Saturday, May 26, 2007

Both Eddie Reese and David Marsh on Butterfly but Ian Crocker does it his own way

Last night I watched the instructional DVDs, Eddie Reese on Butterfly and David Marsh's Swimming faster butterfly. Both had different takes on how to do a proper pull and sweep. (The above links have movie clip samples)

Eddie Reese of the University of Texas, Olympic team coach for many Olympics said that the arms come out at shoulder width and began there sweep just under the neck so close that your thumbs nearly touch. David Marsh of Auburn stated that the pull sweeps underneath your belly-button and then sweep out as if you were emulating an hour glass shape. I talked to Anthony this morning and he said that the Richard Quick DVD; (Richard Quick coaches at Stanford), also endorsed the sweep in and sweep in and sweep out as the coaches above.

But Ian Crocker goes his own way. His elbows are high and he practically sweeps straight on through with only a wobble.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

how much does bench press help in butterfly.. i know crocker does alot of it.. is chest strength important?? or overrated?? i know core and ab strength is important but i was wondering about chest

Tony Austin said...

I will give you my unqualified opinion, it should be understood that I am not a coach. These factors make a good fly

Technique first
Endurance second
Flexibility third
Strength training fourth

To answer your weght lifting question, a weight program that emphasized the triceps, latissimus dorsi muscles, (See wiki) pectorals, forearms, quadriceps.

I guess the whole shebang since you use them all.

Joel over at the The 17th man blog has a really sweet looking fly. I have a link to his site in the links section. Go asked him too.

In fact I will ask clay evans, silver medalist in the fly what a good weight program is.