S Stroke or Straight???

As someone who also grew up with the "S" stroke, I found changing to more of a straight back pull with high elbows difficult at first, but think it' a more efficient and powerful position now. My hand still does a slight scull motion while going through the stroke, but with good body rotation, the straight pull is very effective. Try it for a month.

I'm not a strong swimmer, so keep that in mind when I tell you that when I was a triathlete in the early 90's, I used the s-stroke, and routinely finished about 2 waves behind the one I started with.  I got back into tri's after a hiatus of about 10 years, and switched to a straight stroke.  I now finish MOP/BOP of my starting wave.  I have to tell you I was very shocked at this at my first race last year, and assumed that I was with the world's slowest swimmers, since I was sure the stroke couldn't have made that much difference. But I repeated  that in the next couple of races as well. (If only my biking and running hadn't slowed so much - I lost about 5 mph on my cycling and about 3 min/mile on the run, so I am still a BOP finisher!)

I have been using the straight stroke for more than a year. Neither has proven to really make much diference. Which is why I posted. The video that I'm working through goes with the S stroke and of course they make a lot of sense in selling it. I'm just wondering for an ave. swimmer does it matter? I still find that when I am tired I find myself reverting back. The S stroke seems to allow more utilization of your core through rotation vs the straight stroke where you limit rotation (staying flatter in the water). Straight seems to use core for stabilization more than for generating power in the stroke.

x2 - just push the water behind you and take another stroke(no side to side action)...the deeper you reach the easier it is to do a straight pull since there is more resitance(at least for me)

Right, it cna make your body serpentine through the water, so although the pull mya feel more effective to you, it may alter body position decreasing forward efficiency.

I'm not trying to be rude or condescending, but if you aren't noticing a difference in speed between an S stroke and a straight stroke, then you're doing it wrong. The S stroke was abandoned in the early 80's.

I would suspect that in your straight stroke, you aren't getting a high elbow catch, and that your arm stroke is literally, almost straight. A stroke like this is as bad for forward propulsion as an S, as you miss the first 1/3 to 1/2 of the pull. The other effect of a straight line pull is that it tends to push your lower body down towards the pool bottom, so your position suffers as well.

John

I was a competitive swimmer that used the S-stroke.
I attribute it to my shoulder injuries and why I had no desire to race in college.

Trying to break the habit now, it is tough.

I don't think reaching deep is a good cue.  You want a high elbow pull so your forearm and your hand are the 'paddle'.  "Reaching deep", to me at least, would seem to make one think about stretching their arm down and result in pulling with a straight arm, i.e., not what you are looking to achieve.

Well, you want to pull your hand backwards relative to you body and not focus on any side to side motion, but because of the body rotating and the muscles/mechanics of the arm, there will be a slight curve in your stroke.

Relative to the water your hand is pretty static. Good swimmer's hand will exit roughly the same plane that it entered. Elite swimmer's hand will exit further forward than where the hand entered (due to efficient glide)

A high elbow is relative to the hand, so a deep pull is not a bad thing. It can help promote body rotation.

At the end of the day, the focus should be on generating force and let the body's natural motion take over. No need to force a big s-shape or try to keep a ruler straight line from entry to exit.

Good glide, deep hand, high elbow, hard pull.

Probably way more swim b.s. than what you were looking for.

x2. I was talking to my cousin a few weeks ago who is a D1 swimmer and he was talking about how the S stroke opens your shoulder up to injuries a lot more. The straight pull is better.

Yeah, it just didn't seem like a good "cue" to think about (at least to me).  I *try* to just focus on getting the forearm engaged quickly art the start of the stroke.  And then pull naturally from there.

But generally ignore what I say about swimming and listen to people like TJ. 

Another vote for the straight pull.

I got some swim tri lessons earlier this year and correcting my stroke from "S" to straight was the first order I got from the coach. Second one was to enter the water at least at shoulder width.

It felt horrible the first couple of months, but after a while I could really feel the difference it makes in terms of speed and efficiency.

Well, no, you make a point. Puting great focus on things like counting your stroke, pushing your buoy/chest, pulling really deep,  etc can be really bad 'cues' and screw up someone's stroke.  I was just conveying that a deep pull in and of itself isn't a bad thing.

On a similar note, I was just reading a long thread on another site in which people became slower by following Total Immersion. Too much focus on the wrong things.

Physics states that every action has a opposite and equal reaction.  Pulling to the side or down to the bottom of the pool is a waste of energy and does not move you forward.

Using the correct catch and pulling straight back moves you foward.  Now the question is how high to hold you head, how long to glide, how much to rotate, and how often to breath?

That's funny I was kinda of thinking the same thing and went to a swim clinic over the winter and the swim instrutor was still teaching the S stroke and stated my straight pull back would injure my shoulders, which left me scratching my swim cap.  Afterwards I let a couple other BT'ers that were considering going to one of these clinics know it was pretty much a waste of two hours and a few bucks.

Edited by rottieguy 2009-06-12 9:21 PM

Oh, god, there goes the thread, someone said "physics" :p

And you breath whenever you need to, whether that's every 2, 3,5,10 or whatever strokes. Or if you're Gary Hall Sr., you breath every single stroke.

John

In regards to the  "straight" stroke, maybe I'm stating the obvious (or perhaps going against the grain), but you don't want to have completely straight arm when conducting your pull underwater. The elbow should have some sort of bend to it, allowing for the finger tips of your hand to go along the center line of your body (that runs from head to toe) when completing your pull underneath your body. Crossing over this center line will cause you to zig zag while you swim (or veer off to the left or right if you favor one arm). Keeping the arm straight while pulling underwater or pulling to far wide can cause unnecessary stress to the shoulders and can be inefficient.

While you're right about that, in this scenario, the "Straight" arm is in refernce to not being the "s-stroke".  The arm isn't actually straight from the shoulder, but from the elbow, which is high for the catch (as I understand it, which could be quite inaccurate).

Nobody is saying that you don't have to bend the elbow during the catch; that is the first step to pulling straight back. The discussion is about whether to scull during the pull (s-stroke) or not.Shane

I think that this is sometimes the problem with trying to expain swim form on a thread. Your pull is not a big 'S' and you do not pull straight back. Yes, you do scull in the pull, but it isn't exaggerated. When you go to absolutes with some of this stuff you end up with problems.

You are correct about the physics theory, (equal and opposite) but you have you remember that you are moving in 3 dimensions when swimming. Why does a plane use the flaps on the wings when it will increase resistance? Direction.

Your hand/arms create lift to help keep you on the surface and they also control steering. On top of that, you body is rotating from side to side so there needs to be changes in hand pitch and direction to help facilitate.

Take the greatest swimmer in our lifetime as an example. Watch the link below. You will see a slight 'S' or scull in his stroke. Not real pronounced, but not straight back either. His arm is bent slightly until he starts to rotate in the other direction in which the elbow bends a little more.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax77_hHq9Dc

Hopefully this will help clarify, but if it creates more questions, that's a good thing too.