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Well, maybe you can answer, maybe not. With my over arm side stroke, the under arm is doing pretty much the dog paddle style of pull, or the breast stroke pull out stroke. With any distances, I use a full body length pull with the under side arm. When sprinting, I tend to use a 3/4 length pull, and maybe even a 1/2 length stroke, a bit longer than the standard breast stroke pull. While the full length under water pull does provide more distance/stroke, it does create more drag. Never quite sure where to stop the pull. I did see one video about the combat swim side stroke where the instructor mentioned that with sprints, he used a 1/2 body length pull. I figure I need to pull through the power zone, which to me is from 45 to 135 degrees of the 180 degree arc of the pull. So, which " should" work best?

The human body is an interesting set of levers, and no matter what sport we are involved in, we have to apply those levers. The windmill style as I call it, used in the 50 meter sprint and for the last 10 or so meters of just about every race, requires more power/force because of using longer levers. The distance swimmers all use about a 90 degree angle bend in their elbows, and the 200+ distances all use the gallop style and about the 120 or so degree bend at the elbow, or is that 60 degrees..... Anyway, you didn't cover back stroke here. It is kind of in a whole different category since we can't engage our arm, shoulder, back and front muscles the same way we do with freestyle. Part of why back stroke records are slower than freestyle.

i have seen alot of people say that pros kick hard on " both sides" meaning they kick fast on the up kick and down kick. is there much propulsion in the straight up kick? or is it just to a recovery action to start another strong down kick?

Noticing that "kicking through the centerline" thing was key for me in fixing my butterfly and also getting anything out of my UDK as a middle aged masters swimmer. I think of it in terms of ending up in a "pike" position to make the kick work. Thanks for the video -- I really enjoy the no-nonsense academic delivery in your work. I'm struggling with tendinitis in my elbow right now, so I'm focusing on huge kick sets for the next couple weeks, and I'm planning to use some of these ideas to advance my kicking while I'm hurt. z

could be effective for slow long distance too, I use it, I'm slow swimmer🙂

Thank you Andrew. Just proved this to myself today while doing repeat 25s Switched to deeper pull VS trying to get the EVF. The deeper pull was faster

Super video, Andrew. Thank you. Flipper kicker (male) seems to be using his hands/arms to help him balance. Is this ok when first acquiring the skill?

Andrew I just love your passion and enthusiasm. Thanks for the interesting video. I will give it a try with my swimmers today.

Nice good information and clearly explained thanks for your insights.

I am a master open water swimmer and I want to race some 800 mts freestyle in a pool. I need to work hard in starts and turns. This kind of video is what I need. Thank you!

@Andrew great video as always. I've heard arguments on whether the dominant leg should be placed forward or backward on the block. I am guessing, based on this video, that you would say it should be placed forward. Is that correct?

I am so old, they used to teach us to "slap" the water so we could start swimming immediately. No extension through the water. I can't really say I understand why they switched to the track type start vs. the old school broad jump start with both sets of toes hanging over the edge of the starting block. I guess it must provide a bit more power. Can't remember the last time I saw standing broad jump competition, but they always started with both feet in front rather than staggered.

100 stroke rate is 100 strokes per minute, right? 1 cycle = 2 strokes But what do u mean by "+ 0.5 sec/cycle"? Is that the rest period?

Plz can you make a video on backstroke catch ❤❤plz Thanks

For sure, speed is dependent on stroke rate. One other difference is the amount of elbow bend. Most distance swimmers use about a 90 degree bend in their elbow while the longer distances use about a 120 degree bend/angle. And for the 50 sprint, straight arm pull and straight arm recover. At present, and until I get back in good shape, when I use hand paddles, I pull with that 90 degree or so bend rather than my normal 120 or so.

Hmm, food for thought. I always want to que in the old Devo song, "You must whip it! Whip it good!". I have likened the dolphin kick to holding a 4 foot steel ruler with about 18 inches or so over the edge of the table. Knees would be at 1 foot, waist at 2 feet, shoulders at 3, and hands at 4 feet. Holding by the hands, raise it up a bit so the feet end comes off the table, then push the shoulders down to the table. The end of the ruler bounces up and down. This, to me is how the tension in the body should be. Never thought about dolphin kicks with a kick board but I can see that now for the breathing stroke. The breathing stroke has a slightly different kick than the swimming one. One difference is that you can't properly engage your core because you are inhaling. To compensate for that, every fly swimmer I have watched uses a higher amplitude kick with their heels coming slightly out of the water. Dolphin kick on your back is slightly mechanically different from the dolphin kick on your tummy, pretty much the same difference between the back stroke flutter kick and the freestyle flutter kick. There tends to be more knee bend and less hip bend. The heel and lower leg are more stream lined than the knee and thigh. I did watch an old one from Gary Hall Sr. where he had some swimmers hooked up to his velocimeter. One woman actually generated more power on her up kick than her down kick. I wish I had a velocimeter to play with!

I coach high school and I ran into the problem of doing too many drills at the beginning last year but I did still focus on speed early and periodized the 13 weeks. Now after reading the constraints approach to swim coaching, I feel like I am able to tackle more earlier in the season when it comes to technique while still focusing on fitness and speed. This approach has actually made periodizing a short season easier and more effective and I am seeing much faster time drops earlier in the season. This constraints led methodology combined with a knowledge of technique and physiology and periodization make coaching way more impactful and more effective. Thank you Andrew for these videos and amazing book!

What do you mean about buoy

Funny thing about breast stroke kick when compared to flutter and dolphin kicks, the breast stroke kick pushes straight back. The other kicks are much more up and down and way less effective. This is why the breast stroke is so powerful, but the draw back is that it still creates huge amounts of drag. My feet will not turn out, I am VERY pigeon toed. It amazes me how much the elite swimmers slow down when the knees drop down into the slip stream.

Hey Plz can you tell me how to use the band while doing backstroke 😊

I am trying to pick up the fly again, after maybe 50 years of laying off..... It ain't as easy as it used to be... I was thinking at first that you were talking about the windmill style freestyle with straight arm pull and recover, which most people don't have the strength to do. This appears to be straight arm recover, but with standard pull. I may have to try this....

What do u mean by stretch cord ? The one used for resistance drill ?

Id love a video about breaking the wrist in strokes like freestyle and Butterfly. A good example is Ledeckys world record compared to her current stroke where in her world record she broke the wrist earlier in the pull compared to now. A vast majority of coaches are against breaking the wrist and Id love your opinion on it

This might be a silly question, but how might a doggy paddle stroke benefit compared to pulling to the hip? A swimmer would obviously be pulling more frequently, with shorter strokes and quicker recovery, in exchange for a longer pull and slower recovery. Just a hypothetical thought . What is your opinion Andrew, and please forgive me if you think I'm being ridiculous. 😄

I did a session today incorporating some of these principles and drills. My backstroke is working again. Still a long way to go. But i will do a lot more BK now that I know I can be competitive in this stroke again after years of technical neglect.

Excellent presentation. Impressive and informative. Thank you brother.

Hey can u do a video on engaging the lats and pecs in freestyle, also great video!

I can do an okay job at back stroke. Since my main stroke is the old over arm side stroke, I see everything in the pool, the good, the bad, and the ugly. One thing I see frequently, and at all levels, is that so many finish the back stroke arm pull by rolling their palm down and the final bit of push goes straight to the bottom of the pool rather than back to the wall. The youngster in the video has pretty much perfect pull form. The elite swimmer is okay, but still tends to roll his palm a bit. To me, the perfect finish would have your palm end up flat against your thigh with no need to rotate it over for the recover. One other thing I have wondered, is do you need a bit more body rotation with back stroke than you do with freestyle? With freestyle, most say around 40 degrees. Part of the reason for body rotation is to get the top side shoulder out of the water for a bit less drag. Simple with freestyle since your shoulders are on top of the water to begin with. With back stroke, your shoulders start off much lower in the water than with freestyle. I did see Gary Hall having his kids laying on their backs and doing s shoulder extension to help elevate the shoulders out of the water. After trying this, most of the time, it was not enough and I started adding a bit more body rotation. That seemed to help. Oh, the kid's underwater arm pull is half of the OASS pull. Body rotation for OASS is 20 or so degrees to either side of the vertical shoulders. Top side arm does freestyle, except the pull is more horizontal. Faster than breast stroke or back stroke. Only record was set in 1895 when a Brit swam 100 yards in 1:02.5. Freestyle record at that time was 1:01.2....

wait so im doing ive been doing it right for ages thinking it was wrong??

Well, I am in early season.... Got way out of shape this summer from taking 6 weeks off for a trip from Oregon to Maine and back.... Long road trip. I did add some 50 sprints to my kicking work out today. Average pulse rate and peak pulse rate were up about 5 points each. Not up to 100s yet. The kicking is my weakest point in my strokes.....

recently, i have been experiementing in the 25 and 50m freestyle where in my hand entry i pause for a little bit before pulling, very little something like 0.1-0.3s just enough to make an early vertical forearm catch. What is your opinion on this? doing this i have been going a little faster bit faster so i think it is working for me. i used to immediately start pulling but that way i couldnt get much lat activation and rn im about 0.6-1s faster on average in my 25m freestyle.

One topic that actually got me banned from Swim Vice is the concept of body rotation. For years people have figured that the lower body drives the rotation. While that is true in any land based sport that uses rotation, as near as I can tell, it is mechanically and physically impossible for the lower body to drive the rotation. The feet need an anchor to drive upper body rotation, and there is nothing to anchor on in the water. Besides, our efforts are more about pulling rather than pushing or throwing.

I made drastic improvement in my underwater speed by watching your videos. I raced my friend in the 50 fly from a push and i beat manage to beat him to the 15m as i was underwater for around 11-12 meters and he only did them for 5-7 meters, that was the first time i beat someone who was stroking with just dolphin kicks, felt great though sadly i did end up losing the race by a body length.

This is an awesome tip, makes logical sense. You see any issues using a scuba diving weighted belt?

Hi.. just watched your video 👍 I'd like to know, at what age one's can start using weight belts? My daughter is 11 yo, can she put on the weight belts during her trainings? Thanks.

I may have to add dragsox to my swim bag, never tried them. The problem with fins is that there is only one that is ergonomically correct, and those are the Positive Drive fins from Finis. We do not have flat feet like frogs or ducks. the main power on the front side kick (up for back stroke and down for freestyle) comes from the little toe side of our foot. The PD fins have very little blade on the big toe side, and a lot of fin on the little toe side, so this turns our feet inwards. Going pigeon toed does 2 things, for people like me who have stiff ankles, I get 10 or more degrees of toe point, and it presents the side of the foot to the water better/more efficiently. Frog feet force you to point your feet out straight behind you rather than toeing in. I have added a bunch of 1/4 inch holes top and bottom. This allows me to feel the water flowing between my toes which gives feedback for putting effort into the back side kick (up in freestyle, and down in back stroke). There is one mechanical difference between the flutter kick between freestyle and back stroke. With freestyle, you have to flex at the hip in order to present the little toe side of your foot to the most efficient angle for propulsion. With back stroke, most tend to flex more at the knee and almost no flexing at the hip. To me, the swimmer in the video is bringing his knees up too high out of the water. To me, the plus side of the back stroke kick is that the ankle and heel are far more streamlined than your knee is. In freestyle, the knee and thigh dip down into the slip stream.

Just curious, what is your coaching experience of the past? You seem like you've been coaching alot of advanced swimmers from 10-15 years

I have always called alignment and/or body position posture. Maybe that is not a more popular term because we all think of posture for we who walk upright rather than when we are laying in the water.... It requires the same things, head looking down, and core engagement. If your head is down, then, as a coach from Speedo said, "suck in your gut like you are trying to put your belly button on your spine". If you do those two, then your feet will not sink. I have never understood the concept of the kick helping keep the feet and lower body higher in the water. Yes, the down/front side kick is the stronger, but you have to kick up as well which does add to the power of the down kick, the action/reaction thing. Never could swim breast stroke, and now, even the thought of it drives me nuts because it is so inefficient. Even at the elite level, most swimmers come to an almost complete stop before the pull and kick. The old over arm side stroke is far faster and more efficient, as well as my favorite stroke, but it has been forgotten. Interesting about the undulation/porpoise action of the breast and fly. With the 'gallop' style, this is also used. I had thought that most of the efficiency of the gallop style came from this porpoise action, but apparently some comes from the uneven cadence of the stroke. No one has really done an in depth study of it, and/or explanation of why it works the way it does....

I have regularly done kicking laps by going one length, 25 yards, at fewest kicks possible, and next length at fastest pace I can maintain. I do need to do 50 and 100 yard 'duration' sets. I prefer sprints to distance because of the better endorphin rushes.....

Well, in the first freestyle part, they are swimming "gallop" style which is an uneven cadence. It is a quick 1, 2, then a slight pause. No clue who the male swimmer is, but the woman appears to be Katie. Some coaches make a big deal about having both arms "in the front quadrant". With a swimmer like Ariarne Titmus, she swims an even cadence stroke. All of the male swimmers use gallop style, some of the female swimmers do. With the gallop style, the non breathing side arm pulls first followed shortly after by the breathing side arm, then the slight pause. The non breathing side is at about half way through the pull by the time the breathing side arm enters the water. The 50 meter sprint is a whole different animal for men. Mostly they are in "windmill" style with the arms opposite each other similar to back stroke. No breathing. For most, this is a straight arm pull and straight arm recover. This produces the highest possible stroke rate. Most of the women do not have the raw power to do this. Only other time it is used is for the last 10 or less meters in just about every long axis stroke for the fast finish. As near as I can tell, the down/front side kick is anchored on the pulling arm. If you swim catch up style as a drill, you already use this. If you never noticed, keep this in mind next time you swim it. I do consider it to be the best single freestyle drill there is. With backstroke, there is one thing I have never heard mentioned in any of the videos I have watched. Took a long time for me to figure out why it was so difficult to get the top side shoulder, when rotating, out of the water. this is one advantage of long axis strokes, getting that top side shoulder out of the water for less frontal drag. So much harder. I finally figured out that with freestyle, you start with your shoulders on top of the water, so it is easy to get that top side shoulder out of the water. With back stroke, your shoulders are farther under the water. So, the question I would have is are you supposed to use a little more rotation in back stroke than you do in freestyle? Freestyle, most suggest 35 to 40 degrees rotation. Should back stroke be closer to 45?

Hmm, interesting. I had wondered about the sweeping of the arms in freestyle particularly. I had figured that a lot of the S shape was due to where your most powerful pull area was. This is some what similar to, or demonstrated by pulling yourself up out of the pool. Easier to do if your hands are about shoulder width apart, and far more difficult to do if your hands are wider apart or right next to each other. Back stroke is weird because you can't pull in the most powerful position like freestyle, and you can't really apply muscles the same way you do with freestyle, so you have to go more lateral. I am so old, they used to teach us, with freestyle to make an hour glass shaped pull, enter wide, pull to the middle, then sweep back out. Oh, many teach to have hand entry at 11 and 1 o'clock. If you watch any of the elite swimmers, they enter much more close to the body center line. I figure this is more due to body rotation. If you didn't use body rotation, then hand entry would be close to 11 and 1, but because of body rotation, it is closer to 2 or so minutes before 12 rather than 5 minutes. I would guess that the pull shape in the fly is wider because you have no body rotation with the fly. Never could swim breast stroke, my feet will not turn out enough to get any power from that kick.

You can see Phelps's entire upper back and lower back when he is swimming butterfly, incredible body position

Can see how significantly important this info is gonna be and is more useful than any other video ...right up my alley as a coach of very talented future swimmers 😊

Extremely helpful delivery and I'm a very experienced Teacher but this is exactly the patient aspect of technique that swimmers need 😊

Hey Andrew, I noticed that most top level swimmers kick with a slightly bigger bend at the knees and they also kick deeper. Is this due to the fact that their leg muscles are extremely strong? I have tried various depths which the kick, and in my case I get the most propulsion with a more shallow depth in my kick, approximately 9 inches to maybe one foot. What is your opinion?

I could watch your videos all day. Thank you for sharing your wisdom!

Are freestyle sprinters also working on this connection ? Or are they doing the opposite - kicking as fast as possible whatever the arm position ?

Would a good drill be to do multiple pullouts across a 25m or 50m pool and use fins the make up for some of the propulsion lost for not having the wall or the blocks to push off for the initial speed on the 2nd and subsequent pullouts away from the wall?

Very nice explanation