Calling all strong swimmers: Where in the swim stroke do you generate power?

John Katsoudas

I was recently re-watching a Vasa video on YouTube about where in the swim stroke to generate power:

https://youtu.be/kPMFxYDPkqs

In the video Karlyn Pipes-Neilsen discusses generating power early vs late in the swim stroke. I remember watching this video when I first bought my Vasa a while back, and I've been trying to emulate the "oomph at the front" stroke on the Vasa ever since. The thing is, I can't sustain this at all. I recently experimented with generating the power in the back of the stroke, and the results where interesting.

Here's what a typical "oomph at the front" WO looks like for me:

Pink= power; green=pace; yellow=cadence

These are 10x 200m repeats. You can see that in each set I start out strong and then die ~100m in. The stroke shortens, cadence goes up, power goes down, and pace drops.

Here's a recent WO where I tried generating power in the back half of the stroke:

The first thing to note is that these are 7x 400m. I don't even want to think about trying to do 400's on the Vasa with a front-powered stroke - I'd be hot mess by the 4th or 5th set of those. The most notable thing to me here, is that by the 5th, 6th and 7th sets where I'm finally dialing in a comfortable stroke the power is actually increasing throughout the set, and the pace is getting faster from set to set. Admittedly the pace is somewhat slower than the 200's in the previous WO. However, this got me to wondering what the driver of this difference is?

Am I just lacking the muscular endurance to properly execute a front-powered stroke? I'm a pretty weak swimmer. I did add in weight training this OS in an effort to add some upper body muscle mass to try to help with swim power. Do I just need to swim more? Or, is this just a case where a rear-powered stroke is more suited to me and I should just embrace it?

I've read folks here talking about how they would get on the Vasa and just put an iPad down on the ground and watch something while cranking out some steady sessions. I couldn't get my head around how that was possible, given how much I was struggling with 200's, but with this stroke I could easily see cranking out some longer sessions. BUT - I don't want to reinforce a "wrong" technique if what I should be doing is getting stronger at a front-powered stroke.

I'd love to hear from the strong swimmers and Vasa experts. Thanks!

-John

Sheila Leard

@John Katsoudas FULL DISCLOSURE I am not a strong swimmer but wanted to give feedback on above video. I attended one of her workshops when she was in town several years ago. I could not embrace the oomph at the front. She equated to paddling on a surfboard. I got that part but, could not get the part where propulsion is in the front.

If propulsion comes with hip drive and timing the pull how does one get propulsion at the front?

In this video he describes the front is the set up and the propulsion is next. I'm working on this because I have always swam with my arms and not enough core, lats and hip drive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7ecuZSHVqs&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7ecuZSHVqs&feature=youtu.be

John Katsoudas

@Sheila Leard thank you for that! That pretty closely describes what I'm thinking of and visualizing when I'm trying to swim with a rear-powered stroke. With an "oomph in the front" stroke I was trying to set an early vertical forearm and start generating propulsion when my hands were about even with the top of my head. This resulted in a motion where my forearm was pivoting on my elbow, and power (what little there was) was coming from my shoulders. Propulsion was mostly over by the time my hands were at my ribcage. My scrawny little shoulders can't sustain that for very long.

With the rear-powered stroke my hands are basically setting up (as described in the video) and propulsion starts when my hands are even with the shoulders and propulsion is powered by lats and triceps. One of my mental cues is to try to push all the way back until my thumbs brush my hips.

Today's Vasa WO was supposed to be 7x 400m again. I did 5x 400m and then decided to see if I could sustain 1,000m. No problem! This is the first time I've ever been able to do 1,000m continuously on the Vasa, so I'm thrilled about that. I just want to make sure that I'm not reinforcing bad technique or somehow "cheating" with poor form.

Al Truscott

I am neither a Vasa user, nor what I would consider a real strong swimmer. But about 50 years ago, I was a mediocre scholastic swimmer (HS & college teams), as well as an age group (7-17 y/o) coach. During that time I thought a lot about strokes and how they worked, where power comes from, etc. Both from watching world class swimmers (I was on teams with both NCAA Div I champions and Olympic gold medalists), and from a seminal book "Science of Swimming" by James Councilman, Indiana U coach (where Mark Spitz, Gary Hall Sr, and many others went.) here's the way I viewed how the FS stroke works:

1. Most important, the hand/forearm unit should be moving ever faster through the water as it tracks from nearly straight out in front to the back as it exits the water past the hips. Moving the hand at the same speed thru the stroke does nothing to really "push" the water - it just ends up moving at the same speed as the water, and you slow down. So accelerate thru the stroke and finish hard at the end.
2. The idea of the "catch" or the "oomph" at the front is to take the hand from starting out stationary to beginning to move. The requires a lot of work, but the muscles involved are not very strong, relative to later in the stroke. First, the rotator cuff, and then the biceps, finally the pecs. So it should feel hard, but it won't really contribute a lot to forward motion as the hand/arm unit gets up to speed.
3. The position of the hand is critical. To demonstrate, think first of pulling the hand thru the stroke with the little finger leading (towards the feet), and the thumb trailing. Won't do very much, right? Now gradually rotate the hand ninety degrees, so the palm is facing you, and the fingers are pointing straight down. That's the strongest spot. Even if you get a few degrees off, that will reduce pulling efficiency.
4. The real strength of the stroke comes in the latter half, as the arm picks up speed from about 10 degrees in front of the shoulder, and the triceps get engaged at the end of the stroke. During this phase, the muscles of the core as the body rotates, and most important, the latissimus dorsi are fully used - much stronger than those the rotator cuff, biceps, and later the pecs at the front of the stroke.

Of course, being horizontal in the water (good kick to bring the feet up) and a straight body line (no side-to-side wiggle of the hips - aided by the hands entering in line with the shoulders near to or even past the midline) is also essential for maximum hydro dynamics.

I don't know how all this translates into the power graph from a Vasa, but that's my mental image of what makes the most effective, efficient swimmer. The difficult part is, all the great swimmers started competing before puberty, and were probably not taught the nuances of the stroke at age 9 or 10 - what kid could understand that? They were just the ones whose bodies figured it out for themselves. Later, coaches helped them with the details, but they already had this general pattern locked in by age 12 or 13 I think.

John Culberson

Like @Al Truscott, I probably qualify as a “strong swimmer,” but sprint freestylers have a lot to learn about optimizing their stroke for long distance OWS in a wetsuit over a variety of conditions. Body rotation is an important component of an efficient “reach.” That may be difficult to model on a Vasa (I’ve never used one), and may explain some of your difficulty maintaining “oomph” at the front. The reach also brings the hips to the surface (without a wetsuit) and allows one to align the musculature to apply force to the water. A swim snorkel and (small) hand paddles have helped me to focus on, and actually watch the entry and catch. I have also found that the snorkel has helped me to relax while all of this is going on, as it limits air flow enough to force me to “delay the suck” by focusing on form rather than strength. That’s why I am a little hesitant to refer to use the word “oomph.” The “catch” is easy to feel with hand paddles, and I pretty much ignore what happens afterwards. The hand is placed in the correct position, and the musculature is engaged. @Al Truscott description is wicked smart. With a good reach and catch, I picture a rock climber anchoring with the hand and pulling themself up a rock face. They don’t pull the anchored hand down! Once the chain of muscle contraction starts moving, I have found that the rest of my stoke (particularly on my breathing side) varies based on fatigue. I’m not sure how all of this translates to Vasa... but I know that when I get tired, I need to stay focused on the part of my stroke that seems to move me forward in the water... the catch. Once my elbows start to drop, the follow through and finish are not very efficient, and most triathletes, including myself, probably need to stick with the low-hanging fruit up front.

I often find myself unable to swim 3-4 days/week consistently. I swim “better” on consecutive swim days, but of course this is the challenge of AG triathlon. A swim-camp during recovery weeks seems to result in a few of those “magical sets” where everything seems to flow. Unfortunately, as soon as I put on a wetsuit, everything changes, and I feel like a fish out of water... but “magically” I swim fast. In my case, efficiency drops, and I need to relax even more.

PS: In rough open water, I concentrate on the recovery and increase turnover. Throw those arms, catch, oomph, repeat. It isn’t pretty, but I still focus on staying relaxed, and in rough conditions, it ends up being more efficient than a perfect, long, graceful stroke. That’s where my experience as a 50 Freestyler comes in handy, so some sprint sets keep me flexible.

robin sarner

I use my Vasa for the large majority of my swim training. I don't have power gizmo.

best wetsuit swim 58 minutes. more recently 65 minutes without optimal volume. 25 yard champion on Maui at 8 years old.

If one is applying optimal power throughout the whole stroke, the power will not be constant, I assume. Not sure I agree with Al about what part of the stroke is potentially the most powerful, but the concept works. My sense is right after catch is my highest power. Muscles are extended and getting pure core power. this sense is confirmed for me when I outrigger canoe paddle.

having said that, my best times have been working the whole stroke. including through the end including a bit of a hand push.

John Culberson

@Al Truscott makes a good point. Much of the power required to initiate the stroke is not going into forward movement. The Lats and Core muscles accelerate the arm, and need to keep it moving... hopefully with an optimal (high elbow) position, before losing leverage as the stroke progresses. Shoulder and arm muscles struggle to carry on alone. I agree that the whole stroke contributes to a strong swim, but suspect that the utility of that extra work for an hour or more depends on technique and training volume. I just don’t end up swimming enough to hold it together.

Tony Puckett

great discussion all. You’ve given me some mental cues to focus on once we can bet back in the water.

David Howard

@Sheila Leard I have lost my Hip drive with doing more snorkel work (maybe a VASA potential issue?)

Here is a good vid on getting the rhythm back - there is a part 2 as well which talks about loosing "power out the back"...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpccOR_u9HQ

I DO notice a notable improvement in pool with power from the 'set point' to hips...but I do tend to push to hand exit (bad) and need to work on the power on -power off of the stroke.

Tom Glynn

I also took a swim lesson from Karlyn. She really wants power right at the beginning and has you not pushing your hand back past your hips. It requires a much higher cadence to keep up the speed IMO and was very tiring for me.

I liked a lot of her advice - keeping stroke a bit wider, better breathing techniques than I had before and a few other things, but the front end stuff was hard.

I'm a fairly poor swimmer, so act accordingly :)

Tom