ITS A ROTATION STROKE PART 1 Its intuitive to think of freestyle as a top-down stroke, that is, arms, arms, then kick. Lets try it the other way around. Imagine it as a bottom-up stroke that starts with the kick, then hip turn, shoulder turn, and finally, recovering arm driving forward into the water. Think of a rubber band unwinding from bottom to top. Look at Michael Phelps. Hes set up just right: perfect balance and a long straight line from fingertips to toes. He is looking straight down. His arm is extended straight out in front of him as his leading hand softly searches for firm water to hold on to. As he bends his wrist, pressure will build on his palm and fingers and hell start the stroke. In rapid sequence, hell kick and twist the high side of his hips down, then his torso and shoulders will come around, his recovering arm enters the water heavily but cleanly and drives forward; hell draw another long straight line, bend his wrist, set the catch straight out in front of him, and start the cycle over again. He is rotating around an invisible long axis. Its as if he had an unseen pole or rod running through the top his head and down the center of his torso and he spins around it. Think of your leading hand at the catch as an anchor point or a bookmark (its fixed, you swim past it). Let your hand glide forward, bend your wrist, load up pressure on your hand,* and rotate around it. Set the catch and swim past it. This is the shoulder-friendly way to swim, the powerful way to swim. As you shift the work down from your arms and shoulders to larger torso muscles, hip rotation becomes the source of power. Torque is a rotating, twisting, circular force generated by the movement of your hips. It, hip rotation, is the big engine of core-driven swimming. Its where all the power is. Notice the word this author chose to describe the amount of rotation in hip rotation: tremendous, which is something great in amount or intensity. *What does it mean load up pressure on your hand? Think of it this way. Drive your car about 25 miles an hour, put your left hand out the window, palm forward. Feel that force on your palm and fingers? Thats pressure. Now recreate the same feeling on your hand, with water, at the catch, while you swim. Source from californiaswimtechniques
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 13:53:18 +0000
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