Exploring Body Rotation

[Tom Pamperin]

I few days ago I started to pay attention to getting a full forward reach with my spearing arm and shoulder. As a result, my torso is rotating noticeably farther onto each side. My hips are also rotating farther.

For some reason I haven't entirely uncovered, this shift is giving me much more momentum with my spearing arm, which comes in on wide tracks and helps add to the rotation effect. I'm also feeling a noticeable increase in power, and a firmer catch where the water feels thick and I feel like I am using my whole arm from elbow to hand as a paddle. My 2BK also feels good with this added rotation and shoulder-forward position.

On average, I've dropped about 1 SPL swimming this way, although I have to be going at least moderately fast to make it work--momentum is a much bigger part of the stroke, and slower speeds don't seem to generate enough momentum. I feel like I'm modestly increasing my effort to swim this way, but gaining back more than I'm putting in.

So, this feels right. But it got me wondering: how do you know how much to rotate? And can you sustain this level of rotation at faster tempos? Am I on the right track? I'll try to come up with some video to post next week if I can.

Anyone here have any insights about body rotation, momentum, and how to combine it all?

[daveblt]

The advice for quite some time on how far to roll is just enough to clear the shoulder .So somewhere around 45 degrees .You definitely don't want to swim flat nor do you want to roll too far on your side . One thing I've been practicing with the spearing arm is getting full reach but feeling as if I am reaching from the shoulder and not the hand while keeping the arm more relaxed. When I was reaching with my hand the arm felt as if it had some tension and then that would delay the catch which led to more of a catch up stroke and late breathing .Now it seems as if I can start the pulling arm just a bit sooner to coordinate with the opposite hand entry.

Dave

[Danny]

Here's an experiment I just tried on dry land. Stand straight with one arm extended over your head. Now try to reach even further with your extended hand by extending the shoulder as well. When I do this, in order to extend my hand further I wind up rotating my elbow into an elbow up position, because it increases my reach. The conclusion I come to is that extending your shoulder puts you automatically into an elbow up position, which will improve your traction in the catch.

On the other hand, I must concede that when I focus on doing this over a prolonged period of time when swimming it starts to become hard work, and I think this is why my SPL may start to creep up over time when swimming distance. A lot of the work in my stroke seems to be me fighting against the limitations of my own shoulder.

[sclim]

Originally Posted by Danny

Here's an experiment I just tried on dry land. Stand straight with one arm extended over your head. Now try to reach even further with your extended hand by extending the shoulder as well. When I do this, in order to extend my hand further I wind up rotating my elbow into an elbow up position, because it increases my reach. The conclusion I come to is that extending your shoulder puts you automatically into an elbow up position, which will improve your traction in the catch.

On the other hand, I must concede that when I focus on doing this over a prolonged period of time when swimming it starts to become hard work, and I think this is why my SPL may start to creep up over time when swimming distance. A lot of the work in my stroke seems to be me fighting against the limitations of my own shoulder.

Do you think this might become less work with more long-term practice? I ask this out of ignorance -- but it seems to me that with the longer reach and more efficient catch, it may require a new set of muscles or some new muscle combination that is tiring only because it's new, or because the small muscles required to make this precise change have not yet been developed. But once the novelty becomes dialled in, you may be able to do it for longer without tiring. I guess the answer would be if the mechanical efficiency of disturbing less water with your longer reach (therefore glide phase) and more efficient catch trumps the extra muscle power (if any) used up in the process.

[WFEGb]

Hello Tom,

some things; I thought about, when reading your post...

- What makes it necessary to rotate more when reaching farther? Or is it just a feeling? Especially with higher SRs the angle of rotation should become smaller, riding higher in the water and getting easier to air.

- Are your hands still on their rails, or become their rails smaller?

- Did you play around with your depth of spear when reaching far? And did you reach a full (nanosecond) stretch as part of your spear without?

- Are you still relaxed in neck and head, or is there some disturbance from reaching (too?) far?

- Are you still swimming with stable core and aligned body?

- Are your catch- and press-phase still initiated and lead by core, or have your arms to work alone some more or less tiny parts of the stroke-time?

I think you have to weight very precisely if you want to give up one of these for a stroke less or a momentary better feeling.

Let us know about your further experiments and decisions.

Best regards,
Werner

[Tom Pamperin]

Werner,

thanks for sharing your thoughts here; I appreciate it.

Originally Posted by WFEGb

- What makes it necessary to rotate more when reaching farther? Or is it just a feeling? Especially with higher SRs the angle of rotation should become smaller, riding higher in the water and getting easier to air.

The increased rotation seems to be a result of moving my spearing shoulder forward to slightly increase my reach. I'm not trying to rotate farther, but it is definitely happening--not just a feeling. I think maybe I was rotating too little before.

Originally Posted by WFEGb

- Are your hands still on their rails, or become their rails smaller?

My arms are still on wide tracks, I'm pretty sure--part of the extra rotation seems to be coming from the momentum of the spearing arm on its wide entry. It also seems to make it easier to lead recovery from the elbow.

More later--thanks for helping me think it through.

[Danny]

Originally Posted by sclim

Do you think this might become less work with more long-term practice? I ask this out of ignorance -- but it seems to me that with the longer reach and more efficient catch, it may require a new set of muscles or some new muscle combination that is tiring only because it's new, or because the small muscles required to make this precise change have not yet been developed. But once the novelty becomes dialled in, you may be able to do it for longer without tiring. I guess the answer would be if the mechanical efficiency of disturbing less water with your longer reach (therefore glide phase) and more efficient catch trumps the extra muscle power (if any) used up in the process.

I don't know the exact answer to this, but here is my intuitive feel. What is limiting me in stretching into this elbow-up position is my flexibility, so if my flexibility improves then this should become easier. Sclim, you know more about anatomy than I do. What is limiting our ability to stretch our shoulder to reach higher?

[CoachJohnnyWiden]

Terry’s recommendation is to just rotate OFF your stomach. That gives you one shoulder in the air to reduce drag. Rotating further doesn’t give less drag, it takes more energy and it takes more time and thereby is a hindrance for a higher tempo.

[sclim]

Originally Posted by Danny

I don't know the exact answer to this, but here is my intuitive feel. What is limiting me in stretching into this elbow-up position is my flexibility, so if my flexibility improves then this should become easier. Sclim, you know more about anatomy than I do. What is limiting our ability to stretch our shoulder to reach higher?

Gee, if the limitation before was one of true lack of flexibility, I would think it would be difficult to overcome that suddenly by trying harder. Joint flexibility doesn't change that much by gritting your teeth and stretching a joint or tendon beyond what angle you can achieve without too much discomfort. On the other hand if it were a force thing, then maybe you were achieving the further stretch by increasing muscle force, or a combination of this plus more rotation which required more stabilization force to control, which is why you found it more tiring, after repeating it for a while.

By muscle force, I mean, for example, the ability to slide your shoulder blade further out on the rib cage than your usual limit. This is partly limited by the stretchiness of the muscles on the other side holding it back, but by using the muscles that slide it outwards more forcefully than your usual reach you might be able to add a further inch or so of reach. And depending on the velocity and other specifics of dynamics of that shoulder blade slide you might be able to finesse the momentum of the recovering arm to result in a final effective forward momentum than previously possible.

[WFEGb]

Hello Johnny,

Terry’s recommendation is to just rotate OFF your stomach. That gives you one shoulder in the air to reduce drag. Rotating further doesn’t give less drag, it takes more energy and it takes more time and thereby is a hindrance for a higher tempo.

You're very right here. But Terry's recommendation was merely a reaction to many swimmers who misunderstood (me too) his yellow (in Germany white) book as to swim as stacked as possible. Focusing in swimming off stomach will be just the right cure to the focus "as stacked as possible".

On the other side, when playing around at your thresholds, as I think Tom does, a little overrotation as result or experiment "what happens, when..." shouldn't be avoided from start on... OK, decisions should be as holistic as possible (is ahap a known acronym?).

Also when swimming very relaxed or swimming in synch a little more rotation-angle might add some even more relaxation or the possiblility to synch with each other. (As the still of you and Terry shows...)

Best regards,
Werner