Read Online Triathlon swimming made easy by Terry Laughlin - Free Book Online
Authors: Terry Laughlin
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rotation. Rolling from side to side is already the most natural way for your body to accommodate the alternating-arm action of freestyle. Prove it to yourself by standing in place and moving your arms as if swimming freestyle. Roll your hips and you move freely; keep them immobile and you feel restricted. Because rolling is a natural accommodation, a freestyler must actually expend energy to remain flat (usually by splaying the arms or legs). This isn't usually intentional; swimmers remain flat because they haven't mastered side-lying balance. As soon as they become comfortable with sidelying balance — something not natural or instinctive in most people but which can be learned — they stop fighting themselves and roll more freely.
Though coaches speak of hip rotation as a way to swim more powerfully, in truth it has an even greater advantage: As I explained in the last chapter, your body slips through the water more easily in the sidelying position. Remember: Techniques that reduce drag are always more beneficial than those that increase power.
But as you become more slippery by learning the balance that frees your body to roll, you also gain access to an incredibly powerful "engine" for swimming propulsion: the kinetic chain, the same power source that uncorks 95-mph fastballs. A baseball pitcher's power originates in the legs and gradually gets magnified as it travels up the chain for delivery to his pitching arm to uncork a blistering fastball.
The world's best swimmers know this instinctively. While inefficient swimmers use arms and shoulders to do most of the work, Olympic swimmers get their power in the torso and use their arms and shoulders mainly to transmit this force to the water. Great technique can be a great equalizer: Mastery of the kinetic chain is what allows Tiger Woods, for example, to drive a golf ball farther than rivals who are bigger and stronger. It also provides the power for nearly any kind of hitting or throwing motion.
The kinetic chain is not a complicated concept. In fact, you probably learned naturally to use it, many years ago, on a playground swing. I hazily recall starting with vigorous leg kicking, which just made the swing shake a bit, but certainly not soar. But I can vividly recall how satisfying it was when I began to figure it out and experienced, for the first time, the effect of engaging every muscle in finely timed, coordinated action. If I leaned forward slightly, the swing would move back a little. As gravity pulled it down again, I helped it along by leaning back. Each time gravity reversed me, I added enough leverage to make it go a little farther. And farther, and farther.
The most thrilling moment was when I reached the apogee of the backward swing, having figured out how to put all my muscle and mass into a perfectly linked series of arcs. The simple desire to go higher and faster taught me to pull on the chain with my hands and tighten my stomach muscles to link the tension of my backward-pulling arms to the stretching toes of my forward-straining legs, adding my power to the accelerating force of gravity. This skill, simple enough to be learned by any child, produced a breathtakingly powerful swoop through space, with such marvelous efficiency that I could continue endlessly without tiring. Engaging the kinetic chain, when you get it right, can be an addictive experience. It's no less so for your swimming, when you learn to use it fully.
Effortless power for fishlike swimming is produced in much the same way. Energy for the most powerful movements ripples through our bodies like a cracked whip until it finally arrives at its release point. In freestyle and backstroke, body rotation provides a big chunk of the power — as it does when we throw a rock, a javelin, or a karate blow. In all these cases, the legs and hips power the torso, which in turn drives the arm. In the body undulation of butterfly and breaststroke, the arms are powered simultaneously by a "force
Though coaches speak of hip rotation as a way to swim more powerfully, in truth it has an even greater advantage: As I explained in the last chapter, your body slips through the water more easily in the sidelying position. Remember: Techniques that reduce drag are always more beneficial than those that increase power.
But as you become more slippery by learning the balance that frees your body to roll, you also gain access to an incredibly powerful "engine" for swimming propulsion: the kinetic chain, the same power source that uncorks 95-mph fastballs. A baseball pitcher's power originates in the legs and gradually gets magnified as it travels up the chain for delivery to his pitching arm to uncork a blistering fastball.
The world's best swimmers know this instinctively. While inefficient swimmers use arms and shoulders to do most of the work, Olympic swimmers get their power in the torso and use their arms and shoulders mainly to transmit this force to the water. Great technique can be a great equalizer: Mastery of the kinetic chain is what allows Tiger Woods, for example, to drive a golf ball farther than rivals who are bigger and stronger. It also provides the power for nearly any kind of hitting or throwing motion.
The kinetic chain is not a complicated concept. In fact, you probably learned naturally to use it, many years ago, on a playground swing. I hazily recall starting with vigorous leg kicking, which just made the swing shake a bit, but certainly not soar. But I can vividly recall how satisfying it was when I began to figure it out and experienced, for the first time, the effect of engaging every muscle in finely timed, coordinated action. If I leaned forward slightly, the swing would move back a little. As gravity pulled it down again, I helped it along by leaning back. Each time gravity reversed me, I added enough leverage to make it go a little farther. And farther, and farther.
The most thrilling moment was when I reached the apogee of the backward swing, having figured out how to put all my muscle and mass into a perfectly linked series of arcs. The simple desire to go higher and faster taught me to pull on the chain with my hands and tighten my stomach muscles to link the tension of my backward-pulling arms to the stretching toes of my forward-straining legs, adding my power to the accelerating force of gravity. This skill, simple enough to be learned by any child, produced a breathtakingly powerful swoop through space, with such marvelous efficiency that I could continue endlessly without tiring. Engaging the kinetic chain, when you get it right, can be an addictive experience. It's no less so for your swimming, when you learn to use it fully.
Effortless power for fishlike swimming is produced in much the same way. Energy for the most powerful movements ripples through our bodies like a cracked whip until it finally arrives at its release point. In freestyle and backstroke, body rotation provides a big chunk of the power — as it does when we throw a rock, a javelin, or a karate blow. In all these cases, the legs and hips power the torso, which in turn drives the arm. In the body undulation of butterfly and breaststroke, the arms are powered simultaneously by a "force
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