Rotation/Catch/Kick Synchronization and Timing Variants

Originally Posted by Tom Pamperin

So it seems like the "don't rotate until spearing hand hits the water" idea is gaining ground here. It really has changed the way I swim, or at least how it feels to me.

Tom

I think i can deduce what is happening, "staying up" till entry is using the whole flat of the body to rock across the surface of the water giving a really high body position when "stopped" by balancing off the palm underwater

so from palm to palm with the flat of the body rolling across the surface

i certainly felt a dry back anyway

Like displacement theory ( how battleships etc float, like a saucer placed flat in a sink full of water it will float and you can push the edges down slightly but swamp / submege it and it will sink like a rock)

We are displacing the water underneath ourselves and riding across the surface like a boat
tip to far and sink?

A series of alternating palm / elbow presses tensioning and relaxing?

So stop punching forward and instead start pressing down and nudge forward in surges

The water pushes up on the swimmer with a value proportional to the volume of water displaced by the swimmer.*

So thats why the out of shape fat dudes run rings around the skinny dudes?

[sclim]

Originally Posted by Mushroomfloat

So thats why the out of shape fat dudes run rings around the skinny dudes?

My understanding of that is a little more nuanced. Swimming (in a streamlined position) UNDER the surface creates less overall drag than BREAKING the surface at the same velocity.

So the problem with the really skinny dudes (me) is that they are so low that if they have any leg-sinky problems, their head is so low that coming up for air requires a marked deviation from normal alignment and aggravates the leg sinky proplems and destroys longitudinal alignment.

The fat guy and the skilful skinny guy are constantly breaking the surface with their shoulder and back of head and maybe hip, so are equivalent in drag, even though the fat guy may be slightly more buoyant, and the skilful skinny guy can turn his head for air in the trough behind his head without bouncing up, and so his leg alignment doesn't suffer.

I think possibly the merit of the delayed rotation on spear is that the high shoulder at spear presents less of a frontal chest area drag than a dropped shoulder at that moment. That adds up over the cumulative additions of each stroke. And in the non drag department, the stretched latissimus muscle may give a recoil-related efficiency when contraction is required. And their may be subtle forward momentum issues I can't figure out. It certainly feels more efficient of your given finite energy stores.

I felt that i was supported onthe surface by the water and was even jostled about by wavelets in the pool, like i was floating along on a cushion, certainly seemed less energy intensive than being more submerged as usual

Almost like i was using the water rebound