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High Elbow Catch - Key to Swimming?
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 2012-08-28 3:36 PM |
Regular  107  Thousand Oaks |  Subject: High Elbow Catch - Key to Swimming?I started swimming about 6 weeks ago and have made massive improvements mostly through focusing on keeping my head down and hips high in the water. Initially I was around a 2 minute 100 yds and that has dropped to about 1:45 which is great for me just starting out. I'd like to become even more efficient with my stroke and I keep zeroing in on a proper "high elbow catch" that I keep hearing about and reading about. Today is the first day that I'll be attempting this in the pool and I'd like to hear some thoughts on this specific subject from the vets here. Is it one of the big keys to swimming? Is keeping the elbow high at the beginning of the "catch" what you want to do along with focusing on keeping the palm flat and pushing the water directly behind me? I think currently I do two things that are hurting me: 1. Letting my palm angle upwards at the very end of my reach which in essence is causing drag. 2. Pushing down on the water with my palm and arm rather than behind me which makes my legs drop and drag. I would think both are devastating to my stroke, particularly #2.
Hill |
| 2012-08-28 3:45 PM in reply to: #4384893 |
Expert 898  Plano, National Capital Region | Subject: RE: High Elbow Catch - Key to Swimming? Taormina's book is all about the catch... Swim Speed Secrets (Amazon) |
| 2012-08-28 5:00 PM in reply to: #4384893 |
Pro 5361 | Subject: RE: High Elbow Catch - Key to Swimming? Hilltopper1972 - 2012-08-28 1:36 PM ... I think currently I do two things that are hurting me: 1. Letting my palm angle upwards at the very end of my reach which in essence is causing drag. 2. Pushing down on the water with my palm and arm rather than behind me which makes my legs drop and drag. I would think both are devastating to my stroke, particularly #2. those are two common errors. but everytime someone starts talking about what a perfect stroke should look like, I have them watch this video: |
| 2012-08-28 5:24 PM in reply to: #4384893 |
Master 2356 Westlake Village , Ca. | Subject: RE: High Elbow Catch - Key to Swimming? Janet's stroke is awesome. Who cares what happens above the water....look how solid it is below. Also, and this is key, look how high she rides in the water. She basically lifts herself out on each stroke....which is awesome and one of many reasons she's so fast. |
| 2012-08-28 5:36 PM in reply to: #4385126 |
Pro 5361 | Subject: RE: High Elbow Catch - Key to Swimming? Fastyellow - 2012-08-28 3:24 PM Janet's stroke is awesome... absolutely awesome. Confirmed awesome when you come home with a world record. but hardly textbook. Put that stroke (minus the WR pace) in front of any swim coach and they'd flambe' you. perhaps the reason why her head was so high, was that she was exceeding hull speed and planing. Lest you think I'm kidding, if you put in a 4ft (no head, part leg) hull length into a hull speed calculator, you come out with 2.7 knots. she was probably going faster than that. Edited by morey000 2012-08-28 5:41 PM |
| 2012-08-28 6:55 PM in reply to: #4384893 |
Coach 9167 Stairway to Seven | Subject: RE: High Elbow Catch - Key to Swimming? Hilltopper1972 - 2012-08-28 2:36 PM I started swimming about 6 weeks ago and have made massive improvements mostly through focusing on keeping my head down and hips high in the water. Initially I was around a 2 minute 100 yds and that has dropped to about 1:45 which is great for me just starting out. I'd like to become even more efficient with my stroke and I keep zeroing in on a proper "high elbow catch" that I keep hearing about and reading about. Today is the first day that I'll be attempting this in the pool and I'd like to hear some thoughts on this specific subject from the vets here. Is it one of the big keys to swimming? Is keeping the elbow high at the beginning of the "catch" what you want to do along with focusing on keeping the palm flat and pushing the water directly behind me? I think currently I do two things that are hurting me: 1. Letting my palm angle upwards at the very end of my reach which in essence is causing drag. 2. Pushing down on the water with my palm and arm rather than behind me which makes my legs drop and drag. I would think both are devastating to my stroke, particularly #2.
Hill Both of your observations are things you want to improve. You've already solved or vastly improved 2 of the 3 main components to swimmign well & fast...BALANCE and STREAMLINING. You can always make imrpovements to both, but until you improve balance any propulsive efforts you make will be working against drag. Eliminating the "Diana ROss" moment (Stop! In the Name Of Love - up turned hand at full extension) and pushign water back can both be done without a true vertical forearm. A textbook HEC/EVF is extremely difficult unless you are 12 years old, have been swimming since you were 5 or are naturally and consistently very flexible like the olympians we see photos of. Most of the rest of us have flexibility limitations that allows to pursue an ESEEDF or "earlier slightly elevated elbow with downsloping forearm" as opposed to a true EVF or Early Vertical forearm. Not that you can't work towards EVF...but most people will find the "key" to unlocking more forward propulsion is the ESEEDF rather than an EVF. |
| 2012-08-28 7:00 PM in reply to: #4384893 |
Pro 6582 Melbourne FL Gold member | Subject: RE: High Elbow Catch - Key to Swimming? Hilltopper1972 - 2012-08-28 4:36 PM I started swimming about 6 weeks ago and have made massive improvements mostly through focusing on keeping my head down and hips high in the water. Initially I was around a 2 minute 100 yds and that has dropped to about 1:45 which is great for me just starting out. I'd like to become even more efficient with my stroke and I keep zeroing in on a proper "high elbow catch" that I keep hearing about and reading about. Today is the first day that I'll be attempting this in the pool and I'd like to hear some thoughts on this specific subject from the vets here. Is it one of the big keys to swimming? Is keeping the elbow high at the beginning of the "catch" what you want to do along with focusing on keeping the palm flat and pushing the water directly behind me? I think currently I do two things that are hurting me: 1. Letting my palm angle upwards at the very end of my reach which in essence is causing drag. 2. Pushing down on the water with my palm and arm rather than behind me which makes my legs drop and drag. I would think both are devastating to my stroke, particularly #2. Hill Been there done that! I had my 'ah ha' moment after I watched this BT swim video, in particular the Balance discussion which start at the 31:40 point.
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| 2012-08-28 7:14 PM in reply to: #4384893 |
| Master 2460 | Subject: RE: High Elbow Catch - Key to Swimming? As said above, Taormina's book is ALL about the EVF/catch.
According to her, for intermediate swimmers who don't have major leg dragging issues, the absence of propulsion is a far greater limiter than further streamlining, which is a different approach to the Total Immersion approach (advocated by Adventurebear).She says outright that for such swimmers, speed is over 80% propulsion and 20% (or less) of drag reduction.
I think both are valid in their respective phases. At least in my experience, in my early swim year, streamlining and reduction of unnecessary body motion was the biggest time saver (TI approach).
However, once I dipped below 1:45-1:50/100yds for T-pace, streamlining further for me has yielded very, very low gains, like less than 2sec/100, if even that for me. Whereas continued EVF focus on workouts has continued to drop my time, even as stroke rate stays same or lower. I'd recommend the Taormina book for MOP swimmers at your/my speed - it's exactly what you need for real improvement. NO shortcut, though. Still takes a lot of yards and focus on form to improve, but it definitely works.
The Taormina book has been spot-on for improving at my current speed as a MOP swimmer (I'm a 1:35 t-pace now.) That 80%/20% propulsion to drag reduction was a key concept for me, and helped explain why I wasn't getting any more speed gains despite a lot of work on drillage, 'perfect' swimming, and further streamlining at my speed. |
| 2012-08-29 9:00 AM in reply to: #4384893 |
Member 75 South Texas | Subject: Mr. Smooth I found the site, swimsmooth dot com, and it has an animated swimmer that demonstrates the "perfect" freestyle technique. I worked hard to imitate this style and it has vastly improved my swimming. There are a couple of products which they recommend, that I bought. The most important was the Finis Tempo Trainer pro. It gives such great pace feedback and keeps me steady. The other is a finis paddle that only attaches to the middle finger. It is triangular in shape and it forces you to keep your form close to perfect when you have it on. Being self-coached this is a great device. If my form degrades while I have these paddles on the paddles will catch the water and twist. This gives immediate feedback forcing you to correct the problem. If you want a great challenging workout with your tempo trainer they posted on called the "Red Mist" workout. It is 10 sets of 400s. 1-4 are done at CSS+6 second/100, 5-7 at CSS + 5 sec, 8 & 9 at CSS + 4, and 10 at CSS + 3. It is a focus workout and a great workout for making learning how to over come the mental challenge of long hauls. |
| 2012-08-29 9:14 AM in reply to: #4385811 |
Regular 107 Thousand Oaks | Subject: RE: Mr. Smooth Yep, I love swimsmooth.com. I spend time on it weekly. Those trainers I'll buy today based on your advice alone because in attempting a proper high elbow catch it messed with my rotation and everything kind of fell apart. I know it was only one session in the pool, but something like that might be helpful. There are a few Finis Paddles, which one did you buy? Hill |
| 2012-08-29 9:29 AM in reply to: #4385811 |
| Veteran 329 Roanoke, VA | Subject: RE: Mr. Smooth jwrichey - 2012-08-29 10:00 AM I found the site, swimsmooth dot com, and it has an animated swimmer that demonstrates the "perfect" freestyle technique. I believe this guy was more or less the model for their animated swimmer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3HhNlysFDs There are also some interesting comments below the video |
| 2012-08-30 12:03 PM in reply to: #4385841 |
Member 75 South Texas | Subject: RE: Mr. Smooth http://www.finisinc.com/equipment/technical-products/paddles/freestyler-hand-paddles.html The Finis Freestyler Hand Paddles. You can read the reviews above too. They MAKE you swim correctly or you can't swim at all. It cracks me up because if I let my mind wander and my form slips I pay immediately. Good luck.
(finis freestyler.jpg) Attachments ---------------- finis freestyler.jpg (79KB - 14 downloads) |
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