Congratulations to Kath Haslett, the latest winner of Blueseventy Goggles!
The “Recovery” part of the Freestyle stroke is critical in my opinion as it sets up the entry, extension, and ultimately the positioning to create a strong catch. It’s also a perfect example of what makes improving one’s stroke so challenging.
The Recovery (from the time your hand exits the water to where it enters the water in the stroke) is something most swimmers do not understand why its important, nor do they work on improving it and when they do it’s more of a going through the motions action as opposed to working on it with intention.
Here’s what I see in beginning and average swimmers when it comes to the Recovery. They swim very “flat”, meaning there is little to no upper body rotation. The Recovery arm is flat to the water and the hand is leading the elbow which creates a much slower Stroke Rate, instead of the elbow leading the hand which is a much faster Recovery and produces a higher Stroke Rate. The lack of upper body rotation creates very little Distance Per Stroke.
Swim Speed = Stroke Rate (SR) x Distance Per Stroke (DPS)
Improve either one of these, SR or DPS, and your swim speed will increase. Improve them both and your swim speed will exponentially improve. A good recovery improves both SR and DPS.
I would highly recommend to have your stroke video taped so you can watch it back and review your Recovery. Faster swimmers have their elbow lead the way with the hand trailing for the first half of the recovery, until the point where the elbow and hand reach the shoulder level and the hand begins to move in front of the elbow to move into Entry. Slower swimmers exit the water and reach forward with their hand leading the way, elbow trailing and below the hand. This creates the slower SR as well as less shoulder rotation which means less DPS.
One of the drills I love for helping with Recovery is the Finger Tip Drag Drill. However, I often see people do this drill simply going through the motions and as a result the drill ends up being essentially worthless for them. I see people do this drill without rotating the shoulders, swimming very flat and this puts a lot of strain on the shoulder. The brain senses the shoulder strain and drops the elbow back and down. Instead, there needs to be rotation at the shoulders with the shoulder of the Recovery arm coming out of the water which helps take the pressure off of the shoulder joint. Additionally, when tension is felt in the shoulder the hand needs to begin moving forward while keeping the elbow high and NOT dropping the elbow back and down.
You can create a sizeable chunk of new speed in your swimming simply be creating a more effective Recovery.
Finger Tip Drag Drill
I shared this video earlier in the 6 Week Swim Challenge, and while it’s main point is Breathing, notice the correlation between rotating to make breathing easier and the rotation of the shoulders to improve Recovery. Around the 3:45 mark in the video the swimmer puts on a front loaded snorkel. Initially, there is less shoulder rotation and she’s swimming more flat to the water. Again, SR is lower and DPS is less. Notice what happens to both SR and DPS as she increases the shoulder rotation.
An excellent compare and contrast drill for you to do would be to swim 1 length of the pool in a very flat manner. Keep your shoulders level with the water line. Notice how much harder it is to get your arm through the Recovery. Notice how flat your arm is to the water. Then swim the next length with excellent shoulder rotation, get the shoulder of the Recovering arm to exit the water. Notice what happens to the opposite shoulder. Can you feel the rotation which creates more distance in your stroke? Can you feel how much easier and quicker it is to get your hand out of the water, through the Recovery, and into the water to begin the Extension part of the stroke?
Remember, it’s going to be critical to do these drills with intention and not just simply do the drills without focusing. If you simply do the drills, going through the motions, then you are really just wasting your time.
Happy Swimming!