Improving Your Swimming

Northland Age, Volume 4, Issue 16, 18 January 1935, Page 9

Improving Your Swimming

[By Clarence A. Bush, in the Christian Science Monitor, Boston, U.S.A.] II SPEEDING UP THE BREASTSTROKE Stars of the present day are speeding up the breaststroke, swimming higher in the water and eliminating vhe coasting phase, it is stated by Michael J. (Turk) McDermott of the Illinois A.C. (U.S.A.), who in his day was among the world’s greatest competitors in this style of swimming. They are not changing the fundamentals of the stroke, he said, but they are transferring some of the emphasis from the legs to the arms and increasing the number of strokes used to travel a given distance. After observing John H. Higgins ot Providence, R. 1., winning the 200meter breaststroke championship at the recent National A.A.U. championships at the Century of Progress, McDermott said : “Higgins used the orthodox stroke, but had his arms working all the time, and swam so high in the water it broke across his chest most of the time. It takes a mighty powerful motor to swim like he did, more powerful than the old system required. However, all the stars are swimming the strenuous pace, nowadays. Eric Rademacher, of Germany, started it, and the Japanese with Yoshiyuki Tsuruta and others went him one better.” In the old system, which may look the same as the present to the uninitiated, there is an interval of coasting with the arms extended together in front of the head. This comes just as the arms are recovered and shot forward and the legs complete their propelling drive. Having been driven together, the legs are held close together. The arms likewise being held close together, the body is in the position encountering the least resistance from the water. It has also received its maximum propelling impulse. The coast is to take advantage of this lowered resistance and maximum propulsion, and to relax the arms and legs. “Nowadays” said McDermott, “with the powerful motors they’ve got, they don’t seem to need relaxation, and they are more or less contemptuous of resistance. I don’t know whether they were endowed with these mighty motors, or developed them ; anyhow, they’ve got them.” The arms in this stroke start from the forward position close together. The palms, flat on the water at first, are rotated facing outward Then the arms are swept outward at full reach until they form a straight line across the shoulders. Here they reach the end of their effective pull, though some swimmers follow on through to the hips with them. The arms are then bent at the elbow, hands brought together under the chest, and shot forward under the surface of the water, to the advanced position. This arm stroke, applied with some elevating pressure, brings the body high in the water, during which period air is inhaled through the mouth. As the arms complete their sweep, the legs are separated to a V position, and as the arms go forward in recovery the legs are driven together in a wedging motion. This leg action is a powerful propellant, and if properly done the body lunges forward in the water. With water piling up against the face, breath is exhaled under the surface. “To execute another stroke immediately,” said McDermott, “is to en-

counter much resistance in separating the legs. We coasted until decreasing momentum reduced resistance. However, the boys seem tp be getting away with it.” In the old “frog kick” of the breaststroke, the legs were bent at the knees, brought up under the stomach, then shot out and back at divergent angles to reach the V position, and then driven together. Coach William Bachrach, who developed McDermott, Robert Skelton, John Fariey and other stars, evolved an improvement on this. He figured bringing the knees up was a resistance motion it would be well to avoid. The frog kick requires three movements, up, out and in. Bachrach reduced the motions to two, avoided resistance, and put the feet into a better position for propelling traction.

This new style of kick in the breaststroke has been called the “fishtail flip.” The legs, relaxed and undulatng, are separated drectly to the V position, and then flipped back to-

gether. The whole motion is like a pair of eels, or whips. The legs are rotated at the hips so that the soles of the feet face each other when they are extended back. This elongates the whiplash and puts a paddle on the end which gives the leg action tremendous propelling power.

Inasmuch as either the arms or the legs must be paramount in any swimming stroke, McDermott and the swimmers, of his day put the emphasis on the legs. This meant they not only put most of their power into the legs, neglecting their arms more or less, but they had to relax the legs longer due to their great effort. Hence the coastng phase developed by the fastest breaststroke swimmers. Modern swimmers, shifting emphasis to the arms, seem to be putting less energy into the legs and they do not need to rest them with a coast. Those who are mastering the stroke, however, would do well to learn the slower rhythm first, getting plenty of relaxation between strokes.