Triathlete Asks Good Question About Best Stroke Model

See the conversation below - food for thought!  Dave

Adding to the twitter chat going on at the moment re optimal stroke rates/lengths...

Rick Demont does a good job of highligting the differences between a traditional 'Thope' length focused stroke and a more tri-typical rate stroke in "The Swim Coaches Bible".

I've attached a couple of diagrams to highlight the differences and to indicate why a T.I. stroke doesn't work for a lot of triathletes/long distance swimmers.

 

In the traditional 'Thorpe' stroke you'll see there is a period where one hand is getting to a 'catch point' while the other is recovering. In other words, the only propulsive thing going on at that point is coming from the kick. If you have a very strong kick, i.e. you can kick almost as fast as you can pull, it's a good trade because it allows you to get an anchor point a long way ahead of the shoulder and a very long stroke. If you don't, or you are concerned with 'saving the legs' it's a very bad deal because there will be a 'dead spot' in each stroke.

In the 'EC approved' stroke, the swimmer gives up a little ground by getting a deeper catch that wastes some energy to pushing water down rather than back but allows for some degree of continuous propulsion from the arms, i.e. one hand immediately takes over from the other.

This difference in styles is explored in a little more depth in a recent swim smooth video blog:

http://www.feelforthewater.com/2010/02/what-is-efficient-freestyle-strok...

Hope these serve as good visualization tools to make your personal ideal model of swimming more clear.

Best,

AC

 

Re: EC vs TI Swimming

Couple more thoughts from an email discussion...

The question was asked "why can't we have both?" i.e. a high elbow catch and continuous stroke.

The reason is, in order to have the highest elbow position with the catch as far in front of the head as possible you have to 'wait' for the shoulder to come back up after rotating down. Try it - try to get a high elbow catch with your shoulder down - the hand will be a lot lower than if you try it with your shoulders square.

As mentioned above, the trade off in this 'waiting' is that the shoulders get square with the recovery of the opposite arm, i.e. the only propulsion coming from the legs. For a 100/200/400 swimmer with a strong kick, this extra stroke length is a good trade. For a distance swimmer/triathlete, saving the legs and sacrificing the high 'textbook catch' is IMHO a better approach.

Cheers,

AC

 
Bruce,

 

 
thanks for sharing.  I will re-post on our site with some comments.  I like the swimsmooth video cited later in the article but to distill the article to several keys:
 
there are many ways to skin the cat - no one stroke is "the way".  One thing the article doesn't account for is gender differences which can be significant.  Ian Thorpe was an amazing swimmer but his stroke was relatively unique and nearly impossible to duplicate for most with similar results many think because of his extreme flexibility and huge kick / feet.  Anthony's stroke is significantly different - almost the antithesis of Thorpe's and almost necessarily.
 
The author mixes several ideas - Rick Demont is the sprint guru at U of AZ, TI - I think is total immersion (long catch up type stroke with lots of rolling), not sure what EC approved is or means and Swim Coaches Bible not sure.  
 
When I think of successful examples we may be familiar with I think of Lauren, Craig and Larry, Gwen.
 
Craig, Larry and Gwen are all "good swimmers" who began in the pool.  More leg driven but they can lay off the legs when racing with or without a wetsuit and they could all go under an hour in 2.5 miles.  Lauren is more rate driven less DPS but still very effective, especially with a wetsuit.  James is another example because while he began in the pool the guy can turn it over and he doesn't have to use his legs to go fast for a long time.
 
For you Bruce, you come form the run background and you are not fluid the way you might have been had you started in the sport at age 10 or 12.   Trying to ID the right model to pursue is certainly a difficult question because there are so many conflicting "best ways" to go.  You are a bad kicker - not for lack of effort but it does little to help you other than to balance your / counteract your arm pulls.  I guess I would advocate for a little something more like what Anthony is advocating even if his event is 21 seconds and yours is a little longer.  Picking up the rate, using a buoy to kind of duplicate the wet suit idea and trying to move from one pull to the next in a connected way if that makes any sense, without extending too far in a catch up type stroke might be an ok idea to start.
 
let's talk more on deck....Dave