Dexterity and sinister bubbles

Donal Fagan <Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com> wrote in :"]news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

I saw that struggling swimmer again. Today he took about 37 - 38 seconds for a 25 yard length,
but based on the energy he puts into his open turns, I would say that he is trying very hard to
go fast.

Anyway, he made a lot of bubbles, so I looked ahead during my warmup to see what sort of
turbulence *I* was creating. <snip useful stuff>

Boy, that whole bubbles thing sure went a different way than I was thinking. I must be the world's
oldest 6 year-old. Guess what kind of sinister bubbles I was thinking of.

I have also noticed that I make more bubbles (Donal's kind) with my left hand/arm than with my
right. I don't make many, though, and have always felt that was good, though I'd never read anything
specific about it. I just noticed that folks who thrashed more seldom went as fast, or at least
seemed to burn a heck of a lot more energy doing it.

Interestingly, I injured my left leg recently, and my last two workouts have been freestyle pull
only. Darned if I'm not faster for moderate intensity with pull alone (with OR without a bouy). In a
sprint, I'm sure my kick is helpful/effective, but it would appear that I maintain more efficient
form when not kicking. When I use a bouy, I really motor. Weird.

Quoted message said:

That observation made me think about Maglischo's assertion that we swim better on one side because
we are simply more dextrous with that hand and arm.

Maglischo has made an important point here, but - because traditional swimming is so hand-oriented -
has come to a different conclusion than I have. After watching about 10,000 swimmers on underwater
video the last 15 years my observation has indeed been that 90% of swimmers have more stroke errors
on one side than the other. But they're balance errors, not stroking errors. The stroking errors are
simply the swimmer's intuitive attempt to correct body position -- usually by putting more energy
into pressing down, rather than anchoring. We call it having a "vanilla" side and a "chocolate"
side. And it correlates 100% with degree of comfort when in Sweet Spot on right or left side. When I
see more prominent left-hand stroke errors, I ask "Did you feel less comfortable in Sweet Spot when
you were on your left side?" And the answer is always yes.

What causes the bilateral asymmetry? My guess is it's a function of different wiring in our
brain. And there's been no pronounced pattern that relates it to whether you're right-handed or
left-handed. A more reliable pattern is whether you are a right- or left-side breather. Millions
of strokes rolling more to one side than the other do have a deleterious effect on balance on
that side.

As for eliminating bubbles -- and slipping your entire arm through the hole cut by your fingertips
(which is one of the focal points we use for entry) -- the best way to eliminate those bubbles is to
insert the hand much closer to your head. The image I paint for students is to slip your hand in as
if you were trying to scrape the heel of your hand against the leading edge of your head on entry.
Swim for health and happiness, Terry

Quoted message said:

As for eliminating bubbles -- and slipping your entire arm through the hole cut by your fingertips
(which is one of the focal points we use for entry) -- the best way to eliminate those bubbles is
to insert the hand much closer to your head. The image I paint for students is to slip your hand
in as if you were trying to scrape the heel of your hand against the leading edge of your head on
entry. Swim for health and happiness, Terry

hmmm, I spent a little time thinking about this and decided that there isn't anyway for your arm
enter 'through the hole' (like on a start) for two reasons. The first being that you're moving even
while doing the entry, and secondly because after a a lot of looking in the mirror I can't find any
way to perform the entry that leaves my fingers significantly behind their original entry point.

Yeah, I know there's some explanation to be had here, let's start with the 'moving even while doing
the entry' bit. I don't have any video that'd be clear/slow/detailed enough to precisely measure
empirically the distance measured on the entry, so I had to do a lot of guess work based on some
numbers that I felt were reasonable for me.

Given:

-swimming about 35s/50scm, moderate so as not to involve anything specific to sprinting or 'slow'
swimming (like over kicking)

-20m 'clean swimming', ~ 1m into the wall & ~4 off before the catch of the first stroke (again,
repeatable training values, not ideal racing ones)

-12 strokes per 25.

-1.35m/s 'clean' swimming speed, 2.25s/stroke. To get this I converted the 35 to lcm (35.97lcm ==
316IPS == 35.0scm) so my clean swimming speed = [36*(45/50)]/24

Again some counting, thinking & mirror work figured that my entry is prob between 1/12 & 1/20 of my
entire stroke. 1/15 give a nice .15s for the entry. Again this is heavily based in the realm of
'thought experiment'. So .15s @ 1.35m/s = 20.25cm, nearly as long as my (rather small) foot.
Assuming I've not goofed too badly (prob a rather large assumption) the water that's at my head when
I start my entry will be somewhere 'round my armpit before I'm ready to catch.

So the next question is "how can I enter so my fingers finish 20cm lower then they start?". Again,
more mirror time. Not a single variation I tried could come close to my desired -20cm mark. I did,
though, find three cases (and a lot of chalk marks on the wall ;p) that came under 0cm:

1)Plunge the hands in as soon as possible, as straight down as possible. With a good roll the hand
will enter near the forehead and quickly arrive directly below the shoulder. This case does well
on the -20cm, but I don't think you could do it anywhere near close enough to .15s, let alone swim
very fast. Trivial case.

2)Reach as far as possible before entering, essentially entering the whole arm all at once. In such
a case one _could_ consider the catch to be the entry, though I don't like one's chances for being
able to roll, or 'clean' the hand (let alone the whole arm) this way, hence the actual catch
(regardless of any hand movements/positioning) would prob come very late in this (very flat)
stroke. (nearly) Trivial case, though more promissing.

3)Reach as far as possible while keeping elbow higher then wrist, in turn higher then fingers and
attempt to roll very quickly so as to be near the 90 vertical _during_ the catch. A fairly fast &
not very clean catch. No way does this even approach the 'whole arm through one small hole' ideal,
though I think it does meet the duration & nearly meet the (20cm) advancement goal. Thinking about
it I'm not sure the whole arm would get terribly clean, but this entry should certainly allow the
hand to clean, the 'catch' (pun not intended) being the very aggressive roll, something I've
advocated for other reasons - I'm man enough to note my own bias on this point. Never the less, I
think, for other reasons mentioned below, this is the catch i think I'm going to argue for.

Noticing, as Larry discussed at great length, a swimmer moving at any speed at all is going to push
a wave and it doesn't appear to be any laminar flow to worry about disrupting. The water we're
entering, in other words, isn't flat, placid or otherwise undisturbed. It seems unlikely that _any_
entry, by it's self, is going to solve the clean entry problem. Just as a paddle can't possibly have
a clean entry in a rapid (a decidedly extreme example, I know), I'm not sure that a hand can enter
terribly cleanly, without taking absurd precautions, either. An entry/catch with a fair degree of
vertical motion (in this case achieved by the roll) give a 'shedding' opportunity though.

Soooooooo, it is (now) 2:30 in the morning and I know of some of the (perhaps) ridiculous
assumptions made, so I'm well aware that I'm prob talking out of my [censored]. That being said I don't
see any obvious reason (aside from sheer verbosity, perhaps ;p) for arguing for an attenuated/early
entry as opposed to a pretty elongated/late one. I'm sure, though, that in the morning (well, the
morning that feels like morning) someone will, no doubt, enlighten me.

And with that, a good night,

GL Mike