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Session on August 16
I took video at first, then we moved immediately into working on backstroke.
Backstroke (BK) is a long-axis (spine axis) stroke closely related to freestyle. The requirement of the Torpedo Frame is the same, and the use of torso rotation is the same in both strokes.
This is the sequence of drills you may work through, using fins:
- Torso (Torpedo) Rotation
- Backstroke Skate Position
- Single Arm – focus on Recovery Arc, from exit to entry
- Single Arm – focus on Catch, from entry to exit
- Kick in Skate and practice Catch Trigger Point
- Switch (whole stroke, slow-motion)
In #1 you are practicing turning your (hip+shoulders) torso as a unit, and turning to distinct angle (breast touching air). You are practicing how to brace in the core and hold that position.
In #2 you are using your kick to make you move steadily down the lane while perfecting your straight head-spine alignment, and then holding your lead arm in ideal position without disrupting your spine alignment. Memorize your best BK Skate Position so that you can immediately find this position one you start practicing with a moving arm.
In #3 you are practicing how to brace your core while lifting the recovery arm out of the water and the weight of it wants to push down on your frame. You hold the hip and shoulder up at an angle, which keeps the shoulder of this recovery arm out of the water while arcing forward. You are practicing how the arm exits the water, arcs in a straight path toward that ideal entry point, pinky first. You are practicing how to rotate this side down only as the recovery arm reaching the entry point, not before.
In #4 you are practicing how to pull and push on the water using your forearm and elbow region as the paddle. You are practicing keeping the shoulder in the scapular plane as it presses back, toward the hip. You are practicing the timing of rotating that catch-side hip upward just as the catch hand reaches the top of the pelvis.
In #5 you are holding BK Skate Position and practicing just the start of the recovery exit and arc on the other side, where the arm lifts about 45 degrees and pauses there – to help establish a feel for the moment when the lead arm should begin the catch. This delay in the catch until the recovery arm is at 45 degrees is to help you synchronize the arm movements so that the timing of rotation required on one side is perfectly coordinated with the timing of opposite rotation on the other side.
In #6 you are practicing how to put the whole stroke cycle of both arms together, in slow motion. Just focus on one point of synchronization at a time.
Freestyle Video Analysis
For the particular concern of your shoulder pain, the main improvement points I saw in the video were:
- Maintain lead arm extension entire time while turning and returning in the breathing action.
- Practice slight hesitation at the set of the catch in order to allow the torso rotation to get going and empower the catch more than the small shoulder muscles do.
- Apply pressure in the catch a bit more gradually. Resist yanking on the ball.
I will send those videos to you later today.
The backstoke is coming along. Once I ditched the heavy fins I was able to keep my torso and legs up toward the surface of the water and stay in relative alignment. That alignment is going to take some work. I’m hereby asking you for more cues. Each session gets better –less crashing into the line lanes–but I want something as tangible as a black line lane.
There are no good visual cues where I swim but I’m not giving up the visual field for guidance yet. Sometimes I use my own nose and sometimes that works. I need to find something similar to your dog toy. I’ll go to the pet supply store tomorrow.
By the forth practice session I remembered to use the water washing over my cap as a directive to relax my neck. Once I relaxed I could feel now and then how smooth and fun the stroke is. The arms stretching and falling to the beat of the hips can be balletic and gorgeous I sense and feel.
I am using the arm at a forty five degree angle to trigger the catch. But I would like to have guidelines for where each of the arms are respective to each other at other times. Could you please tell me?
My shoulder during freestyle is getting less and less painful. It boils down to firing the back muscles and not the shoulder muscles at the start of the catch. That pause there is now a part of my stroke. If I start the pull with the small muscles there is a jolt of pain and then I’m sore for days.
The delicate pull, as opposed to the yanking pull, is changing my whole stoke. It’s the aspect I’m most interested in right now. If I can remain delicate during the pull I tend to be more aware and present for the entire stroke.
One unexpected gift of doing more dry land training than swimming right now — learning scapular stabilization and how to move the lats first, not the small shoulder muscles–is my bow wave is stronger than it’s ever been. I was not shooting for this. But moving from the lats creates a buoyant upper body that cuts through the water just right for the bow wave.
(sorry, I was out camping with my boys for several days)
Backstroke visual cues are harder, of course!
Backstroke Focal Points
For keeping your body going straight down the lane, here are some ideas:
- Tilt the chin up, forehead down – so that water is brushing the tops of your goggles.
- Look forward (up) at an angle in the direction you are going
- Notice any lines on the ceiling, above your lane, that you may track with your eyes
- Notice how you might be able to see a sliver of the edge of the pool or the lane line out of the peripheral view of your goggles – use that to help you keep same distance from that side
Practice one-arm swimming, and work on holding your torpedo frame firm while pressing straight back on the water, so that your body slides forward, in the exact opposite direction. By swimming one-arm, you eliminate zig-zag compensation by the other arm and thereby get the feed back of veering off course when pushing in any other direction other than straight back.
It is the same priority in backstroke as in freestyle – maintain that torpedo frame/spine the whole time. Emphasize what might feel like a slight extension of the back (an arc) to keep your navel near the surface. Tilt the forehead down (forward) to really straighten the spine, though in this straight spine will feel like you are arched. There is such a strong tendency to drop the hips and dip the chin toward the chest.
Breathing will be rhythmic where you exhale with one arm stroke and inhale on the other. I emphasize my forehead down position on the exhale and sometime blow water away from my nose and mouth because it washed over my goggles and face. This is how I know my head is low enough.
Think of your arm cycle as moving parallel to the spine, not pushing nor pulling on the spine. So when you do the recovery swing, swing a straight path from exit to entry point, parallel to spine (not curving over the hips), and on the underwater press, press straight back toward the receding wall.
Freestyle Shoulder
Sounds like you are continuing your studious examination and rehab of the shoulder and stroke. Good job. I think you know the sequence and the feeling of how to set the catch by loading the torso.
Stay patient in retraining the muscle choreography surrounding this ‘set the catch’ moment. And keep me posted.
<h2>Pool Session – October 29</h2>
Today we examined the connection between your catch and your extension arm.
<h4>Drills</h4>- Superman And Reach
- One-Arm Stroke in Skate Position
- Swing Switch with no pauses
- Whole Stroke
I brought up the Ladder Analogy which you may read more about in the Catch Tutorial.
The objective is to anchor the catch arm in one spot in the water, and then slide the body past that point. More specifically, you anchor the catch arm, and then slide into your Skate Position on the other side, reaching forward with that lead arm to its catch point ahead.
<h3>Timing Of The Arm Switch</h3>
There are two dimensions to the ideal arm-switch – the arms must be in a certain position relative to each other, and the switch happens in a certain timing. In your case, since you have good shape and position already, we were going to view this in terms of the position of the entry hand to tell you when you should be triggered to switch the arms, or in other words, to set the catch.You are aiming to have your fingers just pierce the surface as the trigger for other arm to set the catch.
<h4>Timing</h4>
I had you take some strokes where there was too much overlap of the arms, where you waited too long to switch the arms, and were almost in Superman Position before you set the catch. Then I had you try the ideal switch timing. And then I had you take some strokes where the overlap was too little, where you set the catch too soon. Then I had you try the ideal switch timing again. You would do this to set up a clear distinction between ideal and too much and too little. Only in this ideal switch timing is your torso rotation coordinated with the catch so that its force can be fully gathered and transferred to the other side. Too early and you end up pulling with the shoulder and the entry arm is not in position to accept the force generated. Too late and half the torso rotation has happened before the catch even gets going, so again, you end up pulling with mostly shoulder muscles.
<h4>Pressure</h4>
I also had you examine the way you apply pressure to the catch – increase gradually at first and then hold it steady through the rest of the catch/hold phase. Keep ‘contact with the ball’ as you slide your body forward. When stationary in drill mode, it takes a half second for your body to transfer force and begin pushing through the inertia of the still water molecules in front of you. But when in whole stroke mode you are taking strokes frequently enough to build up and conserve some momentum so it does not take as long for you to feel the transfer of force from catch side into the Skate side and feel acceleration.
<h4>Connection Drill</h4>
I had you swim a length with focus only on pull-pull-pull. Then I had you swim with focus only on (lead arm) drive-drive-drive. Then I had you swim feeling the connection between the two, where the catch is an anchor allowing you to slide that lead arm farther forward. That seemed to work well for you.
<h3>Sync The Feet</h3>
Lastly, we quickly examined how to connect the 2BK to the synchronization you are doing in the front.
<h4>Catch-Hip-Foot</h4>
First, imagine an elastic band connecting catch hand to the hip (on same side). As you swim imagine the hip pulling on the elastic band to help pull the catch hand toward it.Then I had you switch to focus on the foot (the twist of the ankle) and the press upward of the hip (on the same side). The foot presses downward to help push the hip upward.
Work on each of those separately, then zoom out with your senses and try to hold all three in focus at the same time, as if the press of the foot is helping your catch feel a bit easier.
<h4>Extension-Hip-Foot</h4>
First, imagine the hip (on the same side) pushing the lead (extending) arm forward down that ladder rail.Then, just like in the catch side, imagine the opposite side foot pressing down in order to push the hip (of the same side as the foot) upward.
Work on each of these separately, then zoom out with your senses and try to hold all three in focus at the same time to feel as if the foot is sending a pulse through the torso and into your extending front arm. The press of the foot travels all the way through you to make you feel like you are able to reach one inch farther.
<h3>ABCD Synchronization</h3>
Now you may better understand the internal sensations you are trying to create when following the ABCD sync points.You are aiming to feel a smoother, and more powerful connection between these parts of the body, working on a pair of them at a time for a while, and then blending three together.
As for connecting the ABCD sync points, while trying not to hurt my shoulder, I’ve found it most useful to begin the stroke cycle, not at the catch, but at the kick. From trying various combinations of starting points, be it the catch, or a hip pull, it’s starting with the kick that prevents me from pulling to early.
I’m drawn to start with the kick because I need a stronger kick. My legs tend to trail behind me and I lapse into rotating the ankles without a flick from the hip flexors that trails down my leg to the toes. Starting with the kick, I feel the hip of the same kick leg side raise, then that hip pulls the shoulder, and then my timing is somewhat delayed in the catch. I don’t pull to soon. And I feel like my legs are more a part of the entire stroke if I begin the stroke at the kick. This is temporary scaffolding, starting with the kick. I will keep playing with where to begin the stroke cycle.
I’m also trying not to “break the ice” because I see/feel I’m over rotating and it’s causing a lot of turbulent rocking that in the end disassociates me from my legs and kick. It’s hard not to be aggressive in my arms and hands. For the next while I’ll be working on the sycn points to bring my entire body, not just my arms and hands, into the stroke.
It’s also interesting to begin the stroke cycle from the catch and see if I can honestly feel a momentum from the catch arm, through my chest, channeling out the other arm. Drilling I can feel it but not so much while swimming.
As for drilling, I thank you for noticing at the last lesson how much I do indeed enjoy drilling. We might not be able to feel what the other feels, but I thank you for noticing that drills feed my being deeply.
And now I want to encourage myself to be fed by swimming.
I plan to come down next Sunday, November 12th, and swim with the group. I took what you wrote on the white board and it’s helped me incorporate 200’s into a session. That’s a stretch and a good one.
As for the state of my shoulder, it’s doing very well, even with increased distance (the 200’s). My approach as of late is nerve gliding from the hand to the shoulder to the neck. And doing yoga that targets the thoracic back at least three times a week, followed by a lying down meditation where I feel my shoulder blades release.
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