technique question

"Lev Borisov" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Hi all,

I seem to have noticed a problem with my technique and was wondering
if any of you have encountered something similar. Namely, I seem to
be using my arms to rotate the body (front crawl), rather than using
the trunk/leg muscles. Or at least the arms are a large part of it.
What would be good drills to try to overcome this habit, which by now
is pretty ingrained?

Lev

Kicking drills, lot of kicking on your side, 6 kicks on one side, take one
stroke, 6 kicks on the other side...
Keep your abs tightened, and think of yourself as if on a skewer, everything
moves together, no twisting at the waist.
Hips and abs start the rotation and drive it to the shoulder, legs follow.
Emphasize the 'hip snap' for a while.

I would add two kicking drills to what was listed:

The first is "Around the World Kick". Kick on your stomach with your
head down, and when you want to breathe, rotate ALL THE WAY ONTO YOUR
BACK. If you do this right, you'll rotate from your hip and gut, and
your whole body will stay connected. The key is to not turn your head,
then your shoulders, and then your hips. Your body turns together.

Another drill is "rotational kick". Basically, you just rotate your
body while keeping your head in the same position. You're still
working on keeping your whole body alighed. I'd recommend getting a
Finis brand snorkel and using fins too for this one.

-Ryan
http://www.ICoachSwimming.com

Lev Borisov said:

Hi all,

I seem to have noticed a problem with my technique and was wondering
if any of you have encountered something similar. Namely, I seem to
be using my arms to rotate the body (front crawl), rather than using
the trunk/leg muscles. Or at least the arms are a large part of it.
What would be good drills to try to overcome this habit, which by now

Quoted message said:

is pretty ingrained?

Lev

Your question is not easy to answer. There's not agreement on this
even with the experts. Maglischo says the arms start the stroke,
whereas people like Bob Prichard swear by the hips.

I vote for the hips being the power for the stroke, but it's not
trivial to swim that way.

Do you want to use your hip/leg motion to aid the front of your stroke
or the back of the stroke?

In a standard two-beat or six-beat rhythm, there's a vigorous kick near
the end of the arm pull. That will get your hips to the other side and
help the final outward and upward pull of the arm. It's fairly
intuitive to swim that way in my opinion.

However, I think a lot of elite males swim a different way. They've
changed the timing of their kicks to aid the front part of the pull.
The best way to see that is on video of Hackett or Keller when they are
using a four beat kick. You can try it for yourself - assuming you are
right handed and breath right (that seems to be most common). After
recovery of your right arm back into the water, your left leg should be
down and your right leg up. Bring your right hand down to catch, then
scissor your legs (left leg up, right leg down) - you can feel the
torque that gets generated that wants to rotate your hips. That will
also pull your right arm back. You can feel the power from the hips
helping the front part of your right arm pull.

Eric

On Tue, 01 Mar 2005 09:38:52 -0800, ekurth wrote:

<snip>

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

any of you have encountered something similar. Namely, I seem to be
using my arms to rotate the body (front crawl), rather than using the

<snip>

Quoted message said:

Your question is not easy to answer. There's not agreement on this even
with the experts. Maglischo says the arms start the stroke, whereas
people like Bob Prichard swear by the hips.

I vote for the hips being the power for the stroke, but it's not trivial
to swim that way.

Eric brings up some good points and to toss in my $0.02 I'd like to
mention that at slower speeds, ie anything achievable (let alone
maintainable) by we the mere mortals, I think the matter is more a
question of timing than emphasis.

Personally I'm in favour of a 'monolithic' body roll with a similar
degree of rotation for both shoulders and hips. My weaker and younger
swimmers often have a challenge getting their hips to roll at all, being
rather focused on their hands, and end up swinging their arms in large
arcs through the recovery resulting in over reaching problems on entry and
fishtailing though the pull.

A drill I like, and have had some success with, is a dry land drill. If
you've got access to a full length mirror you've got a good opportunity to
practice the timing and get a little balance work in to boot. Begin facing
the/a wall perpendicular to the mirror feet nearly double shoulder width
apart arms raised to the sides until your hands are at navel height. Turn
your head to look at the mirror and lean forward taking the weight off
the back foot. If done carefully most of your body should be hidden behind
the side facing the mirror.

The idea of the drill is to take this exaggerated 90deg position and
smoothly 'roll' to the other side. Switch feet, swing hands (thumbs
brushing your thighs 'out of the way'😉 and hide the other side of your
body.

If done smoothly and with with control the hips _have_ to roll with the
shoulders and there _will_ be a down 'kick' with the timing Eric mentions.

--Mike