Source
r/Swimming•
Someguy101

Looking for videos demonstrating the most up to date swimming form.

I was a competitive swimmer in high school many years ago. I got back in the water with the local masters swimming and the coach noted that my freestyle form needed some correction. When I was swimming I was taught to do sort of an S shape in the catch, pull, recovery stages of the stroke. The masters coach said this was the common thought back in the day but now people do more of a straight pull, less of a sculling motion in the stroke (hard to explain). Anyway I am looking for videos that demonstrate proper technique so I can relearn the stroke and do it correctly. Any resources you guys know about would be greatly appreciated.

Posted Aug 11, 2021, 10:59 PM UTC

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PeterFilmPhotoEveryone's an open water swimmer now•

Effortless Swimming on YouTube is a good resource 👍

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Someguy101OPMoist•

Thanks, checking it out.

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Lava1277Freestyler•

This video should do it.

https://youtu.be/T1OY\_yQBiXM

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Someguy101OPMoist•

Says it's unavailable to me unfortunately.

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Lava1277Freestyler•

Search youtube for it by name.

The Freestyle Catch: The Key to Swimming a Faster Freestyle

It's done by Chloe Sutton former Olympian

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knowsaboutitEveryone's an open water swimmer now•

went through the same thing...at my pool, if you revert to the councilman method (sculling) the younger people say 'quit swimming like a boomer.' It's really bad for your shoulder. Best just to have the masters coach give you corrections as you swim- they can see exactly what you're doing. Biggest thing is entry ahead of your shoulder, which is hard to correct- you'll think you're doing it, but the coach will tell you otherwise...have to overcompensate for awhile.

ps- effortless swimming is a great resource for what you want

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CoachRoostadIMer•

https://youtu.be/6952cAAXHFk

Look up Early Vertical Forearm.

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chilly2121Everyone's an open water swimmer now•

The king of all shoulder injuries.

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CoachRoostadIMer•

Not if you couple it with throwing forward instead of pulling backward really hard. Pretty effortless. Tons of freestyle? Always.

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chilly2121Everyone's an open water swimmer now•

What do you mean by throwing forward? You throw forward in the recovery and you have to pull backwards in the catch and pull phase.

I think ton of freestyle is fine, I swim exclusively freestyle and I have a loose shoulder, but I don’t run into any shoulder injuries on freestyle. As long as the swimmer is increasing his/her mileage slowly.

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CoachRoostadIMer•

Throwing forward is just switching your exertion to reaching toward the wall with more energy toward the end of your recovery, as opposed to 'digging' really hard during the pull phase. A ton of freestyle is generally great advice if you like physical therapy. Glad you've had no injuries.

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chilly2121Everyone's an open water swimmer now•

Also, myswimpro swims with pretty bad form imo.

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Total-Tonight1245Swammer•

Tell me what he does wrong so I don’t copy it.

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OdraDequeEveryone's an open water swimmer now•

Why, how? Can you explain a better alternative style and/or link a video? I'm prone to tendinitis due to my work. 😖 Thank you.

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capitalist_p_i_gI can touch the bottom of a pool•

Tendinitis is more commonly a function of impingement, not shoulder workload stress. But it does happen when you significantly increase your workload.

Unfortunately extending your arms above your head creates impingement. That's why all therapies center around strengthening muscles around the joint to reduce impingement.

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chilly2121Everyone's an open water swimmer now•

High elbow allows you to swim fast and efficiently, but places a lot of stress on your shoulders. The best way is to increase mileage slowly.

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1houndgalEveryone's an open water swimmer now•

Using your body like a lever and going too deep is bad for shoulders. Also dont let hands go in front of the face ( too much torque on the shoulders) 10 and 2.

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chilly2121Everyone's an open water swimmer now•

Ty! I think mine might be too close to the twelve, mine os like 11 and 1

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1houndgalEveryone's an open water swimmer now•

Try 11 and 1 , then try 10 and 2. See what feels most comfortable and efficient for you. But the reason so many elite swimmers now do 10 and 2 is it causes less shoulder problems, the closer you get to 12, the more impinged your shoulder will be during all the repetitive arm strokes. This for both back stroke and front crawl/freestyle.

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aj11scanEveryone's an open water swimmer now•

That's very interesting I do the sculling in the catch too

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andreichiffaMasters•

Another old-time swimmer who was still practicing as a couple of years ago.

What you are talking about is an i-pull, made popular by Phelps. While having a better potential in high-level competition, it requires a much more stable scapula to avoid shoulder damage and more muscle and over fitness to get any benefit from it. Your load profile is more of a burst compared to a rather uniform s and you load the shoulder much more during it.

Overall, the stroke in i is better adapted for well-trained swimmers in short course, whereas any mid to long-distance event will still see s-stroke due to a better overall efficiency and endurance it allows.

As a returning master swimmer it might a good idea for you to keep the s-stroke while you rebuild the muscle and reinforce the shoulder joints to avoid the damage (ask me how I know) and only then start learning the i and practicing it in the competitions. Besides, with age your burst power decays faster than your endurance (for which your peak is around 27-29 anyway and even then), so in competitive swimming longer courses are more interesting to you anyway.

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Throwaway-242424•

What you are talking about is an i-pull, made popular by Phelps. While having a better potential in high-level competition, it requires a much more stable scapula to avoid shoulder damage and more muscle and over fitness to get any benefit from it.

Seems like the more logical answer is to manage training volume, rather than deliberately train sub-optimal technique.

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andreichiffaMasters•

In almost every case it is the correct answer, but there are exceptions and returning athletes are sometimes one of them.

The thing is that when you are training people who came back to sport after a long break, they have expectations about what they bodies can do that are not exactly true and often quit either due to the injury (their brain still remembers how to fire the neurons to get most power, but the muscles and the joint strength are not there anymore) or due to frustration (because they are so slow and struggling so much).

As a trainer, you don't really have the usual logic of "I have to teach the correct style from the start so they don't have to re-learn or hurt themselves", because they already have a motor memory of the "wrong" style, but their "wrong" style is safe. And letting them come back with their old technique allows them to progress fast and keep the motivation up to the point where they realize they are hitting the ceiling with their technique and are actually motivated AF to put in the work to learn the new, "right" ways.

Trying to teach the new "right" way outright can increase the risk of the injury due to the overlap of the awkward, in-between styles phase and is also likely to lead the athlete to quit due to the frustration from not feeling any progress and if anything - regression.

At least that's what I have seen in my ~10 years of masters swimming/running experience.

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Someguy101OPMoist•

That's interesting, coach was telling me basically the opposite that the S-stroke had a higher potential for shoulder impingement injuries which is why he recommended the change. Truthfully it just feels weird to change my stroke, very difficult to change what I know.

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andreichiffaMasters•

Interesting - I was convinced otherwise, but he probably knows better. Best of luck returning into the pool - it gets more fun a couple of months in and once the competitions start running!

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Lava1277Freestyler•

Not sure if you were able to find that video I posted above by searching for it, since the link didn't work for you. Chloe talks about how your hand pulls and pulling out of position (or doing the s pull) causes you to use smaller muscles in your shoulder to do the pull instead of your bigger muscles. I'm sure that is what your coach was referring to.

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Someguy101OPMoist•

He was saying the outward rotation of the shoulder could cause impingement issues so he was telling me to enter the water pinky first, palm inward and just drop the hand down leaving the high elbow. Basically just eliminate that initial outward scull to start the stroke that I was taught back in the 90's

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Lava1277Freestyler•

There shouldn't be an outward scull if your hand entry placing is correct. Meaning your arms enter virtually straight at about 11 o clock(left) and one o clock(right).

As far as entering pinky down, for most people, myself included, that would be very awkward. I believe this could be used in conjunction with having a short hand entry and gliding forward. Supposedly hand entry like that reduces drag but since it enters short and is gliding through the water it is creating drag. So I think that "reduced drag" is in comparison to if you entering short with your thumb down and glide the hand forward. So maybe your coach is teaching you that because you have a short hand entry?

Your recovery is most efficient going all the way forward before entering instead of entering short and gliding forward because water is 800 times more dense then air. I suppose in theory I could see trying it but it certainly goes against all traditional teaching. The only way i see this working is if you are gliding forward more then normal. So maybe that is some type of total immersion technique?

This is just my opinion but I would suggest not entering pinky down. It only delays the start of your pull regardless of how you do it which doesn't help with speed.

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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lwpho2Everyone's an open water swimmer now•

There are some good accounts on Instagram. GoSwimTv, SwimGym, SkillsNTalents …, follow a few and more will get suggested to you

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capitalist_p_i_gI can touch the bottom of a pool•

High elbow, low to minimal catch curve has been around forever. I was taught that in the 80's when I was a very young age grouper.

We just accentuated the S-curve for kids as an over exaggeration drill to stop them from dropping their elbow and/or eliminate them from immediately crossing over their midpoint. Once they achieved that it was on to early high elbow and reduced curve as an advanced progression.

I always though it was just common sense to reduced the horizontal vector perpendicular to your desired direction in a pulling motion? Guess not.

There is nothing really new here other than calling it EVF.

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Lumpy_Box9710Everyone's an open water swimmer now•

It’s maybe more work, but try to go watch Olympic swimming clips and you’ll get an idea of the most modern swimming technique. I’d avoid sprints and focus on long distance though

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Someguy101OPMoist•

I've been trying to watch videos of Katie Ledecky quite a bit but I would benefit greatly from someone more knowledgeable than me breaking down the stroke.

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NewYorkYurrrrEveryone's an open water swimmer now•

I am just starting back as well (grew up swimming) and I’ve got to fix my technique too. I’m doing the s with my freestyle stroke. It kind of sucks because I swam for so long like that now it’s like starting back at basics. I plan on joining masters after I build my endurance back up so I’m not dying trying to keep up with everyone.

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ticfitEveryone's an open water swimmer now•

I’ve been reading up on this recently and found Joe Friel the Triathlon coach to be very good.

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1houndgalEveryone's an open water swimmer now•

Here is a great video for freestyle tips. Start here with this one. https://youtu.be/uiI6Z_0Q2Io

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