The article was about using a continuous pulling stroke is better in the open water swimming and to erase thoughts completely (stating thinking is the worst enemy of open water swim.).. just shut the mind off and keep pulling.
What do you think? The following is what I think.
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Redefining Swimming Efficiency.
Firstly, lets go back to the era before Ian Thorpe (The mid distance olympic gold medalists). Thorpe is the guy who kind of introduced the gliding-style of swimming into the swimming world. Or rather, he's using the front-quadrant freestyle swim instead of a continuous arm pull kind of freestyle swim.
*Definition of "Front Quadrant Swim": Keeping the lead arm extended until the hand of the recovering arm reaches slightly beyond forehead, then lead arm starts pulling.
*Definition of "continuous arm pull FS": Upon recovery of the arm that finished pulling, the lead arm will start the catch phase immediately and both arms will not be catching up with each other. When one arm finish, the other starts working.
So, before the introduction of front quadrant swim, swimmers like Alexander Popov are using the continuous arm pull FS. This lead to an argument/discussion between those two type of swimming techniques.
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The views below are from my personal knowledge acquired from reading and extensive digestion of what I've read. Some books to quote are
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Some points to consider when talking about swimming efficiently.
1) Law of Inertia
- It takes energy to move an object that is stationary
- It takes energy to change the direction of a moving object
- It takes energy to stop a moving object
- A moving object will tend to keep moving until a resistant force is applied to stop it
2) Personal Aerobic/Anaerobic Capacity, Or how fit are you?
- Fitness of swimming is defined by the ability to swim fast over a specified/required distance. And in order to do that, it is imperative to that one need to be able to hold a streamlined body position and consistent power output.
3) Streamlining
- Reducing body-decelerating drag is the cheapest way to swimming fast (no increase in power output needed + speed gain).
There are 3 types of drag.
i) Friction Drag
Friction drag:
Also known as form drag. It is the resistance caused by the contours of our body(streamlining or the lack of) and friction of our skin (notice our body is unlike that of sea snake or fishes that are smooth and allows water to pass by easily). Take note this drag is also the reason why our pull can make us move.
ii) Wave Drag
Wave Drag:
Occurs when the swimmer or any object moves through the surface of a liquid. The pressure around the swimmer’s body increases because of the different water velocities, which result in waves. These waves can be problematic because the amplitude of the waves increases with the swimmer’s speed so there is more resistance as the swimmer goes faster.
iii) Pressure Drag
Pressure Drag:
As the speed of the swimmer increases, pressure drag becomes a factor. The faster the swimmer is moving, there is increased pressure on the front region of the body (the head). This increase causes a pressure difference between the two ends of the body and results in turbulence.
4) Rest point in strokes
- Being a firm believer in active rest, I believe every cardio sport have a recovery point of which the working muscles can take a rest and let momentum or its bilateral component take over for a short while.
E.g: Cycling in a pack at constant speed whilst keeping up with the leader. Just give one uber hard pedal and let the wheels spin freely for a couple of seconds, you got 2 seconds rest!
Swimming FS - After finish pulling, allow the arm to rest at the side and glide for a bit, you're still moving and you get the rest whilst not moving.
Or After finish pulling and upon recovery, work on a superbly relaxed recovery such that minimal energy is used during the recovery phase, you get the rest as you recover!
Running. Whilst leaning forward as a plank, just lift your heel towards your butt til its near parallel to the floor and let the feet land. Every step is almost effortless as long as you do it with a gentle lift and let gravity do its job whilst you lean forward, instead of exploding off your toes on every step. Endless running made possible!
5) Ensuring energy used on forces applied is solely for propelling the body forward/towards the desired direction
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Is there really a difference between open water stroke and still (pool) water stroke? Or is it all about quantum physics of moving an object through water and applying the rules of the different laws accordingly?
Taking into consideration of moving through the still peaceful water in the pool, the only resistance or "worry-factor" that comes into play is from the water itself and your body contour/skin friction.
When swimming in open water, the following factors come into play:
i) sea waves
ii) Numerous people swimming with you
iii) Additional Floatation due to salt water/wetsuit (if allowed in race)
iv) Impaired visibility
Is there a need to change from gliding strokes to the continuous pulling stroke? If there is, why the change?
Lets review the pros and cons of changing from one stroke to another and how it affects the swimmer relative to the water condition.
Gliding strokes:
Pros
- More rest per stroke (recovery phase + gliding phase when one arm is at the side of body (whole body is doing nothing))
- More distance travelled per stroke
- Lesser overall stroke count per whole swim
- Lower heart rate count per whole swim
Cons
- Depending on the power output per stroke AND the consistency of power output per stroke throughout a whole swim, the speed may maintain or drop (if there's a drop in power output due to fatigue) due to a drop in gliding distance and velocity per stroke.
- Gliding to a decelerating state incur a need to reaccelerate each stroke. According to Law of Inertia, energy per stroke is actually used to accelerate instead of maintaining a constant speed (which according to the law to inertia again, is easier to do as a moving object will tend to keep moving in the same direction).
Non gliding strokes (Continuous pulling):
Pros
- Faster swim speed. (as long as the stroke length maintains (consistent power output per pull over the whole swim), an increase in stroke rate (pulls/minute) will make the swim velocity increase)
- Rest at the recovery phase
Cons
- Increasing stroke rate often result in shortness of breathe
- Increasing stroke rate + Maintenance of stroke length is difficult due to the effort of continuous exertion
- Increasing stroke rate often result in "shortcut" pull path
Qn: Will gliding longer expose your body that is moving through the water MORE to the elements of open water swim, such as people thrashing you and sea wave to alter your swim speed and direction? Will doing the opposite help?
No.
1) Whether or not you're pulling continuously, people will be thrashing you at the start of a swim.
2) Even if you pull continuously without the gliding phase, the sea wave will still hit you on and on and alter the position of your body. Even though pulling continuously can cause a spike in body velocity through the water, the sea wave will still affect the position of body regardless of the forward velocity. In fact, looking at the definition of Wave Drag, the amplitude of the waves increases with the swimmer’s speed so there is more resistance as the swimmer goes faster.
3) The only pros comparing gliding stroke and non gliding stroke is probably (when technique is perfect and one's power output can be consistent) the increase in swim speed.
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Triathletes being triathletes, we should be innovative and implement both strokes accordingly to the different stuations that can occur in an open water swim. In the event when you need to sprint pass a group/chase a lead pack or leader, use the non gliding stroke and get pass that phase fast. In a open path situation, use the gliding stroke to conserve some energy and still travel at a consistent speed. Upon the "rest period" with the gliding strokes, one can use the continuous pulling stroke again to chase more people at the front or get a better timing.
Personally I feel that it is not advisable for beginners or even normal age group triathletes in general without a strong swim base to be using the continuous pulling swim stroke throughout the whole swim leg. I personally find that it takes up way too much air out of oneself in the shortest leg of the competition and that may impede the performance of the later legs. Not really a fair trade off in my own opinion.
Feel free to drop your comments.
Cheers
KK
Apologies for the delay in swim squad review. Am in the build phase of Aviva training and taking up alot of time to train and rest.. :( This is the best piece of info I could squeeze out of my drying brain after a gruesome swim just now.
Will update ASAP.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteTeck Beng:
ReplyDeleteI don't do wind-milling (continuous pull) because i find it tiring and also, seems like a lot of mental effort needed in the body (arm, leg) coordination. For me, the starting of 1 action is triggered by the end of the previous action, i find this method easier than having to do something continuously...which tend to cause me to be out of sync after some time. So the pause and glide method is also an interval for me to re-sync everything for the next cycle.
There is a video in youtube showing a TI coach Shinji Takeuchi doing the front crawl, i thought it is very smooth, stealthy, graceful and relaxed. you all probably had seen it liao. If not,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJpFVvho0o4
Oh yes, I've watched that one before.. I find it all too graceful and makes me wanna swim too everytime I watch him.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there is on flaw in his stroke if we're talking about short sprint distance sprint (750m and below). Look at the swim stroke comes to a deccelerating state everytime he neas the finish of all gliding.
Thus came back to the inertia law thingy of accelerating and deccelerating causing wasted energy.
Decceleration literally means slowing down the whole swim timing and it is almost inevitable unless you can catch the exact timing to pull AT THE MOMENT your glide starts to decelerate. That will seem probably like an improvised version of glide + continuous pulling.
Sequence goes like this:
-Pull finish
-Glide to before deceleration (maybe 1 to 1.5sec depending on your force and streamlining?)
-Recover arm and start next pull before deceleration occurs more than 20% of the starting gliding speed.
That way, decelerating is minimized, and you get your glide. Voila!
After training for swimming for quite sometime and taking frusrating amount of times for my swim timing.. I found that by gliding and maintaining streamlining position, it is easy for me to hit near 1 minute per lap and if i only need a 2 second to even 4 second improvement a lap then i just need to apply more force into my pull (considering all technique aspect are intact and not degenerating)
BUT, if i need a 10 seconds improvement, then it'll be a must to do the continuous pull + glide combo.
When I need to do a 25sec 50m lap sprint then it'd defintely have to become a near wind mill affair whilst coordinating the arm stroke and body movement and legs kicking.
Guess you get the flow, it is the pulling that makes you move and thus there is no way to cheat for race pace timing.
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With regards to the mental focus needed to coordinate the pulling and kicking whilst swimming fast and wind milling..
In my opinion, it is just a matter of time and conscious training/practice.
When you train at race pace, your body will get better at handling the streamlining effort and thus stabilizing muscles will get stronger each time you practice.
At the beginning, like I've told pauline, the body will be snaking here and there and the beginning and you'll be limited from swimming to the fullest potential of your strength available.. but as swim time goes by, you'll get better. :)
Glad to see Everyone's improving!
Cheers
KK