Ian Thorpe Stroke cycle 12 part animation timing

[andyinnorway]

Originally Posted by sclim

I tried the 6 part stroke cycle scheme this morning. I tried to keep to an exact 6 beat count in my head but that was too complicated -- maybe not enough dry land rehearsal, but I got kinda approximate. I found doing the catch at the same time as the opposite arm was doing the exit + recovery segment seemed to make the catch a little premature, suspiciously close to doing the 180 degree windmill thing, although my stroking arm was bent at the elbow. I thought if I could break that 1/6 segment up further into halves, I could do the exit at the first half and the recovery and catch start at the second half. It seemed to work better, but I can't say for sure if the timing was as exact as I described it. I'll have to think a little more about what actually happened. Anyway, it didn't end in total confusion, which is encouraging.

if you have a tempo trainer you can set it to beep 3 times per stroke and add precision to the stroke cycle segments.

[Zenturtle]

Maybe this approachj is working for some people. All this beeping would drive me totally nuts ;-)
Body roll with a 6BK is a very strict metronome system for the armstroke.
Nothing against a 2BK, but maybe some people can use 5BK sometimes as a timing device,
Only as a drill. Then you really swim like Thorpe.

[sclim]

Originally Posted by Zenturtle

Maybe this approachj is working for some people. All this beeping would drive me totally nuts ;-)
Body roll with a 6BK is a very strict metronome system for the armstroke.
Nothing against a 2BK, but maybe some people can use 5BK sometimes as a timing device,
Only as a drill. Then you really swim like Thorpe.

It seems to me that there's no way to get around the intricate sub-timings of this schema. That is to say, for me the most important subtle refinement to my present rather amorphous schema would be to time the hand exit and the recovery into the 3rd (and sixth, for the other hand) equally spaced time segment, and simultaneously for the other hand, to squeeze the catch into the last portion -- say, half -- of this (3rd or 6th)segment.

The most difficult task is to memorise this sequence into the muscle memory, and this is what I would think is the learning bottleneck.

The next most difficult part is to fit it into the time slots. Whether it is more difficult to work against a 6 beat metronome count or against a 2 beat count would depend on trial and error, and your innate sense of rhythm, which might be dictated somewhat by prior musical ability. But again, I would think this second task is impossible and immaterial until you have at least some mastery over the first task.

So far for me, after 2 days of working on it (last night I was waking up in the night rehearsing it mentally, lol) I have some further limited success on task one. So I'm content to work on a 2 beat TT count which works good enough for now. (I am internally timing the 3 beats within the single beeps I am getting from the TT). The situation is is complicated a bit because for some reason I decided finally to bite the bullet yesterday and incorporate fist swimming consistently into my laps to force me not to depend on my open palms. (I just wasn't able to stop cheating and to be strict about consistently getting my early vertical forearm).

I am pleasantly surprised to find that some benefit of swimming 50m fist/50m regular open hand have started to be manifest already, although I'm sure I'm a long way from being cured of elbow dropping. Regarding the 6 part stroke cycle, I have made a healthy good start into integrating this timing into my stroke. It doesn't feel nearly as weird and frantic as when I started yesterday morning.

Although I had earlier stated that the essential take-home point was to try and get the catch fully formed before the PULL on phases 1 and 4, I already am looking at other important parts to be emphasised and properly implemented. That is, the STRETCH (both forwards on the lead hand and backwards on the finish of the pull stroke), which has been given the whole time value of segments 2 and 5.

*Lastly, giving only 1 time segment (i.e. 1 and 4) to the PULL phase has had an unanticipated benefit for me. My breathing has progressed immensely from an undisciplined upward lurch last year to a still bobbing, but at least low in the waterline "nod" style half mouth breath currently. But I had seemed to reach a bit of a plateau lately -- it still was far from perfect and was not improving. I suddenly realised that I had been allowing myself to breath "some time more or less around the time of the pull phase". By defining the PULL phase more strictly as only occupying 1 sixth of the pull cycle (and no later -- the next phase is the stretch phase), I realised I was breathing late, and was still sucking air (and water!) when the arms were stretching, i.e already in phase 2/5. So the task is now to start and finish the breath completely within phase 1, or 4 on the other side.*
*EDIT: I have reconsidered some of the timing phases specified in this paragraph -- see my re-think in Comment #42

So far I'm at diagnosis stage -- the correction of the late breathing has been incomplete and hit and miss so far, but when I get it right it's sweet, and in fact (after the quick breath) my head goes back down towards the midline ahead of my body roll. It does feel a little rushed and unnatural, but it's doable, and hopefully, doable with ease.

[Zenturtle]

This all sounds very positive Sclim. The way you describe it I can imagine all this beeping gives a nice check on your timing.
Stcky points in your stroke become obvious because you cant match the movements with the beeps anymore.
I guess you start out with a very slow strokerate to slowly get used to the sequence and very slowly advance when the whole train starts moving without too much thought.
The famous piano drill with some extra metronome ticks.

Moving following a steady 6 bk does more or less the same. Tapping the beep rhytm with the legs and synchronizing the arms with these taps.
Same experiencewith the breathing as you describe.. With 2 BK start to swim asymetrical with too much time taken for a breath. With 6BK roll more symetric and breath forced in a shorter time frame.

Nice reading about your progress.

[Talvi]

Originally Posted by andyinnorway

... The segments hold up for someone wanting to have a long powerful stroke like Ian Thorpe. Rebecca Adlington looks really different.

You want your catch to be fully formed before you apply any power from the opposite spearing arm ....

Watched a video of Rebecca and it looks as if her arm hand entry has her hand already dropping into a vertical position as it touched the water (p.s when is 12 step II, Rebecca Adlington coming out? ;))

Your advice on timing of catch and spear feels like it is those odd moments when my stroke seems to gel. It also feels to me as if there is a sweet spot here? The catch has to be fully formed just as the power of the spear is applied.

[Talvi]

Hi Sclim,

I think there is a syncopation in the stroke that's hard to get (for me anyway). One arm is moving fast when the other is moving slow. One has little to "think about" while the other is tightly focused on feel. The two then exchange at the "sweet spot".

BTW I also have been working on breath timing. I too find I breathe too late, and then try to breathe for too long. When I change this, as you say, the early breath leads to a (natural) early head return, and also I find a more relaxed breath.

I find I can achieve this by looking slightly forward as I breathe. This doesn't require the head to be raised but rather just tilted by a few degrees i.e the chin is moved forward and the crown back. This is rotating the head from its pivot at the top of the spine rather than hesad and neck from about the shoulder line.

[Talvi]

A minor thing but studying the original video it looks to me as if there is a small difference between his two sides. On the breathing side his catch is more pronounced. On his non-breathing side it is flatter, the elbow less high/angled.

I wondered why this might be? Is it a flexibility thing or something to do with breathing?

I also see his palm entering the water thumb first and then straightening, which is not the TI advice, is something I have found (and now rehearsing at the keyboard) find puts less stress on my shoulder joint. What are the pros and cons with this? I guess he is "pushing" down with his arm while in the spear until his body has rotated and it begins to catch. TI teaches a spear straight to that point (6" or so lower). Does his kicking compensate maybe?

[sclim]

Originally Posted by Talvi

I think there is a syncopation in the stroke that's hard to get (for me anyway). One arm is moving fast when the other is moving slow. One has little to "think about" while the other is tightly focused on feel. The two then exchange at the "sweet spot".

OMG, me too, Talvi, me too. There is so much complexity going on it's nuts! However, the saving grace is that with a consistent 6 beat background reference grid, one can concentrate on learning one small part at a time, then depend on muscle memory to carry it through while you go back to the same page or timing reference point while working on other parts -- the other hand or even other hip or leg.

Originally Posted by Talvi

BTW I also have been working on breath timing. I too find I breathe too late, and then try to breathe for too long. When I change this, as you say, the early breath leads to a (natural) early head return, and also I find a more relaxed breath.

Yeah, I sort of knew that something was wrong with my breath timing, but felt kinda hopeless at knowing how and when to fix it. But when trying this strict equal 6 beat division of stroke cycle I suddenly saw that my breath was occurring on the wrong phase, or at least spilling over into the wrong phase. So it was just a matter of learning the underlying basics of the 6 beat division, and getting my breath done and finished on the appropriate beats. In this schema that andyinnorway has laid out there are 2 points I find helpful: the pull on phase 1 coordinates with my early breath on the pull side (and maybe even the set-up for the breath during the catch), and the stroke reaching back on phase 2 (while the opposite lead arm reaches forward) is the signal that my head has to be face down again in the mid line. Not that I'm actually doing this correctly and consistently at this early stage, you understand, but now there are very clear limiting signals that I can learn to operate on. It is very encouraging and I am optimistic.

Originally Posted by Talvi

I find I can achieve this by looking slightly forward as I breathe. This doesn't require the head to be raised but rather just tilted by a few degrees i.e the chin is moved forward and the crown back. This is rotating the head from its pivot at the top of the spine rather than hesad and neck from about the shoulder line.

I don't get this part, Talvi. It seems that, for me anyway, the head lift was my screw-up, and it's been a long and difficult haul to get my face lower, laying sideways horizontal in the water (with the waterline exactly bisecting my face up the middle). Actually, with me floating so low, I have to over-rotate my face sideways so my face is looking somewhat up (in the side rotated direction), but my laser pointer from my crown is still supposed to be just under the waterline shooting down the lane to the far side, not up out of the water. I'm not sure I'm actually achieving this perfection in my mind -- I have a feeling that I am still lifting my head somewhat in my primordial drive for oxygen, and thus exposing some of the side of my head to drag; I'm still trying to correct this, right? I'm not sure how tilting my face forward, adding face drag, maybe, would help the picture (apart from sighting in open water, but I don't think that's your point).

Another potential worry for me is that my balance is not the best, yet, and I still have some residual hip and leg drag. I sometimes overdrop my head underwater in my effort to pull up my legs. However lifting my head would seem a worse unbalancer.

[andyinnorway]

The rising hand appears to be an anomaly that works for him, probably best not to emulate, however, I do find I have to leave my spear high if I want to achieve max DPS, but there is a cost on muscle load, but for 25m?

[sclim]

Originally Posted by Talvi

A minor thing but studying the original video it looks to me as if there is a small difference between his two sides. On the breathing side his catch is more pronounced. On his non-breathing side it is flatter, the elbow less high/angled.

I wondered why this might be? Is it a flexibility thing or something to do with breathing?

Yeah, I noticed this too, and it bothered me for a while. But it really is immaterial for us. If the asymmetry existed in Thorpe's original stroke, we don't have to intentionally copy it. If it is an artefact (or if it is an artefact on top of Thorpe's asymmetry) due to division of number of video frames by twelve which don't divide nicely, or if the specific left and right events didn't occur symmetrically space actually on the frames (as opposed to in between the frames) it still doesn't matter -- we have an underlying rigid and symmetrical time grid or time ruler with a corresponding event schedule that we can work on to get our stroke as close to ideal as we can.