Recovery exit flip/flick

[tomoy]

I've been experimenting with my hip-kick timing, pushing it later in the stroke so that initiates recovery. Seems to be doing good things for my fast-tempo stroke, cutting half to a full stroke off of SPL at a given tempo and giving me a personal best 100 time of ~1:24 (SCY).

One thing I noticed though is this later application of the of the core and hip drive force is generating a bit of "tossing the water out the door." I've seen reference to similar as "accelerating through the stroke."

This hit me as I watched this latest inspiring video from Terry and Darby. There's a great synchronized swim at around 5m55s. And one of the things I noticed was that they're doing this too! Even at a relaxed pace. Darby a little on her right side, and Terry on both.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RaHhpjwEhk

Do we have an ideal to aim for regarding this hand exiting the water and flipping/flicking water at the back end? Is it a sign of good timing? Does it create problems? Seems like straight back would be better than tossing it high. I remember Shinji talking about a basketball dribbling action he does with his wrist to initiate recovery, but that was underwater just before hand exit.

Curious.

[Danny]

Tomoy, I too have been trying to decide whether to time my kick to the weight shift and rotation up front or to the recovery in the back. In one sense, these may be two different sides of the same coin, especially if you view your shoulders like a cross-bar to your torso. If you use a kick on your recovery, it helps to pull the back shoulder out of the water, which helps drive the front shoulder forward and down. If you use a kick to drive yourself over your catch, you are doing the same thing, but I think the timing is a little different. Certainly the mental picture of what I am trying to accomplish is different.

Your suggestion that which to focus on depends on speed is interesting. Not sure if anything I said above resonates with anyone else, so I would be interested in feedback.

[CoachSuzanne]

I've asked Terry about this and he said, "I've never been able to get rid of that!"

It's not a desired action, you're seeing the water splash as they exit. Terry was s but rushed in this video and Darbi was taking it easy on him.

That "relaxed pace" is about a 1:22/100yd

[CoachStuartMcDougal]

I remember Terry saying softly, "that damn flip" when we were all watching coach videos when you guys were in LA for CCC a few years ago. Just a little flare in recovery :-)

Stuart

[sclim]

Originally Posted by tomoy

I've been experimenting with my hip-kick timing, pushing it later in the stroke so that initiates recovery. Seems to be doing good things for my fast-tempo stroke, cutting half to a full stroke off of SPL at a given tempo and giving me a personal best 100 time of ~1:24 (SCY).

One thing I noticed though is this later application of the of the core and hip drive force is generating a bit of "tossing the water out the door." I've seen reference to similar as "accelerating through the stroke."

This hit me as I watched this latest inspiring video from Terry and Darby. There's a great synchronized swim at around 5m55s. And one of the things I noticed was that they're doing this too! Even at a relaxed pace. Darby a little on her right side, and Terry on both.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RaHhpjwEhk

Do we have an ideal to aim for regarding this hand exiting the water and flipping/flicking water at the back end? Is it a sign of good timing? Does it create problems? Seems like straight back would be better than tossing it high. I remember Shinji talking about a basketball dribbling action he does with his wrist to initiate recovery, but that was underwater just before hand exit.

Curious.

I was trying to follow this thread and got confused. I think I figured it out but please confirm. You started out by pondering the merits of delaying your hip kick to a little later in the stroke cycle. Then you reflected that this later application of kick is generating a little "tossing the water out the door". Then you segued to the Darby and Terry video where they were "both doing this too". It took me a while to understand (I was trying to see their hip-kick delay), then I noticed the splash of water that Terry's finger flip did at water exit on both sides and Darby's mostly on the right. So that's what you mean by "tossing the water out the door." I gather all the experts Terry himself included agree that this doesn't help (although if I didn't know this, I would have suspected it might give just a little extra push added to the totality of the propulsive arm stroke).

But what I don't get is how the first bit -- the delay of the hip kick -- leads to the second bit -- the unwanted finger flick. It puzzles me that you seem to say there is a cause and effect connection.

[IngeA]

I also was a bit confused. Some possibilities crossed my mind:

- You said you are faster with delayed kick and your SPL are less. What about your stroke rate? If your stroke rate increases, it's more difficult to do an exact stroke or recovery. Faster is more difficult than slower.

- perhaps you end your arm stroke to late because it helps you in timing your delayed kick? Then your hand and wrist are tensed and not relaxed when they exit the water at the beginning of the recovery. So you are splashing water.

- Or: on focusing on your kick you lose sight of your arm actions. It will need a bit of time to coordinate a new timing all together in the stroke.

[tomoy]

Originally Posted by CoachSuzanne

That "relaxed pace" is about a 1:22/100yd

Ah... Yow!!! They make it look so easy - especially the entry sans splash.

@sclim: Yes you follow the thought-stream as intended. Assuming the core offers the greatest opportunity and strength via a kick, hip-drive and rotation, harnessing it for propulsion is wasted if the catch is not in place - so then the question becomes when to time this core drive?

The earliest would be at the catch when you first establish a hold on the water, say elbow at head level, forearm dropping vertically below it, and the latest would be when the elbow is around the hip. Then there is everything in between.

A) My experience in applying the core drive early has variable success. I focus on establishing the EVF, hit it with the kick, feel that surge, but then I wonder what my muscles are doing for the remainder of the stroke. It feels like "Bam" then "doo dee doo." If I'm not careful and hit the kick too early or before I'm stabilized the torque running through my shoulder results in pain the next day/s. It's a very fine slice of perfect timing that allows me to get it right without hurting myself. In my mind's eye, I see Sun Yang and think, yeah, that's what it should look like! But it probably looks like just another dude in the pool.

B) So instead of chasing that EVF and the long stroke opportunity it provides, I settled into a pretty TI-normal catch defined by just letting the lead hand drop into a shoulder level perpendicular position with bent-arm as I apply the kick. It feels like "ah... whoom... la...." It's smooth and is totally safe with my shoulder (and back), but I notice that trying to get up-to-tempo takes some back muscle work getting the recovery arm moving. If I don't focus on getting that recovery going, tempo drops off and I end up lazily slowing down and losing my front quadrant, weight forward timing (because my recovery is lazily making its way forward), hips drop as I get tired and things fall apart eventually.

C) Timing the kick and core drive later feels pretty weird after having settled on B for so long. There's a long phase of gentle catch, setting the anchor trying to hold the hull at the back end without firing the kick early, but then when the kick comes it's almost as if the body has been coiling up ready to fire, and its surge is easy to harness. It feels like "ah.. aahh.. chooo!" The energy throws the arm into a quick arc landing essentially into forward spear and I find myself in TI-wide-catch-up drill both hands up front and realize that my hips are higher because I got my weight into the front quadrant so quickly. If you're still reading this, then you probably can now see how this late application of the core drive can result in flinging water into the air as the arm arcs forward. On the down side, I will say that if I'm not subtle (I kicked and twisted too hard when first getting used to it), or if I don't tuck my tummy and activate some abs, I can come away with lower back pain with this technique. So my focus lately has been subtle kick, core position and activation. So far so good.

I think if we're generating a lot of back-splash we're either using a ton of arm strength, or we're firing the core later. Assuming neither Terry or Darbi are sprinters I think this late core-drive might be a component for success that hasn't been much verbalized, or at least it's new to me. Of course I didn't just come up with this. In class Coach Stuart has been encouraging us to experiment with some Boomer theories. We have some very smooth swimmers in class who have a very pronounced careful recovery and spear, almost a pause from the ear-hop days. And this has helped several iron out that pause.

I still struggle with C) and controlling the energy. At the end of a swim, if I want to pick it up but think my arms don't have any more gas left in them, it's surprisingly there and effective. But I haven't gotten it into a nice efficiency box. Usually applying this late energy means my heart-rate climbs and I get out of breath. So that's what I'm working on now. How to use this jet pack for 30 minutes non-stop. (@Danny this is where it's easy for me to see this as a sprinting solution - I'm still searching for ways to make it a distance solution.)

[tomoy]

Originally Posted by IngeA

You said you are faster with delayed kick and your SPL are less. What about your stroke rate? If your stroke rate increases, it's more difficult to do an exact stroke or recovery. Faster is more difficult than slower.

Tempo trainer locks that down. Excellent observation though! Without the TT I found it very hard to not speed up. It's weird getting to spear so quickly and muscle memory has the rest of my stuff moving sooner as well. It's a lot of mental work to slow that down and submit to the front quadrant timing.

Perhaps you end your arm stroke to late because it helps you in timing your delayed kick? Then your hand and wrist are tensed and not relaxed when they exit the water at the beginning of the recovery. So you are splashing water.

Good thought, I think you're right. In fact coach is trying to get me to relax the hand wrist via releasing under water or converting to fist recovery. I think the last 6" of effort back there isn't really giving me any useful propulsion.

Or: on focusing on your kick you lose sight of your arm actions. It will need a bit of time to coordinate a new timing all together in the stroke.

Totally agree. Thx for comprehending the issues - I'll keep working on these.

[Tom Pamperin]

A couple of things that seem to help me a lot with recovery:

1. Palm up as the hand leaves the water is very important.

2. Feel a string tied to your elbow that pulls the elbow forward (not up) and relax all the arm and let the string pull do the work. This seems to keep the hand on wide tracks and just above the water while providing lots of relaxation.

3. And maybe most relevant to your "hand flick" observations: I try to feel as if my hand is already moving forward BEFORE it leaves the water. That seems to provide a nice circular motion to the recovery and avoid pauses. I'll have to shoot some video and see how it actually looks compared to how it feels, of course...

[Zenturtle]

Cool. I am tinkering a bit with this too lately.
What happens is hardly reaching the concious mind at the moment but ususal I am busy initiating the roll from the kick and after some time the core gets a bit tired of this, possibly overdoing it.
Then I focus more on the front end getting a good catch etc while leaving the legs flow behind the torso in what feels like a slight lagging easy finishing kick.
Feels like switching from leading the bodyroll from the kick to initiating the roll from the arm achor and pull and let the legs follow, but often it gets hard to distinguish what part is leading or following.
Its like the midsection is a connecting rubber strip that sometimes is twisted a bit from rear to front and at other times from front to rear.
If kick and pull are balanced the strip isnt twisted and body rotates like a single unit.