Ceasar Cielo uses a straight arm recovery!

UPDATE: Reedit number three of this of this post with better references especially since Glen Mills says it better than I do in the third and fourth paragraphs and I also included an article he wrote dedicatd to the subject. Also, I quote the Canuck Swimmer way better:

Technique should not be a religious conviction but rather a evolving process validated by the clock.

The Total Immersion school refrains from a straight arm recovery and in my opinion they should adjust and be less dogmatic. Note Ceasar Cielo's straight arm recovery. So, now we have Stefan Nystrand, Eamon Sulivan and Cesar Cielo swimming and winning with a straight arm recovery. This is more evidence that swim technique should be adopted to one's body type and abilities rather than compromising one's ability or strengths to fit into a specific technique or form.

Glen Mills says: "... My opinion is simply that they should each be tried, cause ya never know which is going to be right for the swimmer until each has been somewhat explored.

You can tell pretty quickly with most swimmers, but with some it's going to take more work. From a physiological, and biomechanical point of view, since no two people are created the same, I personally don't think we can say one has an advantage over the other. Of course, until you apply it to one person... then we're back to the previous statement, search, experiment, explore, then determine. ..." [Link]

Here is an article by Glenn Mills dedicated completely to the subject of arm recovery: "...Everyone will have a slightly different recovery, based on physiology, age, gender, strength, fitness level, flexibility, goal of swim, etc. (you can see there are a lot of variables). Yet with all the variations and suggestions about the proper recovery, everyone is pretty much agreed that the GOAL is to get the hand to the point at which it’s going to begin the next stroke. Generally, you want to achieve full extension out front, enough rotation to hook your body into the stroke, and (hopefully) not too many air bubbles UNDER the hand (even that’s open to debate). ..." [Link]

The Canuckswimmer stated on his blog: "...A column written by Olympic gold medalist and physician Gary Hall Sr. goes a step further and speculates this technique may be a major contributing factor in their success by virtue of its ability to utilize centrifugal force to speed up the recovery stroke.

Clay Evans said that exceptionally strong upper bodies of the swimmers in question all have the ability to use their arms as effective fulcrums leveraging more water like a kayak paddle.

My take is that the freestyle stroke becomes a physically simpler stroke to execute with less "wiggle" and "fewer moving parts" since a straight arm recovery forces the hips and shoulders to rotate in unison thereby leveraging the body into the proper hydro-dynamic position setting up a better streamline scenario for a powerful catch.

Clay Evans, Lyle Nellie and Erik Hochstein told me that during a sprint you reach your maximum speed by the 4th or 5th stroke and that is when you relax and just maintain momentum. Erik, Clay and Lyle called it "easy speed." So does Bonnie Adair. Hence, the simpler the execution, the easier it is to relax and maintain momentum and that is the crux of all swimming: maintaining momentum.

I am not a great swimmer, I may even be the slowest blogger but I love swimming and I love trying to improve my swimming in every workout. I do that by listening, practicing and refining. This straight arm rcovery has me intrigued!