COACHING
SWIMMING TECHNIQUE CONCEPTS BY ROD HAVRILUK , Ph.D.
MAXIMIZING SWIMMING VELOCITY (Part 5):
MINIMIZING THE ARM RECOVERY PHASE
A
s shown in a previous “Swimming Technique Concepts” article (SW June 2021), when swimming velocity increases, the time of all four stroke cycle phases decreases. The greatest possible time decreases for additional swimming velocity increases are in the non-propulsive phases (entry and recovery). Strategies to minimize the entry phase were covered in previous articles (SW July and August 2021). This article includes strategies to minimize the recovery phase time of all four strokes. RECOVERY PHASE The recovery phase time at sprint speed is shown for elite male swimmers in Fig. 1 for butterfly (Seifert, Delignieres, Boulesteix & Chollet, 2007), backstroke (Chollet, Seifert & Carter, 2008), breaststroke (Leblanc, Seifert, Baudry & Chollet, 2005) and freestyle (Seifert, Chollet & Bardy, 2004). The graph shows that recovery time varied from less than 3-tenths of a second (for butterfly) to more than 6-tenths of a second (for backstroke).
FIG. 1 > Recovery phase time for elite male swimmers at sprint speed for all four competitive strokes.
BUTTERFLY As shown in Fig. 1, butterflyers had the shortest recovery time. This is not surprising, when considering the incentive to recover fast due to the loss of buoyancy (see Fig. 2). According to Archimedes’ principle, buoyant force depends on the weight of the displaced water, which, in turn, depends on the volume of the body below the surface. When multiple body segments (i.e., head, arms and part of the torso for about onethird of the body volume) are elevated above the surface, there is a considerable FIG. 2 > Butterflyers have an incentive to recover the arms quickly to submerge body segments and regain loss in buoyant force. In response, the buoyancy. body quickly sinks (i.e., submerges body volume) to regain buoyancy. Consequently, The resulting position typically requires 3-tenths of a second for a butterflyer has an incentive for a fast arm recovery to regain a backstroker to move the hand from the finish of the push to the buoyancy and an effective body position. surface of the water and then another 3-tenths of a second to move the arm through the air and back into the water. Most backstrokers BACKSTROKE can substantially decrease their recovery time by finishing the push As shown in Fig. 1, backstrokers had the longest recovery time. phase fairly close to the hip (as shown by the green circle in Fig. 3). The time was more than 6-tenths of a second and about double the time for any of the other three strokes. A common reason for the long BREASTSTROKE recovery time is that backstrokers often finish the push phase below and/or to the side of the hip (as shown by the red circle in Fig. 3). The breaststroke recovery time is often longer than necessary 34
OCTOBER 2021
SWIMMINGWORLD.COM
