out and bend at the elbow. Then accelerate the arm towards your feet with the wrist leading the elbow.
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Accelerating and Thin
I took a swim clinic recently and I'll discuss some of the things that I learned over the next few weeks.
There are two things that can make a swimmer go faster.
1) Create less resistance to forward movement
2) Create greater power
Tonight at practice I talked about 2 ideas which are "thin" and "acceleration".
Acceleration - the rate of the change in speed. Suppose I don't change the speed of my pull from the start of the stroke until the finish of the stroke, then there is no acceleration. Acceleration means that the pull gets faster from the starting position until the end of the pull. The faster the acceleration, the stronger the force that is created. Good swimmers start their pull slowly and ACCELRATE to the end of the pull and the change in speed is very significant.
Thin - The bigger the cross section of your body in the water the more drag it will create. Therefore you are trying to keep your body as "thin" as possible. You do this in the streamline position. Arms extended above your head with your hands one on top of the other with you ears IN FRONT of your arms. By sticking your arms behind your head, your shoulders blades will come closer together and make a "thinner" body. Note I've had some coaches say that they don't think this is more streamline because the head sticks out below the body. I'm not sure, but something to try is to see how far you can push off from the wall with various streamlines. Try it with you ears between your arms and then with your ears behind your arms and see how far you will go.
There are two things that can make a swimmer go faster.
1) Create less resistance to forward movement
2) Create greater power
Tonight at practice I talked about 2 ideas which are "thin" and "acceleration".
Acceleration - the rate of the change in speed. Suppose I don't change the speed of my pull from the start of the stroke until the finish of the stroke, then there is no acceleration. Acceleration means that the pull gets faster from the starting position until the end of the pull. The faster the acceleration, the stronger the force that is created. Good swimmers start their pull slowly and ACCELRATE to the end of the pull and the change in speed is very significant.
Thin - The bigger the cross section of your body in the water the more drag it will create. Therefore you are trying to keep your body as "thin" as possible. You do this in the streamline position. Arms extended above your head with your hands one on top of the other with you ears IN FRONT of your arms. By sticking your arms behind your head, your shoulders blades will come closer together and make a "thinner" body. Note I've had some coaches say that they don't think this is more streamline because the head sticks out below the body. I'm not sure, but something to try is to see how far you can push off from the wall with various streamlines. Try it with you ears between your arms and then with your ears behind your arms and see how far you will go.
