Sports Science Topic

For me, I think I've been going through a transition in my own coaching due to "the suits". For many years, I've worked on focusing the athletes I work with on developing a better body position, trying to lead toward a couple points. First, limiting resistance created by poor body position, which then hopefully made whatever propulsion means they already had more effective. Secondly, by positioning their body in a way that allowed for a more powerful connection with the water, wether that be more rotation (or less depending on the athlete), or a deeper press (or less).

Depending on the athlete's level, and how adept they already are at utilizing their bodies, I've started to focus more on force production. However, I may have to revert. The reason I started this transition in my own coaching was mainly due to the suits. With the new suits, the body tends to be able to remain in a better position for a longer period of time, almost taking care of many of the body positioning problems we would spend so much time working on. If that is taken care of, we can really focus more attention on connecting with the water to move forward more rapidly.

Of course, if the suits are banned, or changed, then I'll probably have to change back... but only time will tell.

With our younger swimmers I concentrate more on body position on the long axis strokes and more on arm movement or pulling on the short axis strokes. I agree with Glenn that if you have a good body position you are then able to achieve better anchoring points and also limit resistance. However, discussing the topic of anchoring points with a 10 year old is at best difficult. But high school age swimmers can comprehend the concept of anchoring points and then combine that with utilization of large muscle groups for increased efficency.

I can't believe my eyes...Glenn is backing off from FORCE!!!
Having said that in my personal expreience I have found that it is almost imposible to separate the balancing, posturing and anchoring act from the propulsion one and in fact this happens to be one of the most difficult things to "feel".
One thing is to balance, posture and anchor ones body at a relaxed pace...but the moment you start to kick harder and/or more rapidly and yes "pulling" harder you need to rebalance, repostur and reanchor yourself...I have to press more into the water at higher velocities...so I try to keep it simple as Mr. Greg Rohdenbaugh says...in swimming the most propulsion and the least resistance is what we are going for.

I tend to keep the body position and pull separate when going over them. I do however try to communicate the connections when I see one aspect affecting the other. I feel that anchoring positions causes the swimmer to not apply power during the pull where focusing on the hand/forearm unit allows them to apply more power while thinking, which isn't easy to do to begin with imo.

I don't like the term anchoring since that sounds like they are not pulling at all just getting into positions like they are posing for a picture.

However I do think that there needs to be a form of communication to communicate the connection between where the body is and how the rotation and such affects the arm pull, but I tend to adapt what I do with the swimmer to the situation. I try to stay away from only teaching one way of thinking about techniques.

Mr. Skinner...I started swimming completely convinced that the proper way to swim is the one you have just described...but now almost every coach puts the enphasis on "PUSHING WATER BACK"...so do we pull or do we pass our body by the anchoring point?

Hah, just noticed that article was written by you. Very interesting. I don't quite understand the drill and the article and your post bring me to ?????'s.

What is this torque or rotational power that we are getting from the rotation of the body (it seems we are imagining the body rotating about a skewer from head to toe down the center). How is that translated into any form of efficiency or power in the pull or backward motion of the arm or 2nd class lever rotation about the ball and socket shoulder joint of the humerous bone (the lever I suppose). The angular momentum seems to be directly related to the torque which I already don't understand how it helps...

Any light on the subject would help tremendously. Aside from all my confusion of rotational power and levers(where is the 2nd class lever vs the first/what is the fulcrum?) I do understand that the closer the parts of your arm are to your shoulder, the less muscular force will be needed to cause your lever arm to rotate about the shoulder.

I am certainly not the best at dynamic mechanics, but it is probably something simple I'm missing.

Billy

I could spend 10 min with you on deck and teach this to you in a very simple manner. Trying to do this via the written word is a lot more complicated.

In 2008 I engaged in an E-mail debate with a scientist as to the use of core stability and body connectivity in freestyle. He was a “puller & pusher” so to speak, and I am an “anchor and thrower”. In all honesty, both work and both have been proven successful. However I might debate the point that the pull/push concept has been successful because it has dominated the landscape with regards to being the technique of choice for many decades. In the early 90s Bill Boomer introduced the concept of 1st class leverage to coaches, and those who bought into and understood the concept saw it as a far more efficient way to produce power in freestyle. At the time I had never been a huge fan of Bernoulli’s principle with regards to propulsion in swimming, and Bill’s concepts were another nail in that coffin. All the early science that looked at propulsion used a hand and forearm the size of King Kong to develop the lift/drag resultant force concepts. Nothing at that time looked at the entire body as one unit all engaged in the process of producing propulsion.

In debating the scientist, I used this analogy. The body is essentially a vessel or platform that you are propelling through the water. You can choose to do this via pulling and pushing off an anchor point with the elbow or shoulder as the fulcrum point of the lever, or you can connect that anchoring point to the core (just below the belly button), and then use angular momentum and body rotation to propel the body past that point to the next anchoring point. The way to do this is by understanding that the vessel or platform has to have a certain level of tension/rigidity or tone in order to reduce drag and be able to connect the left side to the right side. What that means is, that a swimmer has to connect the head, torso, hips and legs into a connected unit that works in harmony. To understand this I have always described these options. You can swim with a body that resembles a nerf noodle, a body that resembles a stiff garden hose, or a body that resembles a broom stick. I use those three because they’re common objects, and it doesn’t take much to imagine how each might react to certain pressures, or move through the water.

First lets look at all three in relation to active or passive drag.
We all know that the broomstick has a very high level of rigidity, travels effortlessly through the water, and creates the least amount of drag. A fairly stiff garden hose would be less rigid, would bend a little, but still carry many of the same qualities with regards to drag. A nerf noodle however would be very slack, bend and break a lot at the joints of the body, and create a lot of drag.
Next lets look at the concept of connecting the left to the right side, or the ability to produce a torque like force. (angular momentum)
If I grip the broomstick with both hands, and then rotate one hand clockwise, the effect of that rotation puts pressure on the opposite hand. This happens because the object is rigid, and by being connected the force is transferred. If I took a stiff garden hose, and did the same thing, I wouldn’t transfer as much force because the garden hose is less rigid, but I would still create a significant amount of torque in the hand that didn’t move. If I did this with a nerf noodle, I could twist the right hand all I wanted, and it would have no effect on the left hand because there is a lack of rigidity in the nerf noodle.

So having said all of that. Is it realistic that a swimmer can create a vessel or platform that resembles a broomstick. Quite possibly, but they might resemble someone in serious need of a restroom and pretty much tensing their whole body to avoid suffering a huge social gaffe. Running around with a very stiff legged gait and struggling to look normal. I use that colorful description because a person in that dire state uses their stomach muscles to clamp down on the offending areas. So although this action might produce rigidity or body tone as I call it, it isn’t very functional… well unless you’re trampling grannies to get to the loo.
Is a stiff garden hose more realistic? In my mind it is. It is flexible enough to set anchors, create angular momentum, and do all of that without restricting the fluidity of the muscles. You’ll make the core the source of power, and you will involve the major muscle groups in the action.
Is a nerf noodle the way to go?… sure you can pull and push your way forward, but your power base will be limited to the shoulders and arms, and you won’t involve the major muscle groups in the action.

Before the body suit evolved into the current body connecting, body floating device that’s changed this sport forever, most swimmers in the world swam like nerf noodles. Today, you can put on a new suit, have no concept of the garden hose option, and be right in the thick of it with zero training to effect that option. So with the new suits producing rigidity via compression… swimmers are gaining velocity without even training for it… without even understanding what it does for them. They are one step away from producing angular momentum and being the astute athletes they are (at the elite level) they know instinctively that by anchoring they can create efficient and effective power. The term efficient is important, because as we know, the difference the suits make is more on the back end of races than the front end, and using the major muscles groups in a connected and fluid manner has a lower metabolic cost (anecdotal thought) than the pre suit option.

So in a round-a-bout way I hope I have helped you see that by swimming with your body in a connected way that produces a fairly rigid platform, that you can connect the anchoring point to the opposite side of the body, and by rotating, and throwing the opposite side forward with the arms, or down with the hips, you can create enough pressure on the anchor to let the body slide by that anchoring point.

It would be best if you took a broomstick, a garden hose & a nerf noodle and tried the hand rotation thing to get a sense of what I’ve said… then take the broomstick and place your arms very wide, and then “swim like you’re paddling a kayak” to take connecting the left and right sides into the water… once again, make sure you have rules in place to avoid some ugly collateral damage.

I hope this helps.
Ps Tomas... you need to get back to being a garden hose… just my 2 cents.

Suppose I have gone off topic of the original question, maybe still on the edge of the topic hah.
So I don't think that quite hit it home on the rotational thing.

The rigidity is very understandable since a floppy noodle body acts more like damper to the power you apply during the pull. I suppose this rigidity could also be maximized when the hips are in more of a line with the shoulders, making the body in a more natural aligned position with the most strength and therefore rigidity.

I agree 100% with the compression giving people the improved rigidity, I also think that it is helping to teach them just how important it is, which is why sub elite level swimmers are probably seeing more improvement than the top guys.

I'll try and get some video this weekend and play around with the broom stick and ponder the angular momentum.

I can put together an image of Ryan Lochte, Aaron, and Popov's techniques where their body stays on the same plane through most of the pull and they display a very rigid body until maybe the final portion of the press phase and then the shoulders are tending to rotate independent of the hips to some degree and connect again at the next catch, or anchor point as you refer to it maybe? Is this a good way to imagine the anchor point concept. Sort of turning your body into the hose for a transition to the next stroke and "anchoring" or solidifying your body from the catch to just before the finish of the push phase?

I think I'm getting this lingo! All that is left is the angular momentum. I considered creating a wiki website to help explain these concepts. I am always left thinking that these concepts are more dynamic than they seem.

Real quick... if you take a ball and throw it in the air using an arm action that starts at your side with your hand next to you hip, and then follows the plane of the body upwards (kinda like fly recovery), you'd get it to a certain height. If you used your opposite arm to swing down in the same plane but in the opposite direction you'd gain more height out of your throw, you'd be using angular momentum. Kinda like a fast bowler in the sport of cricket, or a pitcher in baseball... that cricket comment shows my commonwealth roots... hopefully it helps those who know that sport more than baseball.

hey tomas you saying "swimming the most propulsion and the least resistance is what we are going for" sound right but its not easy to master this - I have try my hardest but its seems someone who swim for years and still very young like Phelps, Rice, Capell can do this so easily - i am so jealous at moment

As a coach, I always try to get my athletes to think in terms of total body efficiency while swimming. Although, pulling and kicking is very important in swimming just thinking in these terms limits the effectiveness of training for any of the four competitive strokes.
I often, explain to my athletes that thinking of swimming as just kicking and pulling through the water is an inefficient way of training. Body position, along with kicking, and the anchoring of the hands and arms in relation to forward propulsions enables a swimmer to maximize his/her effort in training and Swimming, while utilizing all of the body, in the pursuit of speed in the water.
Case in point, I have a swimmer in my program who is naturally gifted in stroke development in the back, breast and freestyle, however, when it came to swimming the butterfly stroke she was unable to keep her forward propulsion going and thus lost speed and form while training and competing.
As, I studied her stroke I noticed that she kept losing her timing while swimming the stroke, after each swim she would often say her lower back muscles hurt or spasm during training or competition. Her lack of abdominal strength was directly related to her problems while swimming the fly. Once she increased her core strength routine she dramatically improved her stroke technique and speed. Consequently, she also increased her efficiency in her other strokes as well.
So yes, I am a strong proponent of total body position and body pattern of movement relative to anchoring points and total core strength. It’s just as important as training all the energy system to maximize swimmers efficiency while training and racing.
Coach Tarzan