Do you have balance in your stroke?
Do you have balance in your stroke?
This morning I had my feet proped up on the coffee table with my laptop in hand then my phone rings.... foot's asleep, ouch, pins and needles, limping to the phone, dragging one leg, hopping to the phone! Last night I was watching the Jason Lezak and Michael Phelps battle in the 200 IM on my DVR and was watching the gallop stroke from both Lezak and Phelps in the last 15 meters! Much like the lack of balance with my foot asleep were their strokes!
In swimming I measure performance by improvement, time improvement or technical skill improvement. Technical Skill includes proper body position, starts, turns and propulsion! Thinking about propulsion when I make the long drive to swim meets I often use my cruise-control. It drives me nuts when drivers pass me, slow down, then pass me again, when the whole time my cruise has been set at 67 mph. If your stroke is not balanced then your not using your cruise-control and not only are you not using an efficient stroke, but it may also be effecting your body position and technical skills.
How to check your balance:
1. Video tape your swim or have a friend time your stroke rate!
2. First measure the stroke rate of your Left arm by timing hand hit to hand hit!
3. Now measure the stroke rate of your Right arm by timing hand hit to hand hit!
4. Compare! If your left arm stroke rate is faster than your right arm or vice versa there are a couple of possibilities. You could be breathing on one side only either every two or four strokes! Breating every 3 or 5 strokes obviously makes your stroke more balanced! Are you putting more force on one arm pull than the other? If so what is this doing to your body position? If one stroke rate is stronger than the other then there is a gap in your propulsion therefore somewhere in your stroke you're slowing down!
Generally accepted freestyle stroke rates vary per distance being swam, here's a general quide that I use. For 50-100 Freestyle stroke rate should be .95-1.10 seconds per same hand hit! For 200-500 Freestyle stroke rate should be 1.10-1.40 seconds per same hand hit!
Suggestion: Purchase a Finis Tempo Trainer, here's a set you can use to not only check your stroke rate, but forces you to keep up when you get tired!
4 x 25 Free @ 1:00 (Set Tempo Trainer at 1.00) Try to hit the beep on your left arm!
4 x 25 Free @ 1:00 (Set Tempo Trainer at 1.00) Try to hit the beep on your right arm!
4 x 25 Free @ 1:00 (Set Tempo Trainer at 0.50) Try to hit the beep on both arms!
Let me know if this works for any of you out there!
- Tim Manley's blog
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Comments
The balanced stroke
There are two distinctly different techniques of swimming freestyle; hip driven and shoulder driven. The body driven freestyle, as described by Mike Bottom, is really just shoulder driven with a straight arm recovery.
Hip driven (Hackett, Thorpe, Jensen, Melouli, Hoff etc) is characterized by a longer hold out front of the leading hand and a slower stroke rate with higher dps. To do effectively, the swimmer must have strong legs behind.
Shoulder driven (Adrian, Cielo, Bousquet, Pellegrini etc) is characterized by a quick catch, a quick release and a much higher stroke rate.
The advantage of hip driven is that the longer hold out front creates more lift from the outstretched arm and enables more time for a bigger hip turn, generating more counter-force for the pull. This generates more dps, particularly with a strong kick.
The advantage of the shoulder driven freestyle is that one gets into the propulsive phase of the pull (when the hand is moving backward) faster and with the higher stroke rate, there are more propulsive arm pulls.
Both deal with inertia in different ways. Shoulder driven enables one to sustain body speed by having a higher stroke rate. Hip driven enables one to sustain speed by generating a stronger kick.
Virtually every swimmer in the 50 meters at Olympic level swims with shoulder driven freestyle, stroke rates ranging from 110 to 130. For every distance over the 50 meters, which is no longer a sprint, we see both techniques being used. In the men's 1500 meter final in Beijing, Mellouli and Hackett used classic hip driven, while Cochrane and the Russian guy used high stroke rate shoulder driven. They were about 4 seconds apart.
What Phelps, Lezak, Biedermann and others have adopted is a hybrid freestyle (you call the gallop) whereby they use a hip driven technique on the breath side and a shoulder driven technique on the opposite side. The stroke rates are the same on both sides (they have to be), but the technique is very different. Underwater, when the hip driven hand that holds out in front enters the water, the other hand is already past the shoulder because it initiated an earlier catch. When the shoulder driven hand enters the water, the hip driven hand is still in front of the shoulder, because it held out front longer. The stroke rates remain equal by hurrying the recovery of the hip driven arm to catch up to the shoulder driven arm.
The advantage of the hybrid freestyle is that it creates a stroke rate faster than pure (balanced) hip driven, yet not as fast as shoulder driven. It seems ideally suited for mid-distance races which are 100 m to 400 m. With this technique, swimmers get the advantage of their strong legs and bigger hip turn on one side to generate more power and the earlier catch on the other to generate more speed.
I am not sure who should get the credit for being the first to use this technique, but when I watched an old movie of George Breen in the Olympic 1500 meter final of Melbourne in 1956, it seemed he was using a similar hybrid freestyle.
Efficiency in swimming doesn't necessarily mean using the same technique with both arms (balance). It is more about using the technique that is right for the distance and the tools that the swimmer has.
Yours in swimming,
Gary Sr.
questions
Gary Sr. I am fascinated by your perspective on this. In the past I have shared the viewpoint very similar to Mr. Manley, but your post has caused me to reconsider. Your theory seems plausible.
Question: If Phelps, Lezak, etc. have developed this "hybrid" or "limp" freestyle (whether it was intentional or simply a habit formed over years and millions of strokes), do they or anyone else do it on both sides? It seems to me that if I was a coach making this as a planned technique, I would be sure to at least train it in both directions so as not to develop a strength imbalance.
Question #2: Does anybody know of any research (formal or informal) on this topic? I love dialogues about topics such as these, but I like to see some data.
Question #3 (for the original author): You say that because of the decelerations, swimming balance has to be faster. One analogy I have used with swimmers in the past may be appropriate here with a little tweaking: Do you get from home to swim practice faster by driving a steady 20mph the entire way, or by driving 20, speeding up to 30, braking to 20, speeding up to 30, etc.? Sure, your fuel consumption (efficiency) wouldn't be as good, but if the goal simply to get from A to B as fast as possible, does efficiency really matter?
One last thought: My feeling is that many coaches (myself included) developing age group, high school, and non-elite collegiate swimmers are accustomed to focusing on improving efficiency rather than speed. For most of the swimmers under our tutelage, this approach serves them well, as their efficiency, fitness and strength is far from maximal. My thought is that for elite swimers, applied power becomes a far more important variable than efficiency.
Ryan Woodruff
ncacheadcoach@gmail.com
Great Dialog
This is something that I have thought a lot about over the past 15 years. Intuitively it seems like an unbalanced stroke could not be the answer. Gary provided a great answer as to why these elite athletes are swimming so fast with what to the naked eye is questionable technique. The ultimate goal is to move through the water as fast as possible. There are only two ways to do this. Reduce Drag and Increase propulsion. One of the themes that keeps coming up here is maintaining a constant velocity.
This is where I think that Tim, Gary, Coach Dennis, and Coach Erik are all saying the same thing. So WHAT needs to be accomplished? It is about Velocity. Maintaining Velocity. In Gary’s DVD Fundamentals of Fast Swimming I believe that he refers to this as “Getting on the Freeway”. In fact, all of the elite swimmers discussed in this dialog (balanced and unbalanced) are maintaining a fairly constant velocity in Freestyle.
So why is Tim’s post so important, even when Phelps has a ‘limp’? One great quote from Gary’s article is “The challenge for a coach is how to get the swimmer out of stop‐and‐go traffic and onto the freeway?”
This is the important question that I believe Tim was addressing in his initial post. How should a coach instruct young swimmers to pursue optimal technique? I think it is important to observe elite athletes to learn, but their specific techniques are certainly not for everyone. A great example was the 100 fly at Senior Nationals. All but one or two of the guys were breathing every stroke. They can do this, keeping great alignment, but I would suggest that it is probably not a good technique to teach a young swimmer. (Correct me if this is wrong) Check out Chris DeSantis’ article The Pros and Cons of Modeling: Finding a Unique Formula for more discussion of this.
Bravo Tim. I think the objective of your post is right on.
One of the difficult things about dolling out advice in swimming is that a really fast swimmer always comes along and does it differently. Great swimmers have been doing this forever, and to keep things interesting, I hope they keep doing it. Does that mean we should all follow? Not so fast.
Re: Shoulder Driven / Hip Driven
I agree each swimmer based on their strengths and weaknesses must use their "own" best technique! While I see some good points being made, swimming with a balanced stroke enables the swimmer to use the whole body rather than just the shoulders or the hips to initiate propulsion! To be truly balanced this must also include having a proper flat body position so that no lift is needed, equal work being done by the arms and legs and allowing the body to rotate around it's axis to generate power on both sides!Stroke rate can be different on each arm, I've measured it many times, this is often caused by a dropped elbow on one side, slow recovery, breathing or lack of reach. Any of these reasons can cause a gap in propulsion which causes a change in the body position. Using an accelerometer could help with this discussion, the swimmer could be creating a huge amount of propulsion on one side of the body, but lose their momentum on the other side. Using a balanced stroke is not for everyone but does appeal to the improvement of technical skill for most of us who are not in the Top 8 final at Sr. Nationals!
Tim Manley; B.S., ASCA Level 3
"It's your swimming!"
Video Example
Can you provide a video example so we can all see what we're talking about?
Live Free Swim Hard
A Few Questions and Thoughts
I get everything you are saying but i am still left with a few questions. I am referencing this video because of all the angleshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax77_hHq9DcYou said that the stroke rate has to be the same. I ran the splits with a stopwatch on each entry Phelps did and the pace is not the same. Could you further explain?You also said that it remains the same by hurrying the the recovery. How is it hurried?Lastly you said swimmers get the advantage of their strong legs and bigger hip turn on one side to generate more power and the earlier catch on the other to generate more speed. Phelps kick is pretty solid throughout the swim. Could it not be that the shoulder driven arm is the one that is hurried due to the breath? and that the hip driven arm just comes down and takes advantage of the "wave" in his stroke?
Live Free Swim Hard
Balance..
Would like to see these guys on Dr. Sokolovas' velocity monitoring and analysis. We could truly find out if it is more efficient or if there is a drop in velocity within the left versus right strokes. I suppose there could also be a trade off, if there is a higher peak velocity and the drop in velocity in the loping freestyle is not siginificant enough to be too detrimental versus a consistent balanced stroke with a lower peak velocity but potentially high average velocity. *I know we say different strokes for different folks, but I have a hard time believing that either of these men are so imbalanced strength & limb length wise that this uneven stroke is better than a balanced one.
The Limp
Watching the 4x100 relay from Beijing i think it the "limp" helped Lezak catch up more than anything. Its really all about taking advantage of the water and moving in a wave as opposed to a more balanced even stroke. Take a look at this video right around 1:18http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax77_hHq9DcHe uses the left hand to bring his body up and then rides the wave with his right hand leading. Phelps has this down sooooo good. As far as more efficient i think it all depends. I actually think it the more "natural" way to move through the water. No only are using propulsion from the kick but you are taking advantage using your body to move through the water. If you are a shorter swimmer i think its to your advantage to swim like this. Although i do think its important to also swim "balanced."Make sense?
Live Free Swim Hard
Good point
Nice Post Tim. Can you explain the final connection with Phelps and Lezak? Would they be faster with a more balanced stroke? It seems like as long as you connect the right and left side of the body, and you are transfering the energy, you would still be pretty efficient. There seems to be a lot of really fast swimmers out there with a limp...Why do these elite swimmers do it?
Swimming with a "Limp"
I like your expression of the stroke! I agree there are a lot of fast swimmers swimming with a "limp"! Swimming with a more balanced stroke is way more efficient, because there is no pause in propulsion, as I say in practice "you've always got a paddle in the water if your stroke is balanced"! Yes I believe they would be faster with a more balanced stroke, but it's probably not something guys that fast will even think about changing at this point of their career it's like everything else you must become accustomed to it and practice to make it perfect! The efficiency comes in because the stroke rate and propulsion becomes more efficient throughout the whole swim and not just trying to put out a ton of power throughout the last 15 meters! Hope that helps, but as my past boss say's, "there's 1000's of phiolosophies of swimming, just one per team!"
Tim Manley; B.S., ASCA Level 3
"It's your swimming!"
My two cents
Hey guys, Marc asked me if I had any opinion and I ended up returning to a blog post I wrote about a year and a half ago. It is reprinted here: http://www.theathletevillage.com/articles/2010/08/16/pros-and-cons-model... Basically, I think that you are bound to find some variability in strokes from person to person. The danger is in having everyone follow the "model" of the person who is going the fastest (i.e. Phelps' lope). I also agree that in this instance I have a hard time believing that the lope is productive. I don't consider myself an expert on freestyle technique- its still a work in progress. Breaststroke is what I consider my strength and I see some very fundamental stroke flaws in the fastest swimmers.