Analyzing the Underwater Pull

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Thanks for posting!!  Btw you can add some hyperlinks easily by clicking on the chain symbol in the rich text editor.

GREAT information! Thanks!!!

Very nice!

yes, thank you!

Very helpful videos.  Thanks Gary.  The big question, though, seems to go unanswered.  Which is the best pull technique for triathletes?  I'm thinking it is the shoulder-driven technique, since I've always been told to save the legs for the bike and run.  On the other hand, the longer the race the more important hip and body rotation seems to be, which is key to the hip-driven technique. 

Gary, I watched one of your other videos (maybe it was part of this series, not sure) where you showed in a video the path of the hand of an elite swimmer, which exited the water right where it entered...therefore the average speed of the hand was ZERO during the stroke. This graphic made it pretty clear how and why the REST of the arm is creating drag, and how cautious and careful one must be when placing the arm into the propulsive position so as not to cause a loss of momentum.

As I've been practicing with these ideas in mind, it really feels like I'm paddling a fast boat, whtih the amount of force required to maintain speed much lower than what I was exerience before...and yet I'm traveling the speed or faster. So these ideas definately work.

However I wanted to caution people from a medical point of view (yes I know you are physician). It seems like you are using the term "lift" in a different way than most swim literature has traditionally used it. "lift" in swimming has traditionally referred to a forward propulsive component caused by the hand moving through the water with some element of sideways movement, as if the hand were an airplane wing oriented vertically and moving sideways in the water. However Computational Fluid Dynamic studies have shown this component to be so negligible as to be nearly non-existant. In addition, some studies suggested that the Bernoulli effect doesn't even happen in the water due to the boundary layer interaction creating turbulent, rather than laminar flow around the swimmer. (Laminar flow is required to create lift)

So when you describe "lift" you are referring to a literal upwards (toward the sky) lifting of the body, which is created more due to angle of a attack of the leading arm and simple "action, reaction" forces. push down on the water and the body goes up rather than Lift in the sense that an airfoil creates lift.

I think adult triathlete swimmers need to be extremely cautious about this front quadrant movement in swimming because pushing down in front usually causes the rear to sink. Since avoiding drag is the #1 consideration in swimming, you need to be a fairly well conditioned swimmer for this to work. You need to have strong shoulders since this is an unstable position for the shoulder, a strong core that won't collapse, and a strong sense for what it feels like to remain balanced in the water (can you sense when your hips sink, even just an inch).

In order to progress towards what Gary is describing, most triathletes looking to get faster should be very careful to protect the shoulders in this phase, not push down. Instead focus on the streamline and "free speed" available here by not letting the hips sink, while the body rotates and drops the forearm into the catch position ready for the next phase of propulsive effort (which is a push, not a pull)