Swim Golf ... is doing "S-Stroke" cheating .... or does it makes sense?
Was just reading yesterday the EN swim ebook and golf score, i wonder if doing "S-Stroke" is actually cheating for Swim Golf, because I really suck if iI do not. Tested today (25m pool, moderate/hard effort, after Mainset 20x50m (25m) ) with S-Stroke 36-38 strokes at ~47sec without 44-46 strokes at ~50sec.
S-Stroke good to use for swim triathlon, or should I learn to drop it now?
------- Some background
I started to redefined my technique it winter 2010/11 (via the SwimPower Book).
My t-pace (1000m in a 50m pool) went from somewhat 1:55-2:00/100m to ~1:45/100m last year.
The coach of my son helps me from time to time with my strokes. There I picked-up early on that I can push more water and glide better if I do an S-Stroke (yep and i do a little sculling with it, but is just happens along the S-Stroke)
Comments
The short answer: do not do the "S" stroke EVER unless you really really would like a shoulder injury at some point in your future. Your son's coach is wrong, and incredibly outdated if he is teaching the S-stroke. Its efficiency was disproved sometime in the 1980's, and it gave almost every swimmer who used it (including me) serious shoulder problems. I can't say strongly enough: don't use it.
The longer answer: Since I don't know exactly what you are doing with your stroke beforehand, I can't tell you why the "S" stroke is actually more efficient than what you were doing.. But the EVF (early vertical forearm) catch and more of a straight pull back will give you a much more efficient stroke than either what you were doing, or an exaggerated S stroke.
This video:
is the best I know of to get a good look at what the front half of your stroke should be doing. You can see clearly that his hands enter nearly flat (not the thumbs-down of an S stroke) and the hand and forearm perform the "catch phase" that gets them vertical very early in the stroke (the "EVF" portion). Then they cleanly move the water straight behind him. Remember, any water that you're pushing anywhere other than straight behind you is just muscle movement that you're using without gaining propulsion.
When I work with swimmers, I like to have them visualize catching a "beach ball" of water with their forearm in front of them, and then throwing it at the back wall behind them. You can quickly see that if you did that with the "S" stroke, you would lose the beach ball to one side or the other. You're doing the same thing with the water that you catch as you do with the imaginary beach ball.
There are only two ways to get faster and more efficient at swimming:
1) Create less drag
2) Move more water straight behind you
The "S" stroke does neither.
Thanks Robin, thanks for the the quick and clear answer - thanks for destroying my hopes that i have a fairly good technique developed ...
To be totally honest i will do some research because i think do most of the stuff (at least i visulize it
Well -as said- I am going back to the drawing board - i also believed a year ago training in HR Z2 for 3 hours helps me to get fast in OLY races, and i think i was waisting time there as well. Can you recommend the swimsmooth stuff?
Kai
Hi Kai,
Sorry I did not mean to be so brusque with my original answer, but I was headed out the door and wanted to at least give you some food for thought.
In any case, without seeing what you're doing, it's hard to say what's going on in the front of your stroke. In general, if you enter with the hand flat as in the video I posted, and execute a HVF catch, there should be no reason for the hand to travel to either side, hence no "S" in the stroke. Generally, when people move their hand in an "S" motion up front, it is because the hand has entered with the thumb down, instead of entering the water flat. When that happens, the hand is pointing towards the outside of the body (as it does when it enters the water in butterfly) and then needs to scull somewhat to get into the correct position for the catch. I won't go into all the reasons that this works in the butterfly stroke and not in freestyle at this point, but it has to do with the diving up-and-down motion of the butterfly which you do *not* want in your freestyle.
Most of the time, if a swimmer's hand enters the water with the thumb down, it's because the recovery part of the stroke does not have a high enough elbow to carry it straight through, or else the swimmer is dropping the elbow before the hand enters the water. Usually, this is the case because the swimmer is swimming "flat" to the water, and not reaching forward enough with their gliding hand to allow their chest to rotate to the side and their arm to easily follow through with a high elbow. It's kind of a chain reaction that all goes back to a few key elements. If I could see what you're doing, I could pin it down for you, but it's hard to explain in text.
I am not familiar with the "Swim Power" book, do you have a link to it? I searched for it on Amazon and only turned up some DVD's. The "S" stroke was widely taught at one time, so perhaps it's just a book with an older methodology?
As for recommending SwimSmooth, I will say that in general, I find their stuff to be pretty good, and I do use their site to point out technique issues to my swimmers. However, I do have some disagreements with some of their advice, mostly around the issue of body rotation. They talk about rotating to the side a lot and show pictures saying that swimmers should rotate to the side. However, if you look at videos of great swimmers, like that one I posted, you will see that they do not rotate their full body, most especially not their hips, to the side. If you do that, you lose a lot of power, so I never talk about rotation with my swimmers, only about reaching forward out of the hips, which allows the chest to open to the side without over-rotating the hips.
That's all a bit technical, but the bottom line is that I'd say for the average swimmer, the SwimSmooth site is quite good and about 90% of it is useful information. They are very good about giving people a visual on what a good stroke looks like, and that video I posted is one of the best to really see all the aspects of a great stroke. Basically, if you look at the catch in that video, and make your catch like that, you can't go wrong.
no worries, i would have not asked if I would know what i am doing.
Regards SwimPower, the real title is "The Triathlete's Guide to Swim Training" by Steve Tarpinian (http://velopress.competitor.com/triathlon.php?id=65),
i like it because a.) to helped me understand freestyle swimming, 2nd) i imprinted a the set of drills now which i do EVERY time i am in the water (as part of my warm-up).
I downloaded the a DVD from the swim smooth, and watched it yesterday, I understand now the issue with the thumbs down and S-Stroke, which i think i do a soft version of it.
But I am grateful for your remarks, because i want be be sure to develop a good Form before I need to also work on my fitness (6-8 weeks from now).
Goal is to see this year how close I can get to the 1:30/100m mark as T-Pace.
I hope i can someday do some video shots, but I guess i need to wait until the outdoor pools are open again.
Good luck with your "black belt".
Kai
Great stuff Robin. Thx for the video and also the answer on S stroke as I was curious as well.
Glad it was helpful!
Terrific! That's a huge change, especially since you're already in a fairly fast zone. Good work!!
The only caveat to that is OWS in races where you can't really catch and need to "finish" the stroke very well to keep some semblance of speed!
Thanks Robin!
I've bookmarked the video as one of my home pages to remind me to look at it EVERY time I head out to swim. Your thoughts on rotation (lessish) is very helpful as well. It also looks like he takes his breath pretty fast... then again, when you're going that fast I suppose you must!
Muchas gracias!
Robin- Would love your take on this technique..
Overall, I think her technique looks pretty similar to the other video I posted when viewed underwater - she has a terrific glide, a high-elbow vertical-forearm catch, and a good 6-beat kick going. The biggest difference is in the over-the-water "recovery" part of the arm stroke. One of her elbows is bent somewhat on recovery, the other is completely straight. It obviously works for her, and you can see that she carries very little splash or bubbles into the water with her hand entry, even with that straight arm entry.
I would say that 99% of the people trying to emulate this style of stroke though will end up carrying a whole lot more downward or sideways momentum of the arm into the water without the bent elbow. Yes, there are elite swimmers that can do it, but most of the non-elites that I've worked with end up not being able to control the hand entry this way - their hand either continues on a downward trajectory, thus missing the first part of the catch, or it actually contains sideways momentum, causing them to cross the center line of their body underwater, which is even worse. This sets up a hip and torso wiggle that is difficult to contain.
Bottom line, I'd say that for most people, a bent-arm catch is the surest way to get a clean hand entry and set up for a good catch with minimal sideways or downward force on the water. If a person cannot achieve a bent arm entry, then a straight arm entry can work if they concentrate on removing any downward or sideways momentum of the entering arm. I've broken my left arm twice in the last two years, right at the elbow, I also dislocated the wrist, elbow, and shoulder when I was a kid. My stroke looks remarkably like hers, or as one coach told me I look like an injured albatross. I can make it work, but I don't teach other people to swim like me
I just went to a Karlyn Pipes Nielsen clinic in March and I can't say enough good things about it. I knew I wasn't going to be able to make it to Coach P's clinic and a friend recommended her to me.
Karlyn does a great job of explaining the details of how she swims and teaches through comparison drills. Ex: Use a High Vertical Elbow one length and an extended arm on the next, Do a wide reach with minimal twist and then a narrow one with a lot of twisting, long s-stroke, vs short straight, etc. You then feel what works better for you and adapt your stroke to accommodate what you learned.
I highly recommend checking out one of her clinics of there's one in your area.
Great info here.
I have been working on my swimming with a local coach this past year as i have a flawed stroke. Some things have gotten better but I still have a weak catch. Made a lot of progress in stopping my cross over and am actually kicking now to keep from dragging my long legs.
Glad to hear good things about the KPN clinic as I signed up for one the begining of May.