Sports Science Topic - June 9, 2009

Please activate the Gallop link.....I'm very curious....

Jonty...2 days ago I tried something very similar to what you are describing. It didn't work for me because I was unable to control a fairly "noticeable" up and down movement which in turn altered my normal breathing pattern.

Haven't thought about it much yet, but the evidence STRONGLY suggests that it most certainly is linked to the favorable side of breathing.

Alright now putting some thought into this.

One advantage I am seeing is that an arm is fully stretched out when the breath is taken in the gallop style. Instead of dropping down into the catch right away as the breath is taken. This can potentially reduce how fast/much the body sinks when the breath is taken. Also, I can see that gallop swimmers are lifting their torso up for the breath, probably rebalancing the body momentarily for the breath, which will reduce the frontal resistance momentarily when combined with the reduced sinking rate from the extended arm (this would all be relative to a continuous freestyle arm action).

Another big deal is that the hips rotate MUCH more to the non breathing side. During the breathing side arm pull the hips and legs are riding higher on the water.

I do not quite understand the usefulness of having more hip rotation and how it affects the pulling power output(propulsion), but I'm sure Jonty will have something to say about that part!

Is Phelps a gallop swimmer ? Is gallop swimming linked to breathing each 2-stroke ? (sorry for my english)
Otherwise it would be interesting to look at a video, or to create a drill to experiment ourselves gallop !

There have been a number of people through the years who have used this hybrid technique and in many cases they have been successful swimmers. Does that mean that everyone should employ this kind of technique? NO. The biggest mistake you can make in this world is thinking that because someone is the world record holder, that you should copy exactly what they do. The reality is that everyone is different, and although there are certain staples that are intrinsic to every stroke, all athletes should let themselves explore and find what works best for them. If you have all the exact dimensions as Michael Phelps, then maybe so, but as I said everyone is built differently, and so what works for one doesn’t always work for another. Having said that, what are the strengths and weaknesses of this technique?

The strengths:
1. You employ a power based technique on one side, and an endurance based technique on the other.
2. This means that you’re stressing the body in a certain way once every cycle versus every stroke.
3. You incorporate different combinations of muscle groups to perform each separate technique, and as such can more than likely sustain this combination at a higher intensity, for a longer period of time.
4. It’s almost like you’re resting on one side and powering on the other. Creating a higher impulse on one side, and then just riding it on the other.

The problems that surround this stroke:
1. Imbalance issues that revolve around the surge off the power side and the drop in position on the other. This caused by the fact that you would have a tendency to rotate less on the high elbow side, and rotate more on the straight arm side.
2. A decreased level of frontal drag on one side, and an increased level on the other… which would be exacerbated if the swimmer used a poor head position when they swam.
3. A lack of synchronization between the left and right side of the body. In a normal stroke, the body would be perfectly balanced using the exact same pattern of movement on each side. This would allow the core to be connected into the movement, and the brain would be able to manage the process very effectively since it would use the exact same strategy on each side. In the gallop stroke it would have different strategies for each side, and would struggle with balancing the different movements.
4. The opposite of the above #4 would be the fact that you were actually weaker on one side and as such losing potential on that side. Since performance is based on neural adaptation in training, it should stand to reason that this kind of athlete could be able to use the power stroke on both sides and have a greater potential. Especially in the sprint based vents.

As I said a week ago, connecting this stroke to straight arm recovery stroke is going to be a challenge due to the fact that the brain will take a lot longer to figure out how to connect the angular momentum to each side, and won’t be able to use what it learns on one side and apply it to the other.

To answer Billy’s question, the hips will rotate less on the high elbow anchor side since that’s the best way to effect a high elbow anchor position… very hard to do that with the body when it’s rotated well of the horizontal axis (surface of the water)

Shepard's pie is not commonwealth, its was BRITISH food - made from lamb and mashed potatoes - what a comfort food! anyway I did copy the stroke of Bouquet well its alright but I was out of breath cos I made so much effort of arm stroke with bit of frantic kicking, man my legs were hurting alot but does not last, thank god!

Alright there is an alright sample.

Another thing I remember about gallop that I have thought about before is that there is little, but often no, twisting at the abdomen. The shoulder and the hip on the breathing and non breathing side tend to stay in line. This is obvious when the non breathing side's arm recovers since the elbow isn't as high.

Yeah you are correct Jonty. You using ground turkey? oh dear yeah you are bad

sorry, new here

Well, at the world class level, you can make many things work that are not as wise to pursue as a novice. Typically, what is now known as a galloper stroke has been employed by countless novice swimmers trying to get over a fear of lack of breath. The breathing arm is exaggerated to maximize time to breathe, while the non-breathing arm is under-emphasized to maximize speed of recovery, so that the body can get back to the breathing arm. This sort of stroke does have the obvious advantage of making more air available to the swimmer, and it does create a lengthy glide for the swimmer, as the arms are not moving opposite of each other as in most stroke variations... they operate as a one-two punch followed by a glide. While these advantages may be significant, novices cannot be trusted to exercise this variation within an acceptable range of discipline. Because it is the fear of hypoxia that encourages the stroke, it will also be the factor that will drive that same swimmer to a complete degradation of the stroke's movement effficiencies in favor of more time breathing. As for the elite athlete, three major disadvantages of the stroke are: (1) the boost gotten by the one-two punch is a disadvantage once both arms have fired and neither arm is yet ready to fire again, (2) because there is a tendency toward more trunk movement, when the breathing arm fires it's exaggerated entry with glide before catch, I would imagine that there is also more drag as you have virtually made your body larger by having it take up more space, and, my largest gripe, (3) the breathing arm takes on a bit of an exaggerated speedy entry, something I've been calling slingshot arm because it seems to wind up and then fire, which tends to really abuse the shoulder cuff over extended use. Many kids who were fast as youngsters, so their gallop was never corrected, seem to have awful shoulder problems in their slingshot arm as they get older.