Andrew Sheaff’s Post

Transcript

While the principles of creating a lot of propulsion are relatively straightforward, how those principles are applied can sometimes require nuance. It may seem counterintuitive, but one of the biggest mistakes swimmers make in butterfly is finishing the stroke. Let's find out why. Hi everyone, Andrew here helping you help your summers get faster in swimming. It's not about maximizing anyone aspect of the stroke. Instead, it's about optimizing the stroke in order to create as much speed as possible. One important area where that comes into play. Is the pull in butterfly? Obviously the arms are recovered relatively straight over the surface, and the further summers pull back, the more propulsion they can create. So it makes sense for summers to try to pull all the way until their arms are straight and then just recover the arms straight over the surface of the water. Well, it may make sense at first glance. Unfortunately, that's a great way to swim slow butterfly. Instead, summers want to finish the stroke with bent elbows and round out the back of the stroke in order to maintain hand speed through the finish. So that they can effortlessly swing their arms over the surface. If they pull all the way back, they're really not going to create much more propulsion. And the hands are going to come to a stop, which is going to make it that much more difficult to swing them around in order to get ready for the next stroke cycle. Let's see what's happening and talk about why it's happening so that you can better understand how to help your summers go fast now. So if we watch this summer here, what we're going to see is that while she pulls back and she pulls back a long ways, right there, you can see that the elbows are still bent. As she exits the water. Now, why is that happening? Well, remember, it's not just the hands that are creating propulsion, it's the whole arm, especially the form and the hand. And so at some point she's going to run out of room where she can't keep that whole surface area facing backwards. And so there's going to be a big drop off in how much propulsion she can create. So right about here, she can't really maintain the forearms facing backwards much longer. She could continue to push back, but she's only going to have the hand facing backwards and that's not going to create that much. Propulsion, and we'll create more propulsion, but relatively speaking, not that much. And there's consequences for continuing to pull back. So if we watch here, she's going to pull and then she's going to effortlessly swing those arms around so you can see the hand speed still up and she just slides them out and she's gonna swing those around really easily. And of course, as you've seen, a lot of butterflies really struggle to maintain their recoveries when they get really tired, so that the more that they can maintain the hand speed through the pole, swing that over the surface, the easier it's going to be to continue to recover the arms smoothly. So again. It's all about tradeoffs. She could get a little bit more propulsion by continuing to pull back here, but instead she just slides up and out, keeps the elbows bent, and then when the hands straighten, they're going to straighten over the surface once they've cleared the water instead of straightening under the water. So she gives up a little bit of propulsion, but that allows her to swim with a lot less effort. It allows her to recover the hands faster and it allows her to get into the next stroke cycle sooner so that she can create more propulsion again. So instead of maximizing the poll, she's going to optimize the full stroke cycle by finishing with the elbows bent and then more easily sliding those hands over the surface and recovering the arms. So we'll take a look at another summer. And so again, you can see elbows are bent here and she's recovering them out and then they straighten over the surface. So again, she's optimizing her pull by pulling back with the forms facing backwards as long as she can. When she can't maintain that position anymore, then she's going to transition to the recovery. She's gonna round out that finish rather than pulling straight back as far as she can and try to lift those arms out of the water. So it's all about maintaining hand speed here, taking the hand speed that's created during the pull and then transferring it into the recovery of the arms. And by doing that, she's going to create a really powerful. Or she's going to get a lot of propulsion. She's not gonna give up very much, but then she's gonna get a huge benefit and that she's going to be able to effortlessly recover the arms over the surface. And so the better she can manage that transition, the more she's going to create a lot of propulsion and set herself up for a really effortless recovery. Take a look at one more summer here, and we're going to see the same thing. So pulling back here, big surface area, holding it all the way through, keeping the forearms back. And you can see the elbows are still bent there. The forms are still straight up. Now, but he's not going to be able to maintain that position for much longer. So he starts to slide those hands up and out over the surface of the water. So instead of pulling back all the way down almost to his knees, he's going to exit right about his hips. And that's going to allow him to recover the arms a lot more easily. And so again, it's all about figuring out how to create as much propulsion as possible without compromising the recovery, trying to get as much as you can, create as much propulsion as you can. Without requiring a really effortful recovery. And so how far should Summers pull back? Well, that's going to depend a little bit. How well can they maintain a really good surface area for as long as possible and then also how well can they smoothly transition to the recovery. And so if swimmers aren't able to maintain a really great hand speed throughout the entire poll, that may need to exit the water a little bit earlier to facilitate the recovery. The stronger they are, the more they can hold their positions throughout the back of the stroke. They could probably benefit from 1:00. Holding a propulsive position for a little bit longer because they can actually get into that position and they have the strength to maintain their hand speed throughout the entire poll. So again, it's about balancing the need to create as much propulsion as possible with the need to recover the arms as effortlessly as possible. And the better swimmers can maintain a good propulsive surface area with the whole arm, and the better they can maintain their hand speed throughout the back of the stroke, the longer they can hold on to their poll if they can't maintain. Effective propulsive positions, and they can't maintain their hand speed throughout the entire poll. They're going to get in a lot of trouble if they try to really maintain a longer pull. They're not going to be able to transition into the recovery because they won't have the hand speed, and because they're not in a good position, it's not going to be worth it anyway. They're not going to create much more additional propulsion. Swimming fast is all about tradeoffs, and in this case, it's about giving up a little bit of the propulsion that's created from the poll in order to create an effortless recovery.