The Entry in freestyle is a part of the stroke which is routinely executed sub optimally. Even good swimmers enter and extend inside the line of the shoulder. We should strive to enter shoulder width and to extend straight. Instead, what we mostly see is entering inside the shoulder width and then allowing our lead arm to extend moving towards the centerline. Many swimmers enter and cross over the center line which causes a tremendous waste of energy.
The best way to evaluate your own Entry is to video tape yourself swimming straight at the camera and you’ll have a clear understanding of both your initial entry as well as your extension. Here’s an excellent demonstration video on the fine points of Entry:
A good Entry creates more Distance Per Stroke and most importantly sets up the correct positioning to create a strong Catch.
Here are some more videos with some finer points on hand entry for freestyle from Dave Scott:
A reader asked, “How do I keep from Fish-tailing when I swim?” Fish-tailing refers to the back end (feet and legs) moving back and forth like the tail of a fish. While it creates propulsion for a fish, it creates drag and is wasted energy for a human.
Hand Entry is in my opinion the best way to address this. I love to do the following Compare / Contrast drill. It’s best with either a specific Ankle Buoy like this one from Finis or by taking a regular swim buoy and holding it between your ankles, placed between the bottom of your claves and ankle bone. This placement is very hard for me and I find I get the same feedback by placing the buoy between the top of my calves and knees while finding it’s easier for me to keep it in place in this location.
With the Ankle Buoy or regular buoy placed further down your legs, try swimming with a more narrow entry and see if you notice your back end begin to fish-tail. Now, move your Entry wider to find the place where the fish-tailing is eliminated. This is exactly what Dave Scott was talking about in one of the videos above where he mentions to play around with the width of your entry.
The other error I regularly see in regard to Entry is entering the hand too close to the head. Instead get the hand out in front of the head. About 3/4 of full arm extension as mentioned in the top video. Or as Karlyn Pipes calls it, “Reach Big” which you can see in this video:
As always, you are going to need to swim with Intention to feel these things and to find out what works best for your stroke. If instead, your preferred method of swimming is to turn your brain off and just swim, my advice is to join an excellent Master’s Swim with highly qualified on-deck coaching.
Talk to you on Wednesday with another Workout Wednesday Blog.