Mark also writes on his long standing blog, I keep myself appraised of his 'reminiscences' on a regular basis. The below article, the vast majority of which I agree with, written by Mark, first appeared on his site in October 2012. It is well worth a read and has proven to be one of Marks most popular posts. Thanks Mark ;-)
photo courtesy DebH
Long Distance Front Crawl Technique
I am not a qualified swimming coach
and am not necessarily the world's authority on front crawl but I've
swum ca. 23 miles & almost 15 hours in cold Scottish water,
I have completed the 24 mile 2Swim4Life, swum the 21 mile
2-way Windermere and swum the English Channel wearing only a pair
of trunks which is more than any qualified swim coach that I've ever
met..... The swimming bit was reasonably easy...it was the dealing
with the cold that was the harder more character-building bit!! There
are therefore some observations I feel like sharing regarding what
I've leant on my long distance swimming journey so far...
I hope you find this blog insightful as
I try to delve into a bit more detail on what I consider to be an effortless technique
used in long distance front crawl.....
When I uncovered this lark of long
distance swimming in 2009/2010 (after countless knee surgeries and realising I
couldn't run anymore), I naively thought that after 2 lessons in an endless
pool learning a bit more about Total Immersion and the like, I thought I had
learnt everything there was to know about this front crawl malarky......
I convinced myself I could therefore contemplate taking on
10.5mile Windermere in 2011. No guts, no glory.....it wasn't pretty, but
it happened.....
Is there a long distance swimming
technique? Is there some kind of secret here? Well, yes I think there
is and I want to help others try and avoid the mistakes,
pitfalls & some of the pain I encountered as at times I felt utterly
helpless as my new-found sport was going to be pointless if it
was going to cause pain.
In 2011, whilst training to swim
Windermere, I trained in Dover Harbour under the stewardship of Freda Streeter
with the Channel Swimmers every Saturday. This comprised of being 'told' how
many hours was going to be expected of YOU (everyone was different). Of
course, after an initial 40 mins one Saturday in early June, I went back and
got 2 hours the next Saturday but didn't struggle to complete the
task UNTIL on the third Saturday when 5 hours was being demanded
of me!!! Oh boy. What a ramp up and having never swum more than 2 hours
straight in my life !! Agony....After 3hrs 15 mins, my shoulders had frozen
stiff and I walked out of the water and up the steep beach to my bag. I was
ready to walk away from the sport in a right huff (I'm glad I
didn't). Little did I know that this is NOT the 'done thing' and
was much to the disgust of Freda & co. I felt half-way like a
failure as others (much slighter than my 17 stone) seemed jovial after 5, 6 or
even 7 hours......!
To cut a long story short, I kind of
ambled on and 'dealt' with the pain in my shoulders my own way and instead of
going to see a proper coach, I just read what I could in my long distance
swimming book for assistance (Penny Lee Dean's Open Water Swimming). I
didn't give up and kept going down to Dover on Saturdays - just
cuffed it and extended up to 7 hours with the wonderful assistance of the
great Sue Murray who waited patiently for me & helped me through
some dark moments....She, with her much slighter figure, made me realise that I
COULD swim through the cold for 5 hours+ if I just swum hour to hour (and
feed to feed). However, my bad stroke was still causing the
shoulder pain (directly in the front of my left shoulder), or 'rotator
pain' and it was, of course, getting worse (due to spending longer in
the water) and lasting for days. In the end I kinda got through Windermere
my own way really not knowing what I was doing stroke-wise - hence finishing a
good 3 hours after the winner. I felt slightly clueless but had bags of desire.
Therefore, after I had set myself a goal
to swim Loch Lomond (in the summer 2012), it was during the January and
February of 2012 that I realised I had much to learn from uncle Ray Gibbs at
Swim Canarywharf.
THERE IS A LONG DISTANCE SWIMMING
STROKE that does NOT result in shoulder
discomfort, leaves you feeling 'in control', not fighting the water, not
constantly trying to keep yourself from sinking and being able to leave the
water reasonably refreshed & not demoralised. I am living proof. I
finished Loch Lomond with NO shoulder pain WHATSOEVER.
What I want to do is in the following
break down what I have learnt as the most salient points that beginners to long
distance swimming can take on board and learn for themselves if they care
to. This is not the magic pill or cure-all for everyone. Like a
golfer, you cannot learn this sport from the comfort of your armchair reading a
book but I hope I can convey some aspects that you can work on and take
onboard. I suppose we have to remember that front crawl is an art form
that perhaps we never really perfect BUT I really think that there's some
significant learnings from my experiences that I want to pass on....(Some of
below assumes some basic knowledge of front crawl)
A few areas that has made a
difference to my comfort in the murky world of long distance swimming:
1. The Bent Arm Catch (a.
Propulsion and b. Streamlining)
2. Breathing
3. Kick
4. Hands
5. Rotation
1. The Bent Arm catch
a. Propulsion
In my experience, most pool swimmers try
and blast up and down the pool cracking on with their 20 to 30 lengths complete
with a straight arm leading their very carefully crafted S-shape
test-book style straight-arm catch (when
I read Penny Lee Dean's Open Water Swimming Book - that's all that
was offered up as advice). That might be fine for the sprinters amongst
us but for the long distance swimmer, can this can be the
origin of something causing rotator pain?
I've spent more hours than I would care
to admit to to studying the strokes of the greatest male and female swimmers of
their generation - Sun Yang and Becky Addlington. Look at the front of their
stroke - they BOTH DO NOT USE A STRAIGHT ARM!
Sun Yang:
Rebecca Addlington:
When I encountered rotator pain in 2011
after many hours in Dover Harbour I hunted around to find answers and
really genuinely couldn't find many. I surprised myself in coming back from
that kind of pain to swim pain free. Indeed, when I completed the 24
mile 2swim4life the
swimming was the easy bit - I finished with no shoulder pain at all and went
swimming the next day. I suppose the reason behind this blog is that I
just find it terribly sad when I hear people retiring from the sport in their
20s due to injury - what a shame. I wish more of that retirement (and
surgery) were avoidable through coaching technique.
Why do swimmers not automatically swim
with a bent arm catch? Well, we aren't taught front crawl that way from nippers
and, more importantly, it requires more 'buy in' from the swimmer as it results
in a temporary loss of speed as we have to develop new muscle memory.
Persevere!! There are many drills that will suit here (but will be subject of
another blog).
b. Streamlining
This is super interesting.
If fast swimming were merely about propulsion drive then the greatest
weight lifters would presumably be champions of the fastest times.....BUT
the reality is something different. There are some really informative
clips suggesting that terrific front cawl is actually MORE ABOUT MINIMISING
DRAG and the bent arm catch really helps to this end. If only some of the
swimmers down the public baths at Sevenoaks this morning knew this rather
than continuing to thrash around.
There's a whole load of stuff on youtube
out there that I've found and especialy from The Race Club who go into
quite some detail into reducing your frontal drag. It's fascinating stuff and
really thought provoking (there are 4 parts and an introduction).....
2. Breathing - Do not
Underestimate - *MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF FREESTYLE*!!
One of my favourite front
crawl technique companion books that I go back to time and time again is
Paul Newsome and Adam Young's Swimsmooth - The Complete Coaching System for
Swimmers and Triathletes. It is really interesting to note that breathing
is the first section that addresses the dynamics of the front crawl stroke
and the authors note:
'....It
would not be an overstatement to say that breathing technique is the singlemost
important aspect of freestyle swimming......'
Did you read that sentence? Are you
sure? Is it worth reading again? I can't recall seeing many
average swimmers working that hard on their breathing down the pool....
Look at the great Sun Yang clip again.
Look how he breathes.... There is a reason why the greatest swimmers take what
seem to be the most shallowest of breaths. They breathe into
the 'well' created by their head. There's no real head out
of the water - barely one goggle out of the water. If you want to swim in
a much more effortless manner, it's worth working on this....your head is
a heavy unit that can really through the whole balance off, contort the
spine, spoil inertia - if you get this right it can really make a serious
difference... Takes time and tenacity but stick with it - elite
swimmers take on water at times!!
After working hard all winter on this
aspect, I am now breathing bilaterally effortlessly which is improving my
stroke cadence - something that I've struggled with in the past. If you
are serious about swimming the channel, for example, you want to get this right
you will need to be able to adapt to which side your pilot is on. If you are
only a left-side breather and the boat is on your right then it might well be a
show-stopper! That's one hell of a way to waste £2500.....Good breathing
technique will only help in getting most of everything else right.....
3. Kick
Let's face it, this is the bit that we
are all a bit lazy at? I am the King of the ultra-lazy leg kick with a
mega-dodgy left knee and no use of my left quad. I swam Loch Lomond with a
(vague) 2-beat leg kick and that worked just fine. I am a believer in
using the kick as you swim and move in rhythm with the movement of the
body (from the hip!) - the 2-beat leg kick works . Some keener individuals
seem to go 'hell-for-leather' with the legs BUT even the greatest coaches
reckon that 85% of front crawl is arms so perhaps we don't need
to get too hung up with the leg propulsion AND if you kick like mad you
will get knackered very fast and might mean you have to get out
early! I have observed many swimmers kicking like mad only to get
completely wiped out and not complete swims due to cramp - I was at that stage
in the middle of Windermere in 2011 and it is not nice.
I think swimmers should spend their
training time working harder on stroke timing, rotation, breathing (not to
mention the catch).... Look at Sun Yang again - he kicks WAY less than
everyone else in the race and only really kicks in the last 4 lengths
where the outboard rocks into action! If a 2-beat leg-kick can work for the
best in the world why not for mere mortals?
4. Hands
This is interesting as apparently a
small change in the gap between your fingers can have a marked change in
your shoulder pain. If you pull your fingers tight together like a
clamp or a vice and use a straight arm catch then you can perhaps
feel the immense tension directly? There is a school of thought out there
that if you open up your fingers ever so slightly the water cannot escape through
the gaps and you can still execute a masterful stroke without the resultant
tension being created by being more tense than a string on a guitar. This can
result in greater stroke rate and less grief....This was what I was doing in my
first season and caused me untold grief!
The other important aspect to work on
with the hands is where to point your fingers at the front of the stroke - look
at the great long distance freestylers such as Hackett and you will observe
that the fingers point down slightly at the front of the stroke. This certainly
helps with engagement of the catch and improving cadence. Work on this and see
if this helps?
5. Rotation
Basics...... Is it worth reminding
ourselves the power of swimming on our sides versus square to the water?
Perhaps not....but if you've never done it, put on some flippers and swim a
length with your arms by your sides rotating from one side to the other. Note
how each time you swim with shoulders 'square-on' to the water, it's like
putting the brakes on big time..... Keeping to the sides creates quite a level
of propulsion. Oh, if only many pool swimmers at my local baths knew
this!
Conclusion
I really would urge you to reserve
one pool session per week for drills to work on these aspects of your swimming.
Perhaps there's a reason why the greatest long distance Olympians of our time
have succeeded.... They have spend loads of time slowing down their particular
stroke to create the best 'bang-for-their-buck'. Is it ridiculous to look what
Matt Biondi did? Count how many strokes per length Sun Yang takes
versus his competition.....
I suppose the ultimate piece of advice
is perhaps consider seeing a decent coach (with access to underwater
cameras) reasonably regularly - we really just are not aware of the bad
habits that we have created for ourselves at times! Golfers that get better at
their game have constant update with the slow-motion film - swimming is
arguably no different....
1 comment:
Great guest post! Loved it and agree with his assessment of the Swim Smooth book.
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