Swimming: a couple of points about pull

I had an interesting conversation about a few parts of swim technique today and I thought I`d share them with the world.

1. Shoulder flexibility and hand depth

When your hand enters the water, it pauses for a moment and you glide. Your hand and arm makes a hole in the water that your body then passes through. This is common sense to most swimmers, but here is the catch (yea thats a swimming pun). If you hand is "too high" in the water, your hips will sink.

So how high is "too high"? Well it all depends on shoulder flexibility.

Try this test: put your hands in the air like somebody is pointing a really scary gun at you (elbows straight, hands shoulder width apart). Now allow yourself to relax, bringing your arms far enough forward that there is no significant tension in any muscles. This is the angle your shoulders should sit in the water because the whole point of gliding is to relax and conserve energy.

Now that we have established the angle that your shoulder can comfortably rest, it is important to get our priorities straight. Keeping your hips on the surface takes priority over the aquadynamics of your arm. To keep your hips on the surface, simply figure out the distance from the longitudinal axis of your body that your hand sits while you are relaxed (the position discussed in the previous paragraph).

Sacrifice a bit of drag caused by your arm and reduce a tonne of drag caused by your hips.

2. Maximizing power in your pull - a quick breakdown of the underwater portion of the swim stroke

Step one: use the biggest paddle possible. Starting from your gliding position, your first priority is to make your hand and more importantly, your forearm vertical in the water. I would compare this to Eminem in 8-mile when he's rapping to all his homies in the 313, but you can picture it however you like.

Step two: use your lats to set up for step three. The next part of the stroke is to bring your elbow to the side of your body. You will be pulling the water back and slightly towards the midline of your body. Your recovering hand enters the water at this point and the body rotation involved in this action helps you out. You are propelled forward, but more importantly, this sets you up for step three which is where the main propulsion occurs. When your elbow gets to the side of your body, your hand will be directly below your hip and at this point, step three begins.

Step three: use your body roll and your triceps to push past your hips. For the duration of step three, your elbow remains locked to your body. Rolling your body provides most of the power and your triceps provide the rest. You should be pushing water backwards and slightly away from the midline of your body.

Here is a youtube video of Mr. Phelphs. He is a sprinter though, which means he will have less hip rotation and a deeper stroke than a long distance swimmer:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax77_hHq9Dc

3. Back pain

Finally, I've had two triathletes complain about back pain to me in the last week, so here are three things to check.

Is your hand too high in the water? If you are trying to keep your hips up at the same time as you try to keep your hand high in the water (during the glide), your back is probably working pretty hard. Let your hand drop and stretch your shoulder (pecs and rotator cuff).

Is your bike position too stretched out? Here is an easy example of the stress this causes: bend over so that your back is at approximately the same angle as it would be while you ride. Now take your hands and put them in an aero tuck. Slowly reach forward and feel the stress build in your low back. Does this look like your position on the bike?

Are you running hunched over? My number one tip to becoming a better runner is to fix your standing posture. If you stand hunched, you probably run hunched. Or maybe you run hunched anyways. Either way, stand up straight.