John Payne at ix3sports quotes me in his blog post about Libby Trickett's new straight-arm freestyle and as usual I start out sounding really smart till you get the typo and then I finally sound like the idiot I really am.
With this in mind, I am linking to the post, not to illustrate my typo; (which I fixed), but rather the motive behind Trickett's stroke change. John Payne has done the homework and here is a snippet about what he deduced:
"...I think Trickett’s change in stroke mechanics are a calculated move made less on “body-type and/or physical abilities” and more on taking advantage of bleeding-edge, but controversial, swimsuit technology available to swimmers today. She and her coach are betting that some of the advantages - if not all - conveyed to swimmers by the new technology will remain in place after the upcoming FINA meetings regarding swimsuit construction. ..."
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I am guessing that the crux of his argument is that speedsuits maintain momentum more efficiently and consequently you have less speed loss when taking that additional lunge needed to generate more torque. Correct me if I am wrong.
I have included a trailer to Glenn Mills, Go Swim Straight-Arm Freestyle with Olympic gold and silver medalist Scott Tucker to illustrate how the stroke is executed. Here is a link to the DVD if you are interested:
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1 comment:
i remember reading an article a couple years back about straight-arm recovery. scientists figured that swimmers who used this technique rotated earlier and faster at the hips than swimmers who used a more traditional bent-elbow recovery.
this technique is best used for sprints, and probably most famously used by inge de bruijn.
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