by Admin Mediterra | Jun 1, 2020 | Fundamental Skills
Practice Set for Make First Connections
Skills To Build
• To maintain recovery swing skills and…
• Have the entry arm be pulled in by gravity
• Connect the entry and torso rotation
• Have the entry arm slide in without a splash, no waves
• Have Lead Arm hold extended position until Entry
• Slide into your best Streamline Position
Practice Set for Make First Connections
Choose 2 or 3 of the cues from the lesson to work on today.
Then, for each cue, work through these activities, as far as you can go successfully. Take one cue and work through the list. Then take the next cue and work through the list again, and so on.
• 4 to 6x, for each side, Standing Entry To Streamline
• 4 to 6x, for each side, Streamline Swing to Balance Position for 6 seconds (time of comfortable breath hold)
• 4 rounds of ‘4 to 6x Streamline Switch with pauses’
• 4 rounds of ‘4 to 6x Streamline Switch without pauses’
• 4 rounds of gradually faster swing, gradually bring forearm out of the water
• 4 rounds of ‘6 to 8x whole strokes’ holding the same cue (no breathing)
• 2 rounds of ‘4x whole strokes, Interrupted Breathing, 4x whole strokes’
by Admin Mediterra | Jun 1, 2020 | Fundamental Skills
Using Rotation Power
The human body is designed to use rotational force to empower many movements: walking, running, throwing, kicking, punching, rolling, and swimming too. The spine creates an axis from top to bottom which the mass of the body rotates around. The rotating body, with appendages attached can generate a lot of force in a rhythmic manner, which increases efficiency and endurance of movement. A single rotation of the body creates the wave of force which travels down one of the appendages to reach the point where it can do some work like throwing or kicking a ball, or swinging the leg forward in running. The arm or leg receives and directs more force from the rotation than it could generate on its own. The torso has mass and it has the prime mover muscles which can do the main work of swimming for longer periods of time. The arm muscles are put to work directing this rotation force. When the arms are in this cooperative role with the body’s rotation they can tolerate work a lot longer than if they were trying to work independent of it.
Ideally in swimming freestyle, you will use the rotation to empower both the entry/extending lead arm as well as the catch and hold on the other side of the body. In order for the single rotation to empower both of those actions at the same time, those two need to happen at the same time, with rotation. When the catch and hold is connected to the rotation it generates force that is taken into the torso. When the entry and extension is connected to the rotation at the same time it receives this force and directs it into the streamline shape where it is converted into forward motion.
The problem is that humans are not natural swimmers and the body is not shaped ideally for it. The land-mammal instinct in water is to pull and push with the appendages and not use the rotation power of the torso rotation in a coordinated way. This instinct almost always disconnects the catch and pull arm from the torso rotation, and because of this humans, even many elite swimmers, tend to be shoulder-powered swimmers more than torso powered.
Why? They are not timing both arms to move with the torso. The rotation will wait for the entry arm, because it’s rotated position is holding that arm above the surface of the water. The untrained human swimmer, meanwhile, will impatiently pull with the lead arm before the body is ready to rotate (because its still waiting for the recovery arm to come forward!). When they do this, they are pulling without the empowerment of the rotation and so that arm has to pull against the water using the smaller, more quickly tiring shoulder muscles.
It is possible to swim fast and far without using the rotation to empower the catch and hold, but it is very tiring, and greatly increases the risk of shoulder injuries.
There is only one moment where the two actions – the entry/extension on one side and the catch/pull on the other side – can be synchronized to tap into the torso rotation at the same time. Right here…
The Ideal Position
The lead arm must wait (rather, it must keep extending forward) until the recovery arm has come all the way forward into entry position. Only then can the two sides be empowered by the rotation. There is a little room for adjustment on this depending on how fast and intense you are swimming – it could be slightly sooner or slightly later – but this is approximately where the arms need to be when the body starts to rotate.
If you set the catch too soon, then the shoulder muscles are taking the entire load. If you do this, once moving through the catch phase without that initial connection to the rotation, you cannot connect to its power later in that phase. You’ve lost the opportunity. In most untrained swimmers observed, most of the catch phase will be finished before the body even starts rotating. If you set the catch too late (as if coming back into Balance Position before setting the catch), then the body has finished the best part of its rotation and not much rotation is left to empower the catch phase. Most untrained swimmers fall into the former category. Some swimmers who were given some clue about this may end up exaggerating it and falling into the latter category. Both need to be brought closer to the optimal arm switch timing.
The rotation-empowered stroke requires what is called asymmetric stroke timing or in other words, overlapping the arms in front of the head before they switch. This general concept is also known as ‘front-quadrant swimming’ but that is a vague term which can mean different things to different swimmers. This asymmetric stroke timing does not come instinctively, but once you take the time to train this into the stroke choreography it opens up a great deal more control over energy and pace. Once you can control the connection of the arms to the rotation, you can begin to control your stroke length, which is the foundation of building speed.
You may view this video to see the optimal arm switch timing applied to this stroke at 1.03 second tempo.
Without focusing on it directly, the drills for the Recovery Swing also set up the critical timing of the arm switch. As you were doing in the drills, your streamline side of the body remain long, firm, and the lead arm should continue extending forward, until the recovery hand arrives at the entry position. This is the best switch moment. Switch a little too early or a little too late and you lose the effect.
You may notice the feeling of acceleration on each stroke when you shaped the entry and timed the arm switch like this. This is exactly the magic we are looking for as these pieces come together!
Memorize this entry position and timing (in the picture above). This is where your recovery arm should be when you set the catch on the lead arm. That lead arm needs to learn to keep extending forward until the other arm reaches this position.
This will get you very close to tapping into the longer lasting muscles of the torso. However, just because the arms are timing with the rotation does not mean they are tapping into that muscle power as much as they could be. Deeper perception of fine timing and muscle activation is required. During the lesson we will look for this connection and help you begin to feel it. Yet, this touches on skills you will study more thoroughly in Freestyle Advanced and after that, the Master Class Synchronization.
