Total Immersion Forums - Rotation/Catch/Kick Synchronization and Timing Variants

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- - Rotation/Catch/Kick Synchronization and Timing Variants (http://www.totalimmersion.net/forum/showthread.php?t=9605)

Hi ZT. Good to hear from you! I take it that this means that at least you are occasionally reading the forum, even if you haven't been contributing lately.

It is hard to disagree with you concerning Terry's kick. On the other hand, I was left with the impression that Shelly Taylor might benefit from keeping her head a little lower. Not sure, but this may be why I have the feeling that she may be losing her grip on the water up front. On the other hand, Terry's grip on the water is what I find most impressive about his stroke, especially because he does it without a high elbow.

Hi Danny. I take a look here every 3 months or so. Havent been swiming much lately. No significant new discoveries done the last year or so. Its more a matter of making slight improvements.

I really have a hard time finding anything negative in Shelleys underwater footage. Its all very streamlined and very effective propulsionwise too, which makes it a very efficient stroke as far as I can tell.
Personally the straightish arm recovery doesnt seem the most efficient to me when repeated over and over, but her under water actions look great.
Legs completely behind torso over complete kickaction, and nice streamlined feet. She can hold her head wherever she likes it seems.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zenturtle (Post 65837)

Its fun to read mushroomfloats comments. He is swimming from feeling en I can really identify with his feelings during this swimming journey.
Playing with the weight of the recovering arm , the speed at hwich its thrown forward, what part of the body is the foundation of that morion and how the differnt speeds and styles all influence balance in a differnt way are very good to learn new tricks.

Its fun to go from long to the more shoulder driven variaty and back. Its different , but also so much the same at the basic level where it teaches the very essence what swimming is about in my opinion.

Mushroomfloat, do you also pay attantion to what the leg at the low side elbow sinking side is doing?
This leg should be lifted from the center of the body at the same time, that the high side arm weight is pushing the the other side into the catch, like you have described earlier.
That way the whole body is set up for the next uncoiling, slightly undulating power move. Talking 2Bk here.

For me its better to feel the weight of the recovering arm first in a less catchup timing way and then slowly go to a more catchup timing way while diving pretty deep with the low side front side of the body, and corkscrew/dolphin with long extensions forward.
Somewhere in that process you start to loose the weight of the high side arm pressing in the catch and thats where you have to back off and go a bit shorter again, or explore that style on the edge and see if you can extend with a higher elbow.
With a higher elbow you can swim a more catchup timing style and still have the weight of the recovering arm convert to traction at the low side.
Thats how the Thorpes and Phelps guys swim.
For normal guys this flex and strenght in the shoulder region has to be buitl up gradually.

In the end a very important thing is to get rid of the dryland kicking reflex and move the legs like whips from the core , fairly rigidly connected to the upperbody and the shouldr and arm movements.
You really have to become a a sort of hybrid human-fish sswimming machine, thats fishlike form the rigcage down and connect with the human back shoulder arm paddle mechanism.
You can see this conversion to human fish swimming machine in all the good swimmers. Its a pretty total body rewiring of the whole nervous system that takes years to complete, especiially for older people.

The perfect technique Thorpe video is one of my favorites,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHszSCgMkpU
but Looking at the Shelly Taylor video after a long time is also a joy.
She is sheer hydrodynamic perfection. A perfect example of the human-fish hybrid swimming machine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt6_bqj_808

Its the what Thorpe and Shelly Taylor both do whats important.

Comparing Thorpes 3stage 2Bk with Shelleys kick, you can see Shelley also has tiny bit of 3Stage kick in her stroke, it just blends more to one kick because of the higher rate and lighter arms probably. Especcialy the very last finishing downkick accent can be seen in Shellys stroke.
This kickdetail also has to do with the timing of the arm at the front. Differnt arm timing, differnt kicktiming usually.
The extra downkick is when the same side arm is lifted out the water, the extra upkick when the same side low side shoulder/arm extends.
Interesting to try to exegerate these details.

You all worship Terrys swim style, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC8ZZZhabp4
but i think I now understand why he uses more kicking motion then strictly needed.
He rotates his hips too much relative to his shoulders and thats unbalancing his body in a rotational sense. His hips have a rotational overshoot that he has to overcompensate every stroke. Thats where these extra kicks come from. He needs a tighter hip control amd more upperbody flex. Hip rotation has to be transfered to shoulder rotation in a corkscrewlike manner. Hip rotation should not stay isolated and disconnected.
Nothing personal against Terry, he did a great job education a lot of people, but i personally dont see him as a perfect swimming example. (still a good example though)

Yes, i have a pronounced chambering on the left side leg when breathing to the right, sometimes the foot comes out of the water due to a little more rotation to the right for breathing (left hip going down a little too far i think.

Last wed i paid a visit to an old swim coach i know who runs her own swim pools and got her to take a look at my stroke,
she pulled me up on 3 things:

1. breathing every 2 to the right (recommended every 3 bilateral) but i use the unilateral breathing as part of my body undulation in the stroke so still playing about with uni v bi
breathing.

2. My recovery arm is returning to the front way too fast, This was very helpful
I had trained it so fast that i was rushing the catch up front and slipping a ton of water
so we worked on dwelling for a moment at full extention holding a ball and bringing the recovery slower giving more time to find purchase on the water with the low side arm.
i went to the pool on thirs for 2 hrs with a pullbuoy and drilled the hell out of this until i was happy with the timing.

3. she doesnt believe in FQS and got me to swim kayak / rotary which i struggled with but it did seem more relaxed re pressure on the shoulders, i kept automatially returning to FQS due to muscle memory / imprinting.
At one point i switched to shoulder driven kayak just to demonstrate i could do it and she reckoned i was way to fast with it but then thats what its for, its not a distance stroke.

So still more to play about with for me
she said my body position was excellent.

One other thing and i had already figured this out recently is that i was burying my head too low and looking slightly forward is much better for me, gives a much better bowwave and breathing it a ton easier just a flick to the side with a pursed mouth.
i also think it creates some sort of additional breastbone press on the water adding to stability

i was also recommened to "always think of the front" ie have focus on the lead arm and setting the catch not focussing on the finish and recovery (which is where my focus had been)

All in all £60 well spent as i would never hae figured the recovery arm speed was sabotaging my catch / anchor without some outside observation.

A split second dwell at forward extention before moving slightly wide and down for the catch is very helpful for me.

We used a tennis ball to put the focus here.

"slow it down real slow and imprint and that "slow" will become very fast"
is something i took away from it which certainly seems to pan out so far.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zenturtle (Post 65839)

Hi ZT, are you losing interest in swimming because you've reached a plateau, or do you continue to enjoy the time you spend doing it?

I agree with you that Shelley's legs and kick action seem quite streamlined, but I can't escape the feeling that she is losing some grip up front. This may be because her entire arm enters the water up front straight and parallel to the surface. Because of this, she seems to move her straight arm downward for quite a bit before she finally bends her elbow (even though she does eventually get that high elbow while her arm is still forward). You can see the trail of bubbles that this straight arm entry causes. It is hard for me to judge whether or not there is a connection with the raised head and the arm entry, but this is definitely not the way that I try to swim. A straight arm entry like this means that your shoulder is already much lower when the arm enters, so this means a completely different timing between the arm stroke and the body rotation.

Too much emphasis on the "get yourself pulled down the pool by your throw"
was sabotaging my catch / anchor.

When i think about it lobbing a recovery arm with a rushed semi anchored low side arm is what i was doing.

Slowing high side arm down very beneficial to allow time to set the anchor

Seems like your spending too much time thinking about the what the low side arm is doing or preparing to do. Slowing down the high side arm to give the low side arm more time to do what .... ? That’s a first, you’re kidding right?

Stu
MindBodyAndSwim.com