Money In The Bank

(Article written by Kevin Everett)

Running in the teens.

While up in New Meadows the weather was clear, crisp and cold getting down into the single digits at night.  Perfect running temperatures.  If there is one thing I love about running it is heading out when the elements are unusual or provide a challenge.  You truly can run in just about any conditions (save super icy) wearing smart gear.  Running in a storm is an invigorating experience that seems to charge my soul with its most basic needs.

I’m still buzzing from the two long runs I did while up in New Meadows.  The first one was early Saturday.  It was my off-season so I wasn’t doing much other than running here and there, leaving me energized and very motivated.  Add to this fact, I was partaking on an exploration run in the surrounding mountains and forests, where I would encounter no people and be scouting new terrain.  Another thing I love about running, exploring new terrain.

Milo and I headed out into the brisk air, cool on the lungs, at first difficult to take deep breathes.  We ran southwest down a remote road heading towards the flat valley just below us.  We came to an intersection with right being towards the valley and left heading up into the frosted forests in the mountains.  We headed left and immediately started climbing.  It wasn’t long before beads of sweet started rolling down my cheeks.  I took my hat off and rolled it up in the back pocked of the long sleeve bike jersey I was wearing.  We climbed and climbed still feeling too warm I took off my gloves and pulled up my long sleeves to the elbow.  I was eager to see what was around every corner and hopeful that I might be able to crest the mountain.  The snow was getting deeper but had mostly melted off the dirt road to expose the tore up frozen mud from someone’s four-wheeln’ in the past few weeks.  The contusions in the frozen mud made for good tests of my ankle strength and flexibility.

You couldn’t help but be aware of the almost total silence, save the crackle of snow and ice crunching below my feet and the whoosh, whoosh sounds of Milo ’s paw’s quickly and gracefully striking the ground.  I breathed deeply and new it was some of the freshest air around.  It felt so basic, being out in the woods, it awakened me in every sense.  The road started heading back down towards the valley.  I came to an area recently being logged and decided to turn around and head back.

We climbed again back up to the highest point of our run before the very long descent back to the intersection.  Running downhill recharged the batteries and the speed quickened.  The quick jaunt downhill was a pleasure. Leaving me wanting to run more, to go longer.  Alas, I had ran an hour and ten minutes at 5000+ ft and done plenty for the day.  Breakfast was calling me and promised to be a most succulent feast.

The next morning I was yearning for another run.  I felt good from the previous day’s effort and thought I would go further this time and start with the same route but take a new course once in the mountains.  I would head up, every chance I had and try to get near the top of the mountain.  I headed up and up finally reaching a point on the old logging trail where trees were now growing in the road some of them 20ft high already.  We continued on, blazing through the snow and weaving through the young trees.  Still wanting to keep running I made it to a clearing with a vast lookout of the valley below.  Being almost an hour into my run I thought it best to head back.  I paused for a moment, taking in the scene and enjoying how I felt.  “C’mon Milo , Let’s go home”.  With that, we cruised the long descent back and finished in just under an hour and a half.

It was a great thanksgiving weekend.  Still in the off-season but slowly transitioning into the ‘Base’ season, these two long runs would prove to be some money in the bank.
-Kevin’s background may be in swimming but just like his education he is an extremely well rounded and accomplished athlete in many different arenas. Once graduating college he took an extended break from the hard pace of competitive swimming to paddle kayaks, ski, mountain bike, and with left over time, even play water polo. The competitive spirits of athletes are difficult to hold at bay for long and in the spring of 2003 he returned to intense training with the focus on triathlons, and has enjoyed a more enriching life ever since. Kevin exploits his natural talents as a swimmer, yet is equally at home on the bike and his feet, having placed 1st in his age group at the Wildflower Olympic distance triathlon, and 13th in his first Pro triathlon.
(Team Tamarack Racing excerpt)

 

© 2007-008 Paul Lundgren of F2R – Manufacturer of Triathlon Wetsuits
Al rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owners.

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For more information about Triathlon Wetsuits and Paul’s other projects, please go to www.f2r.com or click on the image link below.

Off-Season Transition

(Article written by Kevin Everett)

As I continue transitioning from the off-season into my base season while focusing on my running, it’s time to address the weakness to my weakness. My running form. It is a kind of labored, pounding, shuffle that uses copious amounts of energy to maintain. When running with my faster peers I sometimes feel like a big yellow school bus, engine smoking, tires low, and loaded to the hilt with screaming over-weight kids. Ok, well, maybe I’m overdoing it a bit…but my running form is not pretty. I’ve started doing some plyometrics and that yellow school bus is finally getting serviced.

Doing plyo’s has highlighted the weakness of my weakness, weakness. In my first session it was obvious how much I absorbed and hugged the ground with each foot strike. It also pointed out some soft spots in my core strength. After just one quick session of plyometrics, where I was just getting the rhythm, I was super sore and even walking was difficult and sometimes painful. We did the plyo’s on the grass but it still shocked my legs. I have been doing a series of one legged bounding to alternating one legged bounding to a double leg jump. I have done 3 sessions now and my legs are improving but still have lots of work to do on my execution. Mainly in strength and bouncing off the ground rather than sticking to the ground. I am hoping for a full scale make-over to my run efficiency.

Just last week I started swimming again, while this week I added biking to the mix as well. Both are taking a back seat to the run training as I focus on run strength, form, and distance. In addition to the plyo’s I’m also lifting weights again after not doing any the last couple years. I’m doing power cleans, hamstring, quads, inverted leg extensions, pull-ups, push-ups and lots of sit-ups. Doing these on the same day as plyo’s has put the ‘hurt’ on my muscles. Easing into it is key, (I’ve learned the hard way more times than I can remember) just putting my muscles through the motions for now. By the end of December I should be able to start pushing the program pretty hard while keeping the muscle soreness to a minimum.
It has been a nice change in my routine and definitely an eye opener for what I need to improve. I am excited to improve and adapt and enjoying the process. Doing these running drills has defiantly increased my knowledge and respect for the sport of running.

Swimming notes:

· Just getting back into it: 3 x (3 200’s) on 3:30
· 1st set broken at 50’s with 5 sec rest –> 2:05’s and 2:06’s
· 2nd set broken at 100 with 10 sec rest –> 2:05’s and 2:06’s
· 3rd set straight 200 –> 2:10, 2:12, 2:13 (ouch, lost my form and cordination)

-Kevin’s background may be in swimming but just like his education he is an extremely well rounded and accomplished athlete in many different arenas. Once graduating college he took an extended break from the hard pace of competitive swimming to paddle kayaks, ski, mountain bike, and with left over time, even play water polo. The competitive spirits of athletes are difficult to hold at bay for long and in the spring of 2003 he returned to intense training with the focus on triathlons, and has enjoyed a more enriching life ever since. Kevin exploits his natural talents as a swimmer, yet is equally at home on the bike and his feet, having placed 1st in his age group at the Wildflower Olympic distance triathlon, and 13th in his first Pro triathlon.
(Team Tamarack Racing excerpt)

 

© 2007-008 Paul Lundgren of F2R – Manufacturer of Triathlon Wetsuits
Al rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owners.

---

For more information about Triathlon Wetsuits and Paul’s other projects, please go to www.f2r.com or click on the image link below.

Becoming A Runner

(Article written by Kevin Everett)

Running is painfully difficult in a race with competitors that push the boundaries of human propulsion.  I feel fortunate to be racing with some of the best runners on the planet, albeit, I am surely not one of them.  I am a pro triathlete with a strong swim a good bike and a weak run.  This combination puts me in some exciting situations starting the run portion of triathlons.  Unfortunately, the runners of this sport have a way of making me feel the pain as they stride off towards high finishes.  I am the pony, racing the proven-breeds at the Kentucky Derby.

It is ironic how my season ended with a 6.5k, 40k, 10k duathlon after the swim was canceled at Treasure Island’s Triathlon because of an oil spill.  I had worked unusually hard on my swimming, and was poised to cause some suffering for those not adapted to moving fast in cold water.  It was disappointing to miss an opportunity I was well prepared for.  It did, however, spotlight what I was ill prepared for….16.5k of fast running.  I knew that my running needed some work; this race threw some salt in the wounds.

It is perhaps more ironic that I bought Runners World magazine at the airport in route to this race in San Francisco (I was already planning to focus on improving my run in the off-season.)  The magazine devoted a lot of pages to John L. Parker, author of ‘Once a Runner’.  I devoured the excerpt from his new book, ‘Again to Carthage ‘, a continuation of ‘Once a Runner’.  The article mentioned that ‘Once a Runner’ was very hard to find…going for $300 on e-bay.  After my race I was talking to my hosts about the motivating article and the book.  Guess what!?  He had two copies, lucky day! 

I love the book and relate to it in many ways, I could tell like stories of my swimming days at Oakland University.  Look for ‘Once a Swimmer’ at the stores soon…therein lies part of my problem.  I have not morphed into a runner yet.  At least, I have not put in the work to be an elite runner.

I am proud of my progress, starting triathlon along with biking and running four years ago, learning as I go.  Running has been a struggle.  My first few years were plagued with injuries and my training was less than optimized.

After four years of consistent running, slowly, methodically improving…I think that I am primed to make the journey necessary to be an elite runner.  To feel, and to know, at my core, what it means to be a ‘runner’.

I am still working out the details on how I will make this journey but being physically and mentally prepared will take me a long ways.  For me the journey will be satisfying and a test of character.  This off-season I will spend much of my time and energy focusing on enhancing my running ability.  It is important to note that this journey began 4 years ago and will continue for years to follow.  This off-season, however, will be an important chapter; I see it as a turning point.

I have to smile at the perfect timing for me to discover such a motivating book.  It speaks to the sacrifice, the determination, the grit, the pain, the power, the love…that it takes to be a fast runner.  “The only true way is to marshal the ferocity of your ambition over the course of many days, weeks, months, and (if you could finally come to accept it) years. The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials” excerpt from ‘Once a Runner’.  There are no short-cuts.

Oddly enough, I finished reading this book at a remote cabin (much of the protagonist’s training takes place at a remote cabin) over the Thanksgiving weekend.  I had this urge, maybe a need to lace up and get out into the wild.  Being in New Meadows, ID, I was in a beautiful spot; the cabin nestled right on the line where the forest and mountain begins.  We were nestled high up on the hill over looking the large valley below.  Behind us, the wilderness beckoned.  I wanted to explore, to be free, to run wild.  I was an already motivated runner that had just finished reading a running book that would get your grandma off the couch.  With eye’s wide open, pulse rate elevated, and lungs ready to expand, I grabbed my dog and ran into the wild.

 

-Kevin’s background may be in swimming but just like his education he is an extremely well rounded and accomplished athlete in many different arenas. Once graduating college he took an extended break from the hard pace of competitive swimming to paddle kayaks, ski, mountain bike, and with left over time, even play water polo. The competitive spirits of athletes are difficult to hold at bay for long and in the spring of 2003 he returned to intense training with the focus on triathlons, and has enjoyed a more enriching life ever since. Kevin exploits his natural talents as a swimmer, yet is equally at home on the bike and his feet, having placed 1st in his age group at the Wildflower Olympic distance triathlon, and 13th in his first Pro triathlon.
(Team Tamarack Racing excerpt)

 

© 2007-008 Paul Lundgren of F2R – Manufacturer of Triathlon Wetsuits
Al rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owners.

---

For more information about Triathlon Wetsuits and Paul’s other projects, please go to www.f2r.com or click on the image link below.

Essay #8: Mystic Powers

Since my first dive into the pool of my first swim team workout thirty some odd years ago, I am still fascinated by the magic of athletics. If you look at the best, the very best athletes in the world, you can witness near magic. I’m not convinced there isn’t some magic involved. It’s hard to deny it when I think of watching Michael Jordan play basketball for the Chicago Bulls in the final moments of a playoff game or Michael Phelps breaking yet another world record.

I can relate magic to a live concert when a band and audience become one by the connection of music. Most people can’t deny the experience in feeling being swept off the ground in an altered state of consciousness by the power of music. I am not referring to the concerts where second hand smoke is so thick you cannot help but be altered. I am talking about the pure connection with the waves of sound moving through the air. The mind finds itself entranced to the rhythm and consciousness changes to another level. Awareness of the surroundings is heightened with a sense of shared emotions with those in range of the music. The experience draws the minds into a web of community and one becomes a part of the whole.

Wow, I know you may be thinking there was some second hand smoke that evoked that thought, but let me continue.

The athlete, the good athlete, begins each day, season, year, and career with a vision – a goal. They have the ability to see what they are and what they want to transform themselves into. It is an ongoing process of conscious effort working towards the goal. The magic provides the ability to see not only what is but what can be, and not believing but knowing it will be.

I have been taping myself for an explanation and I am convinced it is not the actual ability to perform the feats we see athletes, musicians or anyone else that shocks our rational minds. I believe the magic happens when we witness these performances. It is the inspiration we gain when we see the possibilities. It is what inspires us to dream to see what we will be when we are willing to dream.

I have been taping myself for an explanation. I am convinced magic is not the actual ability to perform the feats we see these athletes, musicians or anyone else that shocks our rational minds. I believe the magic happens when we witness these performances. It is the inspiration we gain when we see the possibilities. It is what inspires us to dream, to see what we will be when we are willing to dream. That is where the magic lives in the inspiration. It is the fire that is ignited within. It comes from what we give of ourselves when we are willing to share our passion so others may see and learn. When our minds are blown away by the impact of the performance is when it means something to us personally. When we listen to music or see great athleticism it can change our whole lives. I think that is what inspired the applause.

 

© 2007 Paul Lundgren of F2R – Manufacturer of Triathlon Wetsuits
Al rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owners.

---

For more information about Triathlon Wetsuits and Paul’s other projects, please go to www.f2r.com or click on the image link below.

Essay #7: Rotation

 

This topic is probably the most heated topic I have discussed in public. It is so hot I have seen people turn red, steam shoot out of their ears and their hair fall out. Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it is a sensitive topic. One time I presented the idea before a large group and this guy stood up and started arguing I was all wrong. When you read this you might agree, but like I told the guy “we disagree, I’m at peace with that.” If anything comes from this maybe it will be a discussion and together we can find the ultimate solution.

There was a time when the swim gurus were observing and writing a lot about the S-Pattern of the freestyle stroke. When they filmed swimmers with lights attached to their finger tips and turning out the room lights they were able to see clearly the S-Pattern. Back then and even today there was an enormous amount of discussion hypothesizing what the propulsive force was a result of. Were the hands creating lift drag forces like an air foil or propeller or were they like paddles pushing the water back? What everyone agreed on was the hands of elite swimmers were moving in the S-Pattern. So coaches were teaching swimmers the S-Pattern. Hmm, 25 years latter you don’t see that much. I think most everyone agrees the S-Patterns are still observed in world class swimmers, but if we turn the lights in the room on and look at the hands relative to the body, the patterns are not as distinct.

I have talked a lot about the rotation of the shoulders and hips. Because of rotation, the hand is not moving through the water by only the power of the arm. The hand moves and presses the water with power generated from a dynamic rotation of the trunk. If the shoulders are rotating back and forth you can imagine the relative effect of the hand pattern as it moves through the water. The hand at entry with the same shoulder vertically down creates a farther reach. As the hand moves down, the shoulder rotates to a flat level position in the water forcing the hand to sweep out. The hand moves farther towards the finish of the stroke while the shoulder continues to rotate moving vertically out of the water. The hand sweeps out again. There you have the S-pattern.

The mistake made was to teach the hand to make the S-Pattern when we should have been teaching shoulder rotation and let the hand go its course. The real question should have been is the S-Pattern what makes world class swimmers fast or is it only the result of something else they are doing that makes them fast? I believe there is a debate today regarding the path of the hand. I am a little leery of major changes in systems that work, so I will likely wait a few years before I integrate in my coaching major changes in the hand pattern of stroke. That is not to say you won’t see me try something new. If a change works and I see the results on the clock that is another story.

I’ll talk about change in another essay, but the danger of making change and not seeing results is not taking into consideration a time period of adaptation. We have to remember change can take time for the body to assimilate and adapt for it to be noticeably effective.

All of that said brings me to my point and the hot topic. You see I have been thinking about this stuff for a long time and have had some personal experiences with what somebody might call a “new method” that is changing the way people swim. You can imagine when somebody comes to me with a new way of swimming I am definitely going to listen. I want nothing more than to swim faster. About ten years back swimmers were attending certain swim schools and coming back with some interesting ideas. In fact you could say they had been indoctrinated into a methodology converting them into a school of thought with religious-like convictions. Wow, I was really impressed with the impact these schools were having on the pool deck. Athletes’ cups that once were half empty were filled to the brim. I almost felt I was being replaced by a methodology that said my then 20 years of swimming were out of date.

With consistencies on the pool deck using methods that I could prove worked, it helped me win back the lost sheep. I am also very open to looking at ideas and considering their validity. I enjoy working with athletes and exploring conflicting ideas. I don’t want to be the one that misses the boat.

So here it is. I have rambled on and on about rotation I have talked about the power rotation generates. I am really into rotation, but the conflict I have is when argued that rotation comes from the hip. I disagree and believe the majority of movement occurs higher up the torso. This is the part where I pause for silence and listen to the gasps for air in the room. Then I say “now I know this may conflict with what you have been taught and I am at peace with that.”

There has been so much focus on hip rotation I decided I needed to do what people have been doing for years when they needed answers. I consulted the films of world class swimmers. What I was hearing and reading was the body should rotate back and forth and each time it rotated the belly button should face the side wall. The swimmer was taught to rotate from one side to the other and to the point the belly button faced the wall. Face one wall then rotate and face the other. It wasn’t sitting right with me, so I went to film, books and coaches. I started watching really good swimmers. With the click of a mouse you can pause at every frame of a film and see honestly what people think they see. I also bought contraptions people were selling to teach you to rotate. One had a marble in it and you would hear it drop when you got the full rotation. Each time you rotate with your hips you hear that drop. I have to admit it made you aware if you weren’t getting the rotation on one side you wouldn’t hear that marble click and you had instant feedback.

The other conflict I had was swimmers were being taught to do what I call a catch up drill. They were doing a complete rotation of the body and were holding their hand at entry until the other hand caught up. I discussed this in earlier essays, minus the major hip rotation, Ian Thorpe successfully uses a similar technique. However he is an amazing kicker with incredibly large feet. Not to flow too far from the rotation subject, but as I explained earlier the hand timing in relation to the other hand is determined by the individual’s personal abilities. The effect of the kick, buoyancy and momentum all determine when the hand should go from entry to press.

I know some people are reading this and their heads are imploding over the hips statement so I better get back to it. I challenge anyone to look at an underwater film of a swimmer like Ian Thorpe or better yet, Alexander Popov. Popov as of the last time I checked, still holds the world record for the 50m freestyle. He is considered one the best stroke technicians of all time. He is a beautiful example of a great swimmer. You look at his hips and tell me they are generating a great amount of rotation. I am not saying his hips are not rotating, what I am saying is the hips are not rotating too much. What is amazing about Popov is his shoulder rotation. Same with Ian Thorpe, their shoulders rotate to a near vertical up and down position each rotation. This allows them to get the shoulder out and over the water. It is also important to note especially with Popov how high he maintains this position throughout the stroke. You don’t see the shoulders drop and then rise, they stay high. That is the key point to know when to begin the press of the stroke. You can pause all day but if your shoulder drops you are going to plow the water. I have to say it at least once, maybe a few more times. When the hand initiates the stroke with a press relative to where the other hand is by starting to move and press is dependent on momentum. If you go slower waiting for the hand then increase your tempo. If you body position drops, increase your tempo.

I have seen some world class swimmers with major hip rotation, but not a great number of them. I believe too much of a good thing can be wrong. Like one day you see somebody use a method effectively and from that point on decide it is what everyone should do. Results have to be quantified and the clock, after a period of adaptation, is the most honest approach to determine effect on a stroke. Each of us is an individual and we adapt to movement in different ways. One way is not always the best for another.

My current methodology is a general approach and I believe can be applied effectively for the majority of swimmers. All swimmers should use a coach to determine the most effective way to swim.

Watching swimmers, reading, talking, teaching, and thinking, I have come to the conclusion to agree with a visual concept my wife said one day – 3 to 1. It means the shoulders should rotate 3 degrees to the hips 1 degree. This is not to be taken literally, but used as a teaching method, an image for the mind to see the idea. The amount of rotation in the hips depends on the effect it has on the kick and the effect it has on the timing of the stroke. You see timing of rotation is really important. The major reason we want to rotate is to generate power for the hand and arm to press against the water. If the rotation is going to be useful it has to happen in sync with the hand so it can be the cause of force.

The hips are the eye of the storm for freestyle. From the hips, movement for the kick is initiated and followed down the femur to the knee and to the ankle. Quoting a term I have used before “freestyle is a symphony of muscles performing dynamic stability and power producing propulsion.” The body is not a loose noodle moving through the water. It is a stable vessel moving with fluid motion. The hips are the starting point of a chain of movement up the trunk and into the shoulders. If you look where the latissimus dorsi (the big power muscle for freestyle) originates it is at the base of the spine on the sacrum where the hips are also connected. It goes from the back around to the sides and attaches to the upper arm, the humorous. To apply a force that pulls on the arm we have to have a stable base of support. Our hand and arm establishes stability when it presses force against the water but our trunk has to also have stability. We can initiate momentum with a rotation of the hip, but at the same time the hip is the center for stability of the kick and stability of the lats as they pull on the arms.

The beauty of organic movement is the nervous system at work. There is what I call an intelligence that goes beyond the capsule of the brain and extends into the body. The genius of movement is when a trained body coordinates muscle response to its environment with results of perfection. From the hips, muscles are recruited and work together like the links of a chain that connect to the fingertips. The spine with its hinges, twists with increasing degree as the movement nears the shoulders. What feels like an intuitive movement to a swimmer is the trained effect of what is done to make the swimmer go fast.

Watch fast swimmers underwater and see before you take my word. We all want the latest trick to make us faster, just make sure before you start changing your technique it really works. As much as I love saying it, I’m right. As much as I hate saying it, I want to know if I’m wrong. Feel free to drop me an email to discuss if you have some other thoughts on the subject.

 

© 2007 Paul Lundgren of F2R – Manufacturer of Triathlon Wetsuits
Al rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owners.

---

For more information about Triathlon Wetsuits and Paul’s other projects, please go to www.f2r.com or click on the image link below.

Essay #6: Freestyle In Detail

A common theme I preach especially for open water swimmers is the importance of focusing on what can be done. There is a lesson I learned as a kid growing up swimming and to this day still resonates with me. When I stood on the starting block for a race, a lonely moment in swimming, I never felt alone. If my coach was watching or not I carried inside every word he spoke, every workout I swam, and it was mine to use. Everything I experienced leading up to the race was a part of me, it was who I was. When a coach shared his/her knowledge, ideas, and lessons, those became a part of me and I never felt alone. That knowledge provided the confidence to focus solely on the swim and not those around me. It brought all my attention inside. I didn’t need to look outside for answers. To this day I tell that lesson over and over in different ways. It is a theme of my coaching philosophy. You have no control of the outside world, but what is in you is yours to move how you like. Your arms, your legs, your mood and your mind are all driven by you. So rather than focus on the fast swimmers, the rough water or thoughts of self doubt, focus on what you can do with your body and mind.

What follows is a brief description of freestyle, something for your focus when caught in the wild:

The Entry
The hand enters the water in between the two parallel lines of the eyes and shoulder. If we draw a line from the eyes parallel with the vertical body above the head and did the same with the shoulder, that would be the two lines. The middle finger is the first to enter the water. Avoid entering with the thumb first or the pinky first. The thumb first can cause shoulder problems and the pinky first means you have to move against the water for a good catch.

The hand slides into the water with the lead of the middle finger. The arm is shaped as if you were reaching over a barrel. What the shape creates is a high elbow. If your shoulder flexibility is good and you have no impingements, you enter and reach with a rotation of the shoulders, the spine and the hips. This rotation is in symphony with a combination of muscles working together.

Athletic Movement
Before I go any further I want to touch on a type of movement that comes to play in good swimming. This is why I speak so often of great swimmers. They are masters of what I call athletic movement. Swimmers, baseball players and all the other sports are examples where athletic movement can be witnessed to produce quality performances. The great athletes are the masters of athletic movement. Watching them, seeing them perform at their best is a way to learn and emulate those patterns. They appear powerful and yet make it look easy. Athletic movement reflects a sense of effortless power. It is the beauty of the sport and the masters use it with a sense of poetry in motion.

I bring up athletic movement right now because the Entry/Catch is the point in the stroke where it begins. The hand enters and reaches for new water. New water is quite undisturbed water. The reach is complemented with rotation of the shoulders allowing further distance to catch and place the hand and forearm.

Think of the tip of the fingers to the tip of the elbow as one surface to catch and hold the water. The catch is where the hand and forearm get a hold of the water to plant a position and stabilize. It is the point of stability where force is applied. It is the point where the body will move towards, over and past. It is the point which initiates a combination of muscles working together. Muscles are recruited to stabilize the trunk and simultaneously move while rotating the hips, spine and shoulders. The muscles reach, rotate and stabilize the trunk, all in balance with opposing muscles letting go of power inhibiting tension. A swimmer trying to visualize all of this while swimming is near impossible. However athletic movement comes to play when all action is intuitive and made to happen knowing the result is effective. Going faster is not a command of going harder, but a command of the symphony working together effectively.

Stroke Rate
The hand enters and reaches in symphony with the body. How long the hand continues to reach is determined by the body position. If the body sinks or drops lower in relation to the surface of the water, the hand must initiate the catch in response. If the body continues to move forward, gliding on or riding the water so to speak, the hand can continue to glide and reach for new water. The timing is determined by momentum. As long as there is no loss in speed, the glide should continue. Before speed declines the hand must continue the course of the stroke.

Many factors affect how long you glide (stroke rate), body drag is a big one and then obviously how effective is the kick?

I read somewhere that Ian Thorpe has a size 18 foot. Whether it is true or not, I am not sure, but I am sure he has big feet. You look at his stroke and you know he has a powerful kick. Ian has a long glide in his stroke which is like a catch up drill. It means one hand hesitates at the entry of the stroke long enough for the other hand to catch up to it. The hesitation is amazing! It makes his swimming look so effortless. While doing this he can swim at world record speed. Well if he hesitates then should I? Do I have a size 18 foot?

If I put on fins equal to a size 18 foot I can move down the pool pretty dang fast. I can definitely hesitate longer at the entry with the fins on. Too bad for me nature has decided I have to swim with a size 10 foot, so I swim the way I do because it is what works best for me. Ian swims the way he does because he can and it works well.

Many coaches and instructors are looking at swimmers like Ian Thorpe cruising very fast with a relatively slow turnover concluding this is the way we should all swim. The problem is we are not all built like Ian Thorpe. Everyone needs to find the stroke that works best for them. Often the stroke that works best is dependent on the kick.

There are two ways to determine stroke rate, one is feel. Feeling is based on how well you move through the water and how high you ride. If you feel like your body starts to sink and you are moving slow, increase your stroke rate. The other way to determine an effective stroke rate is to watch the clock. Say you take 12 strokes to get to the other side of the pool and it takes you 20 seconds. Try increasing your tempo to 14 or 15 strokes. If your time drops significantly like a second or two maybe you should consider changing your tempo. Before you do increase your tempos eliminate the other possible factors that could be pulling you down like an ineffective kick or bad body position.

The Catch
Now you have reached as far as you effectively can so the first movement is the fingertips moving down while you keep your elbow high. This is it; this is where swimmers face challenge. This sets the stage for the rest of the stroke. You get this right and you are on your way to a great stroke. Unfortunately it is much easier to get this moment wrong. It is much easier to allow the elbow to drop. Remember the barrel, we want the barrel now. We want the tip of the fingers to the tip of the elbow to hold the water. You drop that elbow and you let go of the water. Oh sure, it will be easy to move your arm if you drop your elbow, because you won’t be holding anything.

The fingers point down while moving towards the belly button. The palm and forearm hold the water. Now imagine you were in the deep end of the pool and you want out, the gutter is way above the surface of the water. You reach up with both hands above your head and you are going to pull yourself up. At this point you don’t have a lot of power. You don’t need to press hard. This is where the kick earns its keep. You are setting the stage. You are placing your hands onto the wall or in swimming catching the water. As you pull the hand towards the belly the elbow bends into a 15 to 90 degree angle. The hand follows a path underneath the body not crossing over the middle line (the nose to the bellybutton).

The Power Phase
As the hand moves it generates speed. While it travels it generates power coming from places like deep in the core of the belly, transferring force as it travels from the base of the spine to the side of the lats and into the forearm and hand. I picked up from a coach years ago the idea that the hand moves at 5 to 25. This is a hypothetical speed of 5 miles an hour to 25 miles an hour. The hand enters moving slowly, creating the catch and as it gets closer to the body it is capable of generating more power, so we focus on increasing the speed.

Remember the getting out of the pool image. When your hands move towards your chest you become more powerful. This is when you explode popping your body out of the water and onto your feet. That explosion is the finale of the athletic movement. While exploding in the stroke the swimmer maintains the high elbow position to hold the water and continually adjust the position to hold the water through the stroke. He or she is relying on feel and what feels like water or resistance against the hand.

The Exit
The exit is interesting and continues to be a debate in our house. The final push is in my mind the final touches on the stroke. The wrist breaks its relationship of the hand and forearm working together. Holding the water, the hand is alone to push the water towards the feet with an extension of the triceps as it exits. This does not mean the elbow is locked at exit. It is just a final little press for good measure while leaving the building so to speak.

The Recovery
The recovery is all about elbows. We can recover and be effective with a straight arm, but technically using a high elbow is agreed to be more effective. I prefer a high elbow because it forces proper body mechanics. The shoulders have to rotate if the elbow is high because the hand needs to clear the water. The shoulder actually needs to lift out of the water for the hand to clear. On the recovery, if the shoulder is out of the water then the swimmer is high in the water. A high swimmer is less drag. Watch the world’s best and you will see shoulders are out of the water. Watch a challenged swimmer and you will see a low shoulder plowing through the water.

Relax and recover during the recovery phase of the stroke. Letting go of muscle tension allows opposing muscles to be recruited more effectively.

The high elbow sets the stage for the over the barrel shaped entry we discussed in the beginning.

 

© 2007 Paul Lundgren of F2R – Manufacturer of Triathlon Wetsuits
Al rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owners.

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For more information about Triathlon Wetsuits and Paul’s other projects, please click here or on the image link below.

Essay #5: More Depth

Understanding the differences of great swimmers and swimmers with great potential is important, so let me try and explain. Most of it is time spent in the water. I am talking years spent while the young developing bodies mature and adapt to the stress of movement patterns required for swimming. In youth, muscles and ligaments are like rubber bands. Growing and maturing while actively recruiting muscles at the far ranges of motion makes swimming as an adult much easier. The average time non-swimming adults while growing up spent with their hands above their head was in school to answer questions and request bathroom breaks. The surer they knew the answer or the more they had to pee the better their technique. Think about it, when in life do you need to lift your hand above the head and generate some kind of force? Hmm, could this be why swimmers make good students?

You know that feeling swimmers and coaches’ talk about? “He has a good feel for the water,” or “I can’t stay away from the water too long because I don’t want to lose my feel.” Before I talk about the movement of the hands, arms and various body parts I want to touch on the feel. The feel is as much a part of swimming as the movement itself. Without some kind of feed back coming to the brain we can’t tell what movement works. We need that feel and feedback to recreate desired results. If you were in one of my workouts, a classic line coming out of my mouth on the pool deck is “it doesn’t feel good to swim fast…” That is not to say swimming fast can’t feel sensational. What a swimmer associates to sensational comes from years of getting positive feedback following specific feelings. For example imagine being a kid in a workout and swimming 100 yards as fast as you can. While you’re swimming it feels painful and you suffer towards the end. When you finish upon seeing your time your coach and teammates cheer and applaud. Suddenly that feeling of pain is associated with positive feedback. The experience of that feeling is transformed by your emotional response to the approvals of your pears and mentor. Expose your mind to a life of pain endured while training rewarded with approval and watch the relationship to pain transform to sensational. That being said, a swimmer of many years will relate to the feel for the water in different ways then a new swimmer with great potential.

If you ask a coach what is the most common mistake of adult swimmers, the answer is not keeping the elbows high (to hold the water). It is a continued challenge for coaches to teach new adult swimmers how to hold the water. In general, people do not want to suffer and will avoid suffering at all costs. Even the slightest feedback of discomfort will result in a change in muscle movement. The older we become the more we avoid challenged movement. We tend to lean towards efficiency in our daily lives and that is most evident in how we move. Watching a great swimmer leaves us to believe it is effortless. If we swim down the pool and it feels effortless we intuitively assume we are doing it right. So, “it does not feel good to swim fast, unless you can associate that feeling with an emotional response that fills your heart with joy.”

The feel for the water can sound elusive, even mystical, simply because swimmers of many years make it sound wonderful. It is wonderful because the result of a good feel is fast times. The actual feel is not always as sweet as it sounds. What you want to feel is what results in fast swimming. You want to feel the results of lifting the body up and through the water. The feeling is holding the water to create the effect. The effect is how the body rides in the water. The feeling is experienced not in one place isolated to something like the hand, but the complete body. Feedback is coming from every sensory receptor and relaying the information to the brain. Feeling is not limited to water against skin, but also includes physiological responses to output. Relating to past experiences of feedback you can feel when the result is positive. The feel is the body actively responding to the water. On days when the stars are aligned, the training has come together perfectly and all technical movements have been refined, the feeling can be transformed to the sweetest of all aquatics experiences. When you get that feeling you know it and in swimming it doesn’t get much better.

That leads me into the movement pattern of the stroke. The goal is to enter the water with the hand and arm using them in symphony with the body to press and pull the body up to, over, and beyond the original entry point of the hand. The idea is for the hand and arm to stay in one place while the body moves forward. Like climbing a ladder, the hand grabs and holds the ring of a ladder as the body moves. The hand and forearm becomes the established point of stability holding the water. What follows is a symphony of muscles performing dynamic stability and power producing propulsion. Wow, that sounds as mystical and elusive as the “feel.” Well, my friends it is.

Here is a unique observation of typical swimmers who come from childhoods immersed in competitive aquatic environments. They recruit swim specific muscles well. They usually have a wide range of motion. They can produce greater muscle tension at the maximum end range of movements. It means they can generate power when most people in this position are at the limits of a stretch. This is because their end range of movements often goes way beyond normal humans. Hyper-mobile as my wife likes to call them. She is the physical therapist at Presidio Sport and Medicine I often refer to. At the same time they can release unnecessary muscle tension for optimal balance of recruitment and relaxation. That is how they make it appear effortless. Swimming is the coordination of relaxation, tension, and movement and is truly poetic.

On a side note; my favorite event to watch in the summer Olympics is the divers getting out of the water. Every dive is followed by the diver exiting the pool. It encompasses grace, power, agility and personality. The movement is athletic and mirrors the character. Nobody scores how the diver gets out of the pool, but every dive is followed by a pool exit. That means every pool exit is practiced equally as much as every dive, but nobody cares. It is movement without thought and what results is a small view at the true nature of the character. We gather a sense of their style. I randomly throw this in because I believe personal style is a very important element of swimming that is largely overlooked.

Swimmers need to understand their bodies move according to their personal potential and don’t always bend to the methods of some genetic aquatic mutation that was born in lane four (lane four is for the swimmer with the fastest recorded time going into a race). One of the most common challenges of swimmers with great potential is the inability to effectively recruit their lats and a common limitation is restricted range of motion. There is a difference between a challenge and a limitation. At a certain point in maturity body parts just wont go to certain places no matter how much we try, not at least without the risk of injury. Range of movement can be a limitation. However, muscles can be educated and learning to recruit your muscles is an achievable challenge. My message at this moment is to stress the understanding of your own limitations and modify your stroke to be effective within those boundaries. If a coach says he wants you to reach over top the water with the hand farther in front of you and your shoulders are saying 15 years of rodeo says no, I say listen to your shoulders. Explain to your coach the limitation and work together to find an effective modification. You never know one day two coaches could be watching you swim from the pool deck and comment on your personal style. I can hear it now. “That lad certainly has his own style. Yes, sir he uses the ol’ cowboy entry.”

None of this may seem important, but at the very least I hope to convey the passion I feel about what I am saying. So often I run into the adult swimmer who has run into the wall of frustration because they just can’t swim like the guy or girl in lane four. They practice three or four days a week, an hour to two hours each time, and have been pursuing it for a few years. What they don’t understand is the 45 year old guy or girl in lane 4 started swimming around the age of seven or eight. By the time they were 14 or 15 they developed to the senior team where they were required to make 10 to 11 workouts a week. The workouts were 1.5 to 2 hours each. The total yardage swam a week was 60 to 100k, depending on the season. My advice to the frustrated is to watch the clock and feel the water to realize there is a relationship to be found that can be sensational at any ability and last as long as the guy or girl has in lane four.

 

© 2007 Paul Lundgren of F2R – Manufacturer of Triathlon Wetsuits
Al rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owners.

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For more information on Triathlon Wetsuits and Paul’s other projects, please click here or on the image link below.

Essay #4: What Is The Big Weight Pulling Me Down?

Everything has a time and place and about now I was going to discuss the path of the arms and contributing body parts, but an overwhelming response to my blogs has prompted me to respond to a common theme. Who is the enemy dwelling among us, pulling us down, taking our breaths away and making our hearts pound? Fear, my friend. Fear is the enemy living between the lines of tile at the bottom of the pool. He crawls between the grains of sand on ocean beaches and lakeshores slithering his way through the pores of our skin and finding a home in our hearts and minds. If we could take a pill to make him go away I would sell it and be a billionaire. Pogo said, “We have met the enemy and he is us,” and FDR’s First Inaugural Address certainly applies, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” It only makes sense. If fear is what holds you back as a swimmer, don’t be afraid. Take this pill and you’ll be fine. If it could all be so easy.

How can we move when our bodies are paralyzed in fear? So before we discuss the path of movement lets understand fear. Fear creates tension and tension in the body restricts movement, burns energy, and shortens breath. This experience is compounded in water because it makes it harder to stay above the water. Being underwater is not a good place to breathe. Knowing this and the fear starts feeding itself.

Imagine the start of your first Ironman with 2000 athletes clad in skintight body suits. Their bodies chiseled from years and miles of training. All eluding the confidence of world champion prize fighters ready to bite your ears off. On the loudspeaker beat-box music blasts as the announcer introduces the wave of professional athletes. These athletes who you only read about and thought were legends, mythologies from the land of high altitude training camps are all looking at you. Right now they are racing on the same course as you and they are real. A year of training, unmentionable amounts of money, time, food and tears spent getting ready for this moment and it is now! Boom! The gun goes off and all 2000 athletes just jumped on top of you. Nothing but whitewater, kicking feet and gallons of water sucked in your lungs concerns you. “Oh my God, I’m going to die!” You scream and the sound is lost in the vacuum of chaos. You lift your head for air and a 350 lb line backer swims over the top of you. You stop to stand up and the bottom is gone. You double arm pull and kick to get above water slamming into a chiseled 755 lb triathlete who pushes your head deeper towards the bottom. On your way down he stops to kick you in the eye. The race director announces “swimmer down” and the whole field stops racing to push you down further. How far down will you go? Does it sound crazy? Have you ever been afraid?

Fear can come and assume complete control of the thought world. Why is it so powerful? The beauty of swimming is that it brings us right to the door of fear. Swimming has that special thing where it can literally take your breath away. Go ahead and try it. Put your head underwater and don’t come up. You’ll find it hard to breathe. Ok, don’t try it, but you know what I’m talking about. No matter how good of a swimmer you are at some point in time you have had to face the dragon of fear. Maybe it was so long ago you don’t remember, but it is what inspired you to get your breathing right. Water has this way of bringing it out in people. Maybe it was a near drowning accident that happened at a young age, or just an intimate wisdom of the danger involved. Many people struggle with fear in water. It’s not unusual and it is certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

As a coach, one of the most common fears I have had to address over the years is the open water swimming fear. A person can swim in the pool until the pool guy comes to clean the tile, but put the same person in the open water and dragons start pounding the heart and shortening the breaths. For a long time, it was so long ago that I had my deep rooted swimming fear experience. I had forgotten the power of its control. So many of us had that time when we fell in the pool or stepped into the deep end and couldn’t get to the surface to breathe. The years go by and we learned to swim. We brushed the memories away. Then put us into a situation where we feel a little less confident, a bit unsure and suddenly the heart rate goes up, the breath gets shallow and the next thing we’re doing is screaming for land.

I didn’t really start to understand teaching fear until I almost drowned about 10 years ago. I was doing the swim down the Salmon River and got sucked into a “hole” under the support raft. A “hole” is a system of water flowing downstream over something like a big rock. The water flows over the rock and drops down the other side. What happens is water flows into a continuous circular motion behind the big object. Boats caught in a “hole” can be sucked down and circled around until the river decides it’s time to let go. That could take a moment or a few days. So the raft was being held in place by the “hole” while I was under and in the “hole” going round and round. Any time I have been in a near death moment time seems to slow down. It gets really strange for me, kind of like the feeling of a millisecond taking an hour to pass. Every thought was processed at hyperspeed while a sense of calmness overcame me. I guess you could say I had a spiritual experience. No, this is not the point where I sell you on a new religion. This is just a way for me to put words on paper to explain what happened. Here’s the weird thing – fear didn’t overcome me. I found myself at a point I had to make a decision. I was in the hands of the river, which was obviously much more powerful than I was. I knew death was knocking on the door. It was then I figured the best thing I could do, the polite thing I should do, was introduce myself. I was certainly getting to know the river, but didn’t feel as though the river was learning much about me. I’m not saying I decided to overpower her. I knew that wasn’t possible, but by damn if she was going to show me how powerful she was I certainly wasn’t going to let it end without her knowing a little more about me. I moved with every ounce of swimming power I had developed. I called on the resources of 20 years of competitive swimming, every coach who worked with me, every triathlon, and all the tears and laughters from success and failures. I honored the moment with confidence and power that comes from the core of who I am. It wasn’t one of those macho fights of me against the river and I won. It was me providing the situation with everything I have available. It was moving not from my muscles and bones, but from the core of who I am with everything I have. That was it.

What is the pill that comes from this story? You can lay there and die or you can take control of the moment, honor it with who you are, and move your ass. You can decide not to swim in the deep end or you can learn and find confidence to give it a try. You have lived in this life and suffered a time or two, so draw on the power from where you come and face the fear. Take the steps to learn how to find peace in the moments that scare the heck out of you. If you’re afraid of the deep end find peace in the shallow end. Go underwater and open your eyes. Look about and see if the dragons are swimming around. Come up and breathe in a big breath and go under again. Find that place in water, in your mind where life is weightless and float there. Water is an amazing place to find quiet peaceful comfort. Float on your back, your stomach and spin around. Jump up and down. Play in the water, underwater and learn to hold your breath. Learn to tread water by sculling with your arms. Learn to do it with relaxed effortless movements.

Sculling is the surface of your palms and forearms pressing against the water to lift and hold your body weight up. It is a pattern of movement that presses against the water at an angle. The hands press out and in. It really is a peaceful movement once you get a feel for it. You can learn to do it and as you get better you learn to do it with less and less effort. What you want to achieve is the ability to move with as little movement as possible and keep the body at the surface. You will learn what little it takes to hold the body up. You will earn confidence knowing with little effort you can stay above water. It will relax you and the dragons will leave allowing your heart to beat slower and your breaths to go deeper.

The only way to deal with the fear is to face it. I don’t recommend jumping into the river and finding a big rock to swim under. Creating a situation where you can die will either kill you or scare the swimmer out of you. My river story was a success because I have found a place in the water where I felt peaceful. It took me a lifetime. That is what you need to find for yourself. Take the time to get to know water in friendly environments and slowly as you grow confidence you can swim towards the wild. Remember under the water you hold your breath and above you can breathe… or is that right, yeah, yeah that’s it.

© 2007 Paul Lundgren of F2R – Manufacturer of Triathlon Wetsuits
Al rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owners.

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For more information on Triathlon Wetsuits and Paul’s other projects, please click here or on the image link below.

Essay #3: The Absolute Best Advice

Before going into specifics detailing the path of the arms and contributing body parts, I want to touch on an important topic. For the most part coaches are in agreement on what technique is effective for the ultimate freestyle. Where the difference lies is often in the words chosen to teach technique. As we will discuss in more detail in coming essays every athlete is an individual. Teaching a person a concept and seeing them embrace it into their movement is an art form. It is the art of the coach.

A well coached “competitive swimmer” learns from an early age the concept of recruiting muscles. This knowledge comes from the feeling of using those muscles to swim. When I was 10 I thought it was pretty cool that I knew what the latissimus dorsi was – the big side muscles on my back, the one that made me fast. My coach was big on teaching us to understand what muscles we use when we swim. Also, as senior swimmers in the youth age group program and training in the weight room we were instructed on the muscle groups we were training at each station. After a solid weight session and jumping into the pool I developed what I would call a personal relationship with my muscles, a mind body relationship. There is no better feedback to teach what muscle groups you recruit when you swim than swimming after lifting weights. Or my personal favorite was “Hell Week.” During Christmas breaks from school, swimming three workouts a day we would do 21,000 yards a day for a week. At a certain point in time during “Hell Week” your muscles have a special way of talking to you. Swimming is close to weightlessness so compared to a sport like running for what our Hell Week amounted to – 5.5 hours, the muscles fatigue would be different, and thus the muscle language is different. My point is “competitive swimmers” learn from a very young age the language of swim muscle talk. So the language a coach uses to work with a “competitive swimmer” is not always the best language to use with an adult who is learning to swim for the first time.

That’s not to say swimming coaches can’t teach adult swimmers. The art of coaching is finding the words that get the individual swimmer to achieve the movement that makes them better. For instance a coach might tell a swimmer they are crossing over on entry. A “competitive swimmer” will respond with an adjustment fixing the problem. A new swimmer has to first understand where entry is best and then crossing over what means. Most anybody can verbalize this information. I like to say we want to enter the water in between the two parallel lines of the eye and shoulder. If we draw a line from the eye in parallel with the vertical body above the head and did the same with the shoulder that would be the two lines. If a swimmer is crossing over that typically means they are crossing over the line of the eye. If a swimmer is wide on entry that would mean they are on the outside of the line of the shoulder.

Here is where it gets tricky. Being in water is a whole new world. Moving in water while lying in a horizontal position can be a new, strange experience for many people. Words are symbols we use as relationships to the world and each other. We relate words to our experiences. Not many people outside of the world of swimming have much experience lying weightless while moving their body parts with athletic intent. A coach has to understand the mind of a swimmer who has great potential to improve. First, most new swimmers whether they are conscious of it or not are nervous. People die for simply trying to breathe underwater. That scares people, and coaches have to be sensitive to this fear without bringing attention to it. They have to provide a swimmer with a sense of calmness, confidence and safety. A person has to feel safe in their environment before they can focus on anything with good results. The art of coaching is to know when to challenge a swimmer and knowing when to back off. Come to think of it this is true at all levels.

Often, coaching requires telling a swimmer to do the wrong thing to achieve the right thing. For instance using the entry example, a swimmer with great potential who crosses over might not understand the error physically but completely understands mentally. I don’t know how many times I have told a swimmer they were crossing over on entry and they understand what I am saying but they don’t fix it. So I will say when you enter I want you to reach for the lane lines on each side of you. This of course is telling them to do something I don’t want them to do. It is telling them I want them to enter wide with their stroke. When I say I tell them to enter wide I mean I want them to enter a good 18 inches outside of the line of their shoulder. The result is often a perfect entry, in between the two lines of the shoulder and the eye. When they come up it is important to explain they did it right, but I was trying to get them to do it wrong with an end result of getting it right. They are usually surprised because the feeling was so wide. A little adjustment can feel large.

What all this means is without the eyes and wise words of a coach the swimmer will struggle while developing a relationship with the water that allows them to move faster. The role of the coach is a very important element to the ultimate freestyle. The quality of the coach is also extremely important. I can write all day long about swimming and what to do correctly, but without somebody seeing what you are doing and giving you feedback you might never know in a body mind sort of way what your ultimate freestyle can be.

 

© 2007 Paul Lundgren of F2R – Manufacturer of Triathlon Wetsuits
Al rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owners.

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For more information on Triathlon Wetsuits and Paul’s other projects, please click here or on the image link below.

Essay #2: Kicking Talk For Free

An effective kick will not only force the bottom half of a swimmer’s body to the surface, but will force the swimmer forward. Both lift and forward momentum generated from the kick is optimal. Unfortunately some swimmers get neither.

A look at world class swimmers and one can observe many common swim qualities in body type. There is one common body type shared by more swimmers than all the others and that is a flexible ankle. Runners who come into the sport struggle the most. Runners use a stable foot to run, while swimmers use a loose flipper type foot. Runners require a stable foot to absorb their body weight. A swimmer requires a flexible ankle to allow the top of the foot to extend from the front of the leg in one continued line. This allows a long continued streamlined surface area to press against the water. A loose ankle is important so the foot can move in a fluid pattern with the water as the leg kicks up and down. I have seen swimmers with great potential to improve on a kick board go backwards when they kick. The motion they use is like a soldier marching with stiff legs. Their feet are pointed the wrong direction creating anchors on the bottom of the legs. The foot is held rigid and flexed.

It’s easy to tell a swimmer to point their toes, but not all swimmers can. A classic swimmer with great potential is the one who points his/her toes with so much force they go into a foot cramp on the bottom of their foot. The foot needs to be flexible enough to point and still be relaxed. A stiff foot has to be forced to point and that will cause the foot to cramp.

My wife, Chris Chorak, a physical therapist (www.presidiosport.com), and I often debate weather the foot/ankle can be trained to be flexible. Her argument is a body over 30 years old is what it is, and the foot/ankle is made up of many joints, and joints are not like muscles that can be trained. I, being stubborn by demeanor like to believe we can change. I read someplace, or maybe it is just swim deck mythology, but in his last years of coaching the legendary men’s swim coach Doc Councilmen of Indiana University experimented with a technique to improve flexibility. I certainly wouldn’t recommend doing this, but would definitely be interested in hearing the results of anyone who has. From my understanding he created a board with a strap and the swimmer would sit with his legs in front of him and feet lying on the board. The strap would hold the feet down in a streamlined position. This strap was adjustable so it could be tightened. When the feet were strapped onto the board heat pads would be wrapped onto the top of the foot. As the tendons and ligaments warmed and loosened, the strap would be tightened and this would continue towards the goal that the bottom of the foot would lay flat on the board and the top of the foot would be a flat plane even with the shin. Once the foot was at tolerable tension the heat was removed and ice bags were placed on the area to bring blood and circulation.

There are less aggressive ways to work on flexibility. While watching TV with knees together I will sit on the heels of my feet with the tops of my feet on the ground. This can be hard on people’s knees or people who don’t have flexible feet/ankles. Another way is to have your legs out in front of you while sitting on the floor and have another person press the tops of your feet down holding the feet in a comfortable streamlined position for 20 or 30 seconds. Once you do it a few times you will get the idea and find different ways to stretch the top of the foot/ankle. Do it a few times a day and see if you can get to the point where you can hold a streamlined position without causing a foot cramp.

The kick is produced like the name implies by a fluttering of the legs, thus the name flutter kick. Looking at the action of one leg it is similar to kicking a soccer ball. The leg goes back with an extension of the hip and the knee is straight. As the leg starts to come forward the knee bends and as it continues forward the knee starts to straighten. By the time the leg is at the bottom of the kick motion the knee has fully extended to a straight position and a whip-like motion of force is applied to the foot. The foot in a streamlined position snaps down with the force of the leg. The motion is like a whip from the hip to the knee to the foot. Together the legs alternate movement. One legs moves down while the other moves up. When kicking hard the burn of muscle fatigue is felt in the front of the quads and the hip flexors.

Common mistakes are stiff ankles, rigid movements like a marching soldier, kicking from only the knees and mimicking a bicycling type motion as if trying to push the water with the bottom of the feet.

Kicking by itself without the arms is an excellent drill for training and learning the kick. I am not a one-type-of-kick drill kind of guy. I prefer variations. Some coaches do not believe kicking with a kick board is a good thing. They say it is not natural. I am ok with it as long as it is not the only method of kicking drill a swimmer uses. In fact I like using a board for easy kicking sets and very intense kicking. In both cases it isolates the movement to only the kick so active recovery can be achieved when going easy and for intense work isolated muscles can be focused and challenged. Besides the board I recommend kicking on the side with one arm extended and one arm at the side alternating sides by lengths of the pool. A variation of this can be both arms at the side and this done while on the side, front and or back. I also like both arms extended in a streamlined position while on the front and back.

There are four common types of flutter kicks. The classic two beat kick, the two beat cross over, the four beat and the six beat kick. A beat is counted by how many kicks per stroke cycle we use. A stroke cycle is when both arms have done a full stroke. To explain the kick in relation to the stroke cycle it is best to start with the two beat kick. It is the same rhythm as the arm swing while walking, alternating arm swing to stride of the legs. The left arm swings forward with the right leg going forward. A two beat kick is the same thing. The right leg kicks to the left arm stroke. Remember one stroke cycle is both arms stroking once, so a two beat kick is both legs to one stroke cycle. A two beat cross over is the same thing, but the legs cross over in between kicks. A four beet kick is double the kick to the same stroke cycle and a six beat kick is triple.

The two beat kick is a traditional distance swimmers kick, but traditions do change. I’ll talk more about that in a moment. The six beat kick is very much used by sprinters. It obviously takes more energy, but is effective in keeping the body in balance and moving forward.

Most swimmers have no clue what their legs are doing let alone what rhythm they kick. Learning to play with different kick tempos is useful for managing energy outputs. Lately we have seen a shift with elite distance swimmers incorporating a six beat kick. I read a few years back coach Bill Rose of Mission Viejo and 1500 meter 2004 Olympic silver medalist Larsen Jensen switched all his distance swimmers to a six beat kick. Wow, that is really intense. Traditionally, distance swimmers used a two beat or four beat kick. Rose coaches his distance swimmers to use six beat but with less intensity. He says the kick puts the swimmer into a better balanced position, increasing the efficiency.

I don’t recommend triathletes incorporate a six beat kick into their swim, nor do I recommend them not to use a six beat kick. What I want them to do is know what they use and learn how to use the other tempos as well. If you’re a two beat kicker learn how to swim comfortably with a six beat kick. You never know, you might find it significantly faster and worth the cost in energy. What energy you could save in a better body position might outweigh the energy used to kick faster. If you’re a six beat kicker try a two beat kick and see if you go much slower. Maybe you won’t go much slower, but you’ll save a ton of energy. A two beat kick is also useful for a wetsuit swim. Kick lifts the back end of the body, putting a triathlon wetsuit on will make the back end float like a cork. The buoyant nature of a wetsuit can allow you to save energy kicking for the bike and run.

 

© 2007 Paul Lundgren of F2R – Manufacturer of Triathlon Wetsuits
Al rights reserved. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the copyright owners.

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