How much roll in the backstroke?

Pat in TX said:

When I saw the post on fish-tailing, at first I thought it must be about the
backstroke, because that is when I fishtail (if I'm going to fishtail at
all). Today, I paid particular attention to backstroke and discovered that
the more I roll, the less I fishtail. But, my question is: is the roll in
the backstroke confined to the upper body alone?

thanks,

Pat

No, it isn't.

See for example

http://buehlerbluemarlins.net/videos/athens2004/coughlin2004b.mpg

There is something very peculiar about Natalie Coughlin, and I think
that no one has noted it before: she uses 8 kicks per cycle.

"Pat in TX" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

When I saw the post on fish-tailing, at first I thought it must be about

the

Quoted message said:

backstroke, because that is when I fishtail (if I'm going to fishtail at
all). Today, I paid particular attention to backstroke and discovered that
the more I roll, the less I fishtail. But, my question is: is the roll in
the backstroke confined to the upper body alone?

Rolling in Back Crawl (we should assume that you meant this stroke -
Backstroke the name of a type of swimming event, not a stroke) is a Good
Thing. By rolling you place you arm muscles in a better position to exert
force on the water, and you reduce the drag of the rest of the body. A side
benefit of this rolling is that it makes it less likely that you will have a
large lateral component to the armstroke, and so, as you have noticed, will
reduce sideways excursions of the legs and feet; these often being necessary
to keep traveling in a straight line.

The degree of roll is subject to some amount of variation, depending on body
structure and the details of individual stroke mechanics, but in all cases
it is best considered partly a 'twist" as well as a roll. Strictly
speaking, a roll would have all parts of the body turned to the same degree;
this is seldom the case, the amount of twist being largest at the soulders,
and diminishing, though not vanishing, at the hips. On viewing the legs of
a good Back Crawl swimmer you may notice greater or lesser amounts of
torsion, depending on the particular phase of the kick you are seeing, but
in general it will not exceed that seen at the hips.

Quoted message said:

Rolling in Back Crawl (we should assume that you meant this stroke -
Backstroke the name of a type of swimming event, not a stroke) is a Good
Thing. By rolling you place you arm muscles in a better position to exert
force on the water, and you reduce the drag of the rest of the body. A
side
benefit of this rolling is that it makes it less likely that you will have
a
large lateral component to the armstroke, and so, as you have noticed,
will
reduce sideways excursions of the legs and feet; these often being
necessary
to keep traveling in a straight line.

The degree of roll is subject to some amount of variation, depending on
body
structure and the details of individual stroke mechanics, but in all cases
it is best considered partly a 'twist" as well as a roll. Strictly
speaking, a roll would have all parts of the body turned to the same
degree;
this is seldom the case, the amount of twist being largest at the
soulders,
and diminishing, though not vanishing, at the hips. On viewing the legs
of
a good Back Crawl swimmer you may notice greater or lesser amounts of
torsion, depending on the particular phase of the kick you are seeing, but
in general it will not exceed that seen at the hips.

Ah, yes, you are correct: the back crawl. I also do the elementary
backstroke sometimes when my lower back starts hurting. Your second
paragraph gets to my particular stroke, though. It seems when I roll my
body, it is only the trunk and not the legs that roll. So, I am doing a
twist, evidently. I was wondering if that was normal because it sometimes
leads to fishtailing. If I do laps in the back crawl, I notice that when my
mind wanders, so do my legs! thanks.

Pat in TX

Quoted message said:

thanks for your response. I will study the clip.

Pat in TX