by Admin Mediterra | Jun 1, 2020 | Fundamental Skills
Lesson for Integrate Breathing
When we are following a standard freestyle lesson series, in the first two or three lessons we build the Four Essential Features of the freestyle stroke, and then come to Integrate Breathing, which depends on those features.
Below is the outline of the skills, drills and cues, with links to video demonstrations of the drills. The following lists of activities and the lists of cues may contain more items than you experienced in your lesson. The instructor will watch the time and your pace of learning and choose a certain sequence of activities and the few most relevant cues for you to work with.
Integrate Breathing
Skills For Integrated Breathing
1. Position of Head and Lead Arm
2. Timing of Turn
3. Air Management (exhale/inhale)
Drills
These drills are listed, starting with easiest, in order of increasing complexity:
• Standing rehearsal, Turning the Head with arms moving from Balance Position To Streamline Position
• Balance Position to Streamline with Nod
• Balance Position to Streamline with Split The Face
• Balance Position to Streamline with Hooked Fish
• 3 Strokes To Streamline, with Turn to Breath
• 3 Strokes, 3-Part Breathing, 1 Stroke
• Whole Strokes with Nod
• Whole Strokes with 3-Part Breathing
• Multiple strokes – breathing every 4 strokes (breathe to one side on each length)
• Multiple strokes – alternate Interrupted Breathing and Rhythmic Breathing
• Multiple strokes – breathing every 3 strokes (alternate breathing sides)
We may also do some Air Management drills to help with exhale and inhale:
• Standing rehearsal – Bubbles from nose
• Standing rehearsal – Clear The Airways
• Standing rehearsal – Quick Sip of Air
In each drill we may use three stages for developing the head position, starting below the surface and gradually working to a ‘sneaky breathing’ position with half the head still in the water…
First, Nod to the side, both goggles underwater, looking directly at the wall, then quickly turning back to face-down position.
Next, Split The Face, and keep the shishkabob underwater pointing straight ahead. One goggle underwater and one goggle above water. The mouth is half in, half out of the water.
Next, reach the cheek and the lips up to the air. Kiss the air with the lips. You may not attempt to breathe during the first tries of this just to make sure you can touch the air. Then, when you feel more confident that air is there, you may attempt a quick sip of air.
Cues For Position
• Keep head in line with spine
• Tip of the head is underwater
• Turn head on spine axis (shishkabob spine)
• Head remains flat (on pillow) while turned toward air
• Keep extending lead arm while turning/returning the head
• Cheek up, forehead down (you don’t breathe with both goggles out of the water)
• Tilt head down further than you think (your sense of ‘flat’ may not be truly flat)
Cues For Timing Of Turn
• Turn head right with start of the catch
• Turn head right with start of entry (turn away from entry arm)
• Turn a bit faster than torso is turning (but not whiplash)
• Touch the air just long enough for a quick inhale
• Return the head to face-down immediately
• Return the head before recovery arm comes over head
Cues For Air Management
• Steady bubbles from the nose
• Burst of air as mouth touches air, to clear the airway of water
• Emphasize the exhale – body needs to rid of CO2, not need more O2
• Squeeze out with abdominal muscles
• Partial, frequent air exchange (rather than massive, complete empty/fill)
• Quick sip of air
by Admin Mediterra | Jun 1, 2020 | Fundamental Skills
Integrate Breathing Introduction
In order to work on Breathing skills, we have first worked on establishing the Four Essential Features of the freestyle stroke:
1. Build The Frame
2. Form Streamline Shape
3. Generate Forward Momentum
4. Make First Connections
These four features create the foundation upon which you may perform easier breathing.
Previously you learned how to pause the stroke and roll onto your back to breathe in the Interrupted Breathing position. In Integrated Breathing, you turn only half-way, where the here the breath is integrated into the stroke rhythm rather than pausing or disrupting the stroke.
Though absolutely necessary to swim more than a few seconds, breathing is an advanced skill because it is a dependent skill. It is dependent on the foundation features of The Frame, the Streamline Position, and the First Connections. When these features are in place learning to breath rhythmically is much easier. When these are absent breathing will challenging to learn.
Integrated Breathing
There are a lot of little details to making breathing rhythmic and easy – there are so many details it can feel overwhelming to work on all at once. To make it more manageable we’ve arranged them into 3 categories and you work on them in this order of priority, so the skills come together more easily.
Skill Categories for Integrated Breathing
1. Positioning of Head and Lead Arm
2. Timing of Turn
3. Air Management (exhale/inhale)
Positioning
The two main features of Positioning are the head position and the lead arm position.
Head Position
Head position is absolutely critical – the more you trust and lay that head down flat, the easier it is to get the mouth to air. This is counter-intuitive to the land-mammal brain, which urges you to tilt the head up above the surface of the water. But you don’t need the head to be out of the water to breathe – actually you just need the side of the mouth to reach up into the air.
The more of the head you can down in the water, the less you provoke gravity, the less drag created from the act of breathing. And more, by keeping the head down in the water (as seen in the image above) the head pushing through the water creates a bow wave which then creates a trough, or dip in the water right where the mouth is so that you can actually keep the mouth even lower. This is called ‘sneaky breathing’.
However, this is an all-or-nothing situation – if you tilt your head even just a little bit, that removes the bow wave and the trough and then you have to lift the head even higher out of the water to get the mouth clear. In our lessons we work on getting you into that sneaky breathing position. If it is too difficult at first to get into this position, then we’ll help you keep the head low in the water and turn the face farther up, toward the air, rather than tilt the head up.
Characteristics Of Best Head Position
• Head is in line with the spine (no tilt)
• Side of head is laying on the ‘water pillow’
• Half the face is underwater while turned
• The chin and mouth are reaching farther sideways, above the surface
Lead Arm Position
And, while turning to breathe and returning the head to face-down position, the body remains extending in Streamline Position. In particular, you must keep that lead arm extending forward. Again, the land-mammal instinct is to push down on the water with that lead arm in order to push the head up above the surface. The drills are meant to give you the opportunity to resist and override that old instinct.
Timing Of The Turn
The turning of the torso creates the window of opportunity for turning the head to that side to breathe. But that window is much wider than you need. You could turn early in that window of time, in the middle, or later. The best moment to turn is as soon as possible, and come to the surface as soon as possible, and return to face-down position as soon as possible – to take advantage of the moment of the stroke where there is the most acceleration, the most lift.
The later you turn, or the longer you stay, the more problems there will be because later in that window there is no more propulsion, the body is decelerating, the body is dropping lower in the water and the recovery arm is starting to come over the body, increasing the press of gravity on the body.
Characteristics Of Head Turn
• Begin turning right with the start of the catch
• Turn a bit more aggressively than the torso is turning (but not ‘whiplash’!)
• Touch the air with the mouth just long enough to make a quick sip
• Return the head immediately to face-down weightless position
Air Management
In freestyle there is an asymmetric pattern to breathing, which is not normal for humans. There is a long period of time in the non-breathing strokes where you are exhaling, and then a very brief moment where you inhale and refill the lungs.
You need to avoid two extremes:
1. Holding the breath on the non-breathing strokes (no exhale underwater)
2. Massive exhales (or emptying the lungs completely)
Rather, to stay most comfortable, aim for a partial air exchange, using only about 1/3 to 1/2 of your perceived lung volume. Always keep a portion in reserve. The goal is to take smaller but more frequent breaths, so that you could afford to skip one from time to time as interruptions in your access to air is common in pools and open water.
As breathing skill increases, it will feel easier to get to air, and it will be less disruptive to your stroke rhythm so you will feel like you can afford to take breaths more often.
Three Parts Of Breathing
1. Exhale underwater
2. Clear The Airways
3. Quick Sip Of Air
Exhale Underwater
You control the volume through the exhale underwater. When swimming is light to moderate in intensity, you aim for exhaling from the nose only, mouth closed. As intensity increases you may add exhale from the mouth as well.
On the first non-breathing stroke, you may hold the breath for a moment or give the smallest bubbles from the nose. Then as you take the second and third stroke, anticipating the upcoming breathing stroke, you may start to gradually increase the intensity of the exhale, measuring it so that you come to the right volume just as your face breaks the surface to begin inhaling.
Clear The Airway
Let’s use a little technique from our aquatic cousins.
As the face is turning toward the air, right at the moment the nose and mouth are about to break the surface, you compress the diaphragm to send a blast of air out the nose and mouth to push water away from those openings.
This will help the brain feel more comfortable immediately taking an inhale. The compression of the diaphragm will prime the lungs to immediately start pulling air back in without you having to forcefully do it.
Quick Sip Of Air
The time that your face is out of the water is brief and precious. Do not waste any of that time exhaling, since you can do all of that underwater. When the mouth clears the water, everything needs to be ready to inhale immediately.
And, you are aiming to take just a quick sip of air, to top off the lungs… if you’ve carefully exhaled just a partial amount. Then turn the face back down immediately. Do not linger with the face at the surface.
Keep in mind that the farther you turn your mouth away (above) the surface of the water, the farther the head turns, the longer it will take to turn the head up and the longer it will take to get the head back to face-down weightless position. If you need to take a longer inhale, you may turn the face farther up toward the air, and be aware that you may need to pause the stroke briefly to allow for this extra time, without disrupting the stroke overlap once you resume the arm movements.
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
In the second freestyle fundamental lesson we work on building skills for the recovery arm swing and entry, while relying upon the skills for The Frame and Streamline Shape.
This lesson will build the third and fourth of our Four Essential Features of the freestyle stroke.
And, here is the outline of the skills, drills and cues, with links to video demonstrations of the drills. The following lists of activities and the lists of cues may contain more items than you experienced in your lesson. The instructor will watch the time and your pace of learning and choose a certain sequence of activities and the few most relevant focal points for you to work with.
Skills
- Hold stretched, straight, stable Streamline Position
- Wide recovery arm swing
- Elbow leads, moves forward continuously
- Momentum builds parallel to surface
- High Elbow at Entry
- Continuous, fluid motion, from Exit to Entry to Streamline
- Recovery Arm ‘lifts’ off the torso for a moment, almost weightless
Drills
There are three sections to this whole Recovery movement that we need to construct:
- The exit – how the elbow and forearm and hand will leave the water
- The recovery swing – how the shoulder slides and arm swings from back to forward position
- The entry – how the arm is positioned to enter the water, and the pathway it follows to Skate
Recovery Swing and Entry Drills
These drills may be used for Exit, Recovery Swing and Entry skills:
Streamline Swing is where you hold Streamline Position on one side and then practice swinging the recovery arm on the other side, in slow motion. There is no switching of the arms.
2-Arm Slot To Streamline is where you are standing in shallow water, with one arm in entry position, the lead arm in front and that side leg forward. Then you fall forward over your leading leg, as the face touches the water, switch arms, and slide into Skate Position, and slide forward for a couple seconds.
Streamline Switch is where you start in Streamline, swing the recovery arm, then pause just a moment at entry, then switch the arms, slide into Streamline, and repeat on the other side.
In Streamline Switch, once you remove pauses, your stroke is continuous and smooth. Your movements are getting closer and closer to normal-speed, whole stroke swimming. As you gradually speed up the motion of the swing, you may also gradually lift that forearm out of the water (let the hand go wider to gain clearance), up to the point where your fingernails are still brushing the surface.
Cues
Cues for The Exit
- Flick elbow outward (‘elbow nudge your buddy’)
- Swing elbow wide (swing out, not up behind the back)
- Shoulder blade slides, pulling the elbow
- Elbow pulls the hand – hand is hanging below
- Exit The Sleeve (pull forearm and hand out of water as if extracting from a jacket sleeve)
- No splash exit (the arm slips quietly out of the water)
Keep attention on the very moment before the elbow exits the water to begin the recovery swing. Pause there a moment, with arm extended down, alongside the body. Keep the elbow underwater, tucked against the waist, in order to override the instinct that pulls the elbow up in the air, behind your back. At the end of the underwater pull, as the elbow arrives beside the waist, that is the moment it needs to swing out wide from the side of the body rather than going high behind it. Once you set the elbow on the correct path, it will be much easier to keep it going in the right way, swinging wide beside the torso.
It is so important that you start the recovery swing in the best way, right from the exit moment. This sets the stage for the rest of the swing. If there is an error in how your arm exits the water, it will create error through the entire recovery swing. Be patient to get this exit moment down well.
Cues for Recovery Swing
- Open the Gate
- Swing hand a bit wider (create equilateral triangle shape)
- Relaxed forearm and hand (‘rag doll arm’)
- Drag the knuckles (until the last moment, then swing hand forward)
- Push the Dot forward (dot on the elbow bone)
- Swing, then slide the shoulder blade all the way
- Elbow reaches shoulder line before wrist
- Keep fingertips in contact with surface (a.k.a. ‘dragonfly fingertips’)
You may start practicing the recovery swing slowly, like a robot, which will keep your torso deep and the recovery arm mostly underwater in drill mode. But eventually, as the precise movement pattern becomes more familiar, more comfortable, you must speed up the motion so that it is fluid and fast enough to feel like the arm is truly swinging, light-weight, lifting off the torso for a moment.
Cues for The Entry
- Elbow swings forward in front of the head as far as comfortable
- Elbow high above ear (like a tent over the head)
- Feel the stretch in the back as you reach entry position
- Feel BOTH shoulders slide toward the ears, bracing the upper spine
- Forearm aiming straight ahead on track
- Forearm angling down steeply (45 degrees)
- Hand entry position across from opposite (lead arm) elbow)
- Rotation slides the arm in and forward
- Ski jump shape entry path – Slide down to target depth and then extend forward
- Spear wrist through your target
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.
by Admin Mediterra | Jun 1, 2020 | Fundamental Skills
Forward Momentum Introduction
This introduction refers to the third of our Four Essential Features of the freestyle stroke: Generate Forward Momentum.
The Recovery Swing
In traditional swimming and land-mammal thinking, the main action of the stroke is pull-pull-pull back on the water with the arms. It is not so important how the arms get forward to get back into position to pull again. But understand that the recovery and entry and slide into Streamline Position is the most important moment of the whole stroke because this is where you deliver force into the most effective place to make your body accelerate forward.
So it is extremely important to bring the arm forward in a certain way to create this acceleration effect.
Imagine how a baseball pitcher winds up and swings his torso and arm in a special choreography in order to throw a ball extremely fast with great precision in a certain direction. His rotation and arm swing generate a wave of force that travels down his arm and reaches the fingers at the moment he’s ready to release the ball. The ball receives that waves of force and shoots forward out of his hand and toward the target.
So too, you are using the carefully shaped and directed swing of your arm and the torso rotation (at entry moment) to send a wave of force down your arm as that arm enters and extends under the water, in the direction you are traveling. Whereas the baseball pitcher delivers force into the ball and then the ball travels away, in the case of swimming your body is the projectile. This wave of force drives into the water molecules ahead of you and gets them moving out of the way so that your body can occupy that space ahead. That is how you move forward.
The primary purpose of the whole stroke is about generating force that flows through the body and into that streamline shape, in order to part a path through the water ahead of you. The shape, motion and direction of that recovery swing is the start of this action. How you swing that arm, and direct it into the water have a tremendous effect on how well your body moves forward, at what energy cost. You must create a wave of force in the direction you intend to travel.
The ‘wind up’ or delivery of that force-forward in the forward direction requires the recovery arm to come forward in a particular manner. The shoulder slides and arm swings in such a way that they move parallel to the spine, never pulling or pushing it. That arm lifted up into the air draws gravity, and it builds momentum as it swings its weight.
At the entry moment, that force of gravity pulling downward is used to pull the arm and the high side of the body back down into the water, and the forward momentum is channeled into that arm extend forward underwater, parting water molecules. The whole body then slides behind that extending lead arm.
This is the ‘wind up’ for delivering force forward, into the water to cut a path ahead. The body slides into Streamline Position as the wave of momentum travels through it, sliding it forward, until the other arm is ready to enter on the other side, repeating the same process again.
Overall, we want to create three main features in the Recovery swing movement:
1. The shoulder joint ‘opens up’, sliding parallel to the spine, to swing freely, with the least tension or internal resistance.
2. The elbow leads the way, fingers hanging below, barely brushing the surface.
3. The swing of the arm builds momentum in the forward direction, no other direction.
4. The swing of the arm is fluid, almost weightless feeling
In this video you can observe the characteristics we’re trying to achieve in at normal stroke rates.
by Admin Mediterra | Jun 1, 2020 | Fundamental Skills
Skills To Develop
- To maintain balance skills and…
- Hold long, straight, firm Streamline, from fingers to ankle
- Hold low, stable rotation angle
You want to feel long, straight, sleek and stable at a low-rotation angle in Streamline Position. Along with the sensations from Balance skills, you want to see that you can slide parallel to the line on the bottom of the pool and to slide farther, more easily, the more streamlined and stable your body is. Sliding in Streamline for 6 seconds with these positive feedback signs is a good goal to work towards.
Practice Set
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.
- 4x on each side Balance Position To Streamline for 6 seconds (time of comfortable breath hold)
- 4 rounds of starting in Balance Position for 1 second, then Streamline Position for 2 seconds, then take 4 strokes
- 4 rounds of ‘6 whole strokes’ holding the same focal point (no breathing)
- 2 rounds of ‘4x whole strokes, Interrupted Breathing, 4x whole strokes’
- 2 rounds of 2x length of pool, whole strokes with interrupted breathing
by Admin Mediterra | Jun 1, 2020 | Fundamental Skills
In the first freestyle fundamental lesson we work on Forming Streamline Shape.
This lesson will help you establish the second of our Four Essential Features of the freestyle stroke which encompass lengthening, balance and streamline skills.
Below is the outline of the drills and attention cues, with links to video demonstrations of the drills. The following lists of activities and the lists of cues may contain more items than you experienced in your lesson. The instructor will watch the time and your pace of learning and choose a certain sequence of activities and the few most relevant cues for you to work with.
Skills
- To maintain Build The Frame skills and…
- Hold long, straight, firm Streamline, from fingers to ankle
- Hold low, stable rotation angle
You want to feel long, straight, sleek and stable at a low-rotation angle in Streamline Position. Along with the sensations from Build The Frame skills, you want to see that you can slide parallel to the line on the bottom of the pool and slide farther, more easily, the more streamlined and stable your body is. Sliding in Streamline for 6 seconds with these positive feedback signs is a good goal to work towards.
Drills
Cues
To help you pay attention, interpret, and send commands to particular parts of your body your instructor gave you a selection of cues in each drill. There are more cues on the lists below than you were given in your lesson, as the instructor chose a few to get you going, without overwhelming you with too many details. You may be able to figure out the meaning of the others you were not originally exposed to.
- Cues for Scapula Slide Position and…
- Scapula of lead arm stays slide forward
- Lead Arm stays on Wide Track
- Head Stays Anchored (it does not turn with torso)
- Back hand tucked deep into pocket (keep arm underwater)
- Low Rotation Angle (rotate just off your stomach)
- Upper shoulder blade touches the air
- Lower shoulder blade just below the surface
- Light flutter of the feet (if necessary to prolong time in drill)
by Admin Mediterra | Jun 1, 2020 | Fundamental Skills
Form Streamline Shape Introduction
This introduction refers to the second of our Four Essential Features of the freestyle stroke: Form Streamline Shape.
The Streamline Position
Streamline Position is the start and the finish position for every stroke in freestyle. This position is the most hydrodynamic (low drag) shape you will be in during the stroke cycle, and the moment you will experience the most forward movement. Streamline Position is how you deliver the flow of force through the body into forward motion. In this position, your body line most easily parts water molecules ahead so that your body can occupy that space instead. The more smoothly, the more uniformly and therefore the more quickly those water molecules move out of the way, the faster you will travel forward.
Streamline Position is the most important skill of all because it is determines much of how well you convert effort into forward motion and it is the platform on which you swing the recovery arm forward and the platform on which you take an easier rhythmic breath. You cannot practice Streamline Position too much because there are so many ways to make it better, stronger, more stable.
Imagine how a speed skater places her weight confidently on the skate and transfers the wave of momentum into that skate to accelerate forward. That skate blade is long, straight, sharp, and stable. It receives the wave of force and conducts it onto the ice and the skater slides forward. The skater is holds herself with stability on that single skate, over one side of the body, while drawing the other leg forward, getting ready to unleash another wave of force into the other skate on the other side. Stability in this position is crucial to maintaining rhythm and momentum.
The Streamline Position has some lessons we can learn from this action in ice skating. At this moment in the water, you are shaped into your most streamline position, holding a slightly rotated angle, while leaning (laying your weight) onto that streamline side of the body. That streamline side of the body receives the wave of force you generated in the stroke and conducts it forward into the lead arm and leading edges of the body to put that force to work parting water molecules ahead. You hold this position with stability that comes from core muscle strength and control, while the other side of the body brings up the recovery arm to prepare to unleash another wave of force into the Streamline Position on the other side.
A good streamline position is:
• slightly rotated (about 30 degrees)
• a straight line from wrist to ankle (as seen from above)
• stretched (without twisting or tilting the spine) from wrist to ankle, especially from shoulder to hip
• stable for at least 2 seconds
In your lesson you will learn how to form this streamline shape and learn how to hold it with stability for a few seconds, long enough to be able to swing your recovery arm forward in a relaxed and controlled way.
This position is critical – everything else you do in the stroke will depend on your ability to slip into the position immediately and hold it steady while other actions are taking place.
by Admin Mediterra | Jun 1, 2020 | Fundamental Skills
Build The Frame Introduction
This introduction refers to the first of our Four Essential Features of the freestyle stroke: Build The Frame.
The first skills we work on is to lengthen the body line, and establish better balance, from front-to-back and from side-to-side (lateral balance) with the support of water beneath.
Lengthen The Body Line
Like building the frame of a long, lean sea kayak, we need to lay the body out on the surface of the water and lengthen it along the spine. This lengthening of the body triggers a response inside the body to stabilize the spine, pelvis and legs, forming one long fuselage.
This lengthening you want to create is meant to put the spine into a neutral position, to stretch it out and stabilize it comfortably. Your body should feel straight and tall, but not strained to hold this position.
Balance
Balance refers to keeping the body parallel to the surface, in the ‘neutral corridor’, or the ‘neutral zone’ between gravity pushing down and water pressure pushing up. This is the corridor where you can swim along without having to waste energy fighting against those two natural forces.
The human body will rest in water like an iceberg. When at rest between gravity and water pressure, approximately 95% of your body will be submerged, give-or-take depending on your body composition. You choose which 5% of your mass gets to stick above the surface. Unfortunately, the head makes up about 10% of body mass and so if you insist on keeping it up, above the neutral zone like a good land-mammal, gravity will shove some other part of your body deeper, triggering a sinking sensation detected by your brain which raises your heart rate, and requires you to start pushing down in order to hold too much of your body mass too high. Your sense of effort will go way up. So, you will practice keeping the head down in the water, where it can fully rest on the water as if on a pillow. A body at rest in the neutral corridor, parallel to the surface, will have just a sliver of the back of the head, the back of the shoulder, and perhaps a side of the hip touching the air.
Using the drills and cues, you work on keeping your body’s frame parallel to the surface by shifting weight forward through that frame. You let the weight of the head and the weight of the arms be heavy, letting them rest fully supported by the water, rather than hold them up. You use the internal tension of your muscles, tendons and fascia to lever your long body line body like a teeter-totter board, pivoting over the buoyant lungs, to shift weight forward, making the upper half of the body feel heavier, and the lower half feel lighter. This will be especially important and appreciated by those who have sinking hips and legs.
Like a torpedo, think of your body line like a long, firm, sleek, weight (more evenly) balanced from rear to front. Think of the body traveling parallel to the surface and just below it.
Build The Frame
Let us use a couple analogies here to make the point…
First, imagine a long, straight, firm torpedo. The torpedo is very straight, very solid, and aims straight for the target with no deviations up/down, side-to-side. The force from the motor in the rear is transmitted along the torpedo frame, into the water-cutting edge in front.
This is what you want your spine, from tip of your head, the your tail, and even down the imaginary line between your ankles, to look and feel like. The tip of your head, where the spine would project if it were continued on a laser line, is the tip of your torpedo. Aim that tip underwater, down the lane in the direction you are traveling.
This means your eyes will be looking straight down at the bottom of the pool, not forward, not even a little bit.
Your shoulders and your hips will be locked together, forming a single, solid torso unit. When the torso rotates, the shoulders and hips rotate together as one unit. And, when the torso rotates, the head remains anchored, not turning. The torso turns around the stationary head.
This alignment and and this firm connection along the spine means less stress and more protection for the neck and spine. For anyone who has had neck or back problems, this is good news.
And, now imagine a long, sleek, firm wooden kayak frame. Once wrapped with a tight covering, that internal frame provides two services to the vessel:
1. The water can push up and support the entire vessel evenly.
2. The frame can receive and transmit the force the paddler creates with each stroke of the paddle.
By simply putting your body into a certain shape and then holding that shape firmly, continuously, the water can more easily support your entire body at or near the surface, and when you apply propulsive force, the body can transmit that to the water-splitting edges in front.
If the body is not fully firm, then the water presses up against the body less uniformly. The buoyancy in the upper half of the body cannot lend its buoyancy to the lower half.
If the body is not fully firm, then when you sends a wave of force into it from the stroke, the body absorbs that wave rather than transmit it to the front, where it can be put to work parting water ahead.
This frame alone may not be enough to bring the lower part of the body up to the surface and hold it there perfectly, but it will make it a lot easier, once you add the other three features and some forward motion.
Our very first drills in the freestyle lesson series are going to help you build this frame and learn how to use it to keep the body parallel to the surface (perhaps a bit longer than you could otherwise), and to transmit forces through your body more effectively.
by Admin Mediterra | Jun 1, 2020 | Fundamental Skills
There are many skills that need to be in place for the freestyle stroke to work well and feel good. We have organized them into what we call the Four Fundamental Features of the Freestyle Stroke. They are listed in their order of priority, in the order they are best learned. The first skills in place set the stage for the second, and so on.
When these four features are in place, working together, you are in position to experience the ‘magic’ of a smooth, rhythmic stroke. If one of these features are missing, or far less developed than the other features, then you may not be able to tap into that satisfying stroke motion so easily.
Here are the four features in your stroke:
- Build the Frame
- Form Streamline Shape
- Generate Forward Momentum
- Make First Connections
Over the course of our lesson series we work through each of these, making sure you have the essential features in place.
With these four features in place, you are set up for much easier breathing and so the lesson on Integrated Breathing typically comes after you have been introduced to and worked on these features.
In our first session, we typically work through the first two lessons on this list: Build The Frame and Form Streamline Shape. In the second session we typically work on Generate Forward Momentum. In the third session we would work on Make First Connections. In the third and/or fourth lesson we focus on Integrated Breathing, while going back over and reinforcing the four fundamental skills.
Build The Frame
Just as a boat or a plane, or any vessel has an internal frame, you also need an internal frame to interact with the forces of nature and to transfer the forces you generate into effective forward motion.
Upon this frame you can establish much better balance and stability in the water, so that your body remains more easily, if not effortlessly, parallel to the surface of the water.
Through this frame you can transmit forces forward smoothly, efficiently, without absorbing or dispersing that force in useless directions.
Form Streamline Shape
Power is important in swimming, but because water is 740x denser than air, maintaining good shape is far more important than power.
The human land-mammal body is not designed for hydrodynamic motion in water, but we can make it much better through lining up the body line into its ideal asymmetric rotated streamline position. You will learn to find this ideal position on each stroke and hold it while the other side of the body is completing the recovery swing. In this position you will most easily transmit force into forward motion and travel the farthest.
Generate Forward Momentum
The return of the arm from rear to front is actually the beginning of your acceleration forward. When well shaped, sent on a particular pathway and held with relatively relaxed muscle tone, this arm motion contributes greatly to your forward motion and overall stability in the water. The arm is attached to the torso and its major muscles through the scapula and its supporting tissues and the way this arm moves determines how well you can tap into the power of the torso for the slide forward as well as for setting up a more powerful (and safe) catch in the moment ahead.
Make First Connections
And this final feature is where you learn to connect the action of the two arms, through their scapula, to the power of the torso rotation, for one smooth coordinated action of both sides of the body together.
This is a preview of the thrilling synchronization lessons to come later in Freestyle Advanced!
