Original subtitles

hey brenton here from effortless

swimming in today's video we're looking

at a swimmer that i think is the gold

standard of freestyle technique when i

was growing up this is a swimmer that i

would

watch swimming and i thought technically

he's got to be the best out there

and one of the reasons for that is that

he's six foot

now six foot is not short i'm about five

foot eleven

and i'm about sort of average height

being six foot yeah it's not short but

compared to the other

olympic medalist olympic finalist six

foot isn't really that tall

the majority of olympic medalists in the

200 400 free

they're six foot three six foot four

sometimes a little bit taller

so to have us an athlete that's six foot

and can he's a gold medalist in the 400

free a silver medalist in the 200

freestyle at the olympic games

you've got to be doing something right

with your technique so we're going to

have a look at this swimmer's technique

and break it down and i think really

this is the gold standard and

the majority of people i think could

take away things from this

this style and the way that he swims and

try and model it in their own technique

now if you haven't seen our analysis of

sun yang or gregorio paltroni

i'll put links to those below in the

description and we're doing these videos

every week so if you'd like to get

notified when we do these analysis

videos of elite swimmers hit the

subscribe button below to get

notified when they are released we also

do analysis of

amateur swimmers of age group

triathletes and open water swimmers

and look at what they could do to

improve and if you haven't seen those

they're our feedback friday videos

which i'll put a link to below as well

and so just hit that subscribe button to

get notified when we do release them

now if this is the first video that

you've seen i'm brenton ford i'm a swim

coach here in

melbourne and myself and the other

coaches um that

that work for us at effortless swimming

we run clinics around australia

melbourne sydney all the capital cities

around australia we also run camps

here in australia and overseas and i

also do online coaching online technique

coaching

for a number of people so i'll put those

links below if you want to work with us

but let's get into taiwan park's

analysis and as i said this is the gold

standard of freestyle technique

now the first view that we're looking at

here is obviously under the water

following him in front and there's a

couple of things that i really like

about this so

one of the cues that that i've been

taught since i was quite young was you

want to keep

soft hands and soft hands means just

enough tension to hold the form and the

shape

to your hand but no more than that

because if you're really tense with your

hand

and forearm it's wasted effort and

energy so just enough tension to

basically keep this

in that sort of shape and there's

nothing wrong with a little bit of a gap

between the fingers

and we often get that question should

there be a gap should it be tight each

swim is different but a bit of a gap

is is recommended and you'll see here

with his entry so he enters extends

forwards

we get this little bit of a gap through

the fingers he does close that gap

up a bit as he goes through the catch in

the pool which is what we want

you wouldn't want your fingers that far

apart through the catch in the pool

but you can see he's got that sort of

soft hands that relaxed hand feeling

but he's still obviously maintaining the

form and the shape to it

which is really nice the other thing

that you'll see from this angle

is the alignment so you know that we

want to swim on train tracks as in the

hands should enter in line with the

shoulder and extend forwards you can see

how great that alignment is

through his through his entire body

through here

now sometimes people will say you know

if there's if the hand is coming close

to the center so

it's too much you've got to go out wider

now as long as you don't cross the

center line so for him

you know the center line is right about

here so he's just in line with it and

that is fine there's nothing wrong with

that at all

what we generally want to try and avoid

is coming across that

that midline and one of the other things

that you'll notice here on his breathing

stroke is

he's really getting such great length

and line

through there and i often talk about

this

on that breathing stroke as though you

want to sort of lengthen through your

shoulder through your torso

through your core and you get this nice

stretching of the muscles

and that then will allow you to contract

those muscles

and you'll get this good connection from

there from the hip all the way through

the torso through the shoulder and you

kind of get to connect

that up with the catch and the pull so

you've got it you've got to lengthen

them

in order to contract them and we often

see that i'll play it through

you often see that a little bit more or

it's a bit more obvious on those

breathing strokes

and with a lot of swimmers that we've

looked at like if you look at the sun

yang video

even the the palchaneri video similar

thing on their breathing stroke they

tend to get that little bit more length

and reach

and not quite as much on their non

breathing stroke they still obviously

get

great length and reach there but

not as much as this stroke here so that

is such a

such a nice position so that's one of

the things i wanted to to show you there

is the alignment and the reach and

extension now you can see here

that one of the things he does

really well if we fought if we fast

forwards here

is look obviously it gets a great catch

so from this position here

you can see we've got those fingers

below the wrist wrist below the elbow

all right and the fingertips they're

about underarm depth so when you enter

you're reaching forwards

you want to get to that position to then

start the catch so

i refer to that as the the starting

catch position i made a video on this

called

um it's about the base position so if

you're swimming freestyle and you feel

like it's just a constant battle like

you're on a treadmill and you just run

out of breath and it is really hard work

a way to sort of overcome that can be

think of this position right here

i might even just pull up a slightly

different one here so

think of this position here with your

fingers below your wrists wrists below

your elbow

all right out in front think of that as

your base position

as in that's the position that you

always return to on either side so when

you're on this side

go there that side you go there that

that is a way where it can feel like

you're not on this treadmill that just

you can't get off

so by always trying to get back into

that position

and then obviously you don't want to

stop there you want to just slowly

continue to move into the next stroke

but thinking of that as your base

position that is your base position

it can be a much easier way to think of

swing freestyle as opposed to this

constant

turnover of the arms and in our video

that's coming out on

friday this week we are doing a feedback

friday on an on an amateur swimmer like

an age group

triathlete and one of the things you'll

notice with him is

he doesn't get that bass position

because he's just constantly sort of

turning over and that's one of the

things that i i recommend in this um

this

video coming out on friday now one of

the uh the things you'll see from this

front view

here is right we don't get much of an

angle here but

have a look how good this this catch is

so

obviously we've got the start of the

catch there then the hand and forearm

drops down and the upper arm pretty much

stays in the same

position there and that requires great

flexibility and mobility

and great strength through the through

the shoulders to to be able to do that

but one of the things that we like to

look at is as you're about to pass under

the shoulder so

right here what's the angle of the um

in the water and you'll see here that

his angle is

roughly 102 degrees we want that to be

between 100

and 120 degrees in that point in time

and the reason that we want that is

that's going to give you the

most effective sort of the most surface

area here with the hand and forearm it

allows you to do that

and with that sort of bend through the

elbow that is when you can

best use the lats and those other muscle

muscles

through the back and through the

shoulder whereas if you're going down

too deep

so let's say your arm is is down here

you're not going to get that use of the

lats

at all it's just it tends to be a little

bit more up through the shoulders here

and it's not as strong and it is not as

as comfortable either

so this is a really really nice position

if you have seen our videos before you

know we refer to this as the power

diamond

and i'll link a video below talking

about the power diamond and how you can

get that in your stroke

uh because one of the ways can just be

the power diamond draw which i think is

one of

such a it's a great drill to do because

it just isolates that part of the stroke

and if you haven't got that power

diamond any sort of shape to it like if

you are

really straight with your arm then it's

a good way to change it

but the diamond shape if you were to

draw two of those

that's kind of what it would look like

so the power diamond is something that

we want in the stroke

and we look at that angle of the arm

should be 100 to 120 degrees

as we go through so that is that's

really good to see the uh

the other thing that um you will notice

here as well is

even though he gets like it looks like

he rotates a lot when you're looking

side on

the most he actually rotates to here

and it's not the best angle to really

look at it from and i don't think this

is going to come up that well it says 37

degrees it's a little bit more than that

but the furthest point of rotation

typically we want to see it

if we're drawing that line through the

shoulders looking from the front

your furthest point of rotation through

the shoulders should be

about 45 degrees we find most elite

swimmers tend to be around sort of 40

degrees give or take a bit

here and there and you do not want to be

less than

going to be less than 30. um usually

sort of i think if it is like 35

to 45 it is a pretty good spot for most

most people

um and then the hip rotation

he ends up getting about uh about 45

degrees through there

as well 43 degrees you can see so he

gets some

fairly even rotation through the hips

and through the shoulders

and that's a pretty common thing for

distant swimmers is

even amount of rotation through the hips

and through the shoulders

now as we look from here you'll see that

right with his his recovery so

hand exits at the hip arm comes over the

top

enters fingertips first and we've talked

about this entry point

before where you should be going ideally

fingertips first

into the water so you've then got a

little bit of room

to slide the hand forwards in the water

that's going to give you time to get rid

of the bubbles

on the hand it's going to give you a bit

more time to set up the catch

so we want this triangle shape of the

arm upon

entry and then once you're there think

of it as just just straighten the arm

then that elbow and you actually kind of

hear it if you're listening to a good

switch you'll hear this elbow kind of

slap down a little bit just because from

there all you're doing is just

straightening

the arm in the water as you can see

through here i'm just going to play this

in slow motion

so it's really really nice here both

hands enter

at that sort of distance out in front

all right so it's great to see

and if you were listening to him swim

past you

you'd hear that light slap of the the

elbow upon entry

and you can see here so that's where he

gets rid of the bubbles

and the other thing i like about that

too is that from here

as he's reaching and extending forward

he's not starting to catch right away

he's making sure that he's getting that

length through the upper body

through the shoulder and at the same

time

that hand is is pressing back so those

two things work together this

length out the front is pressed back

past the hip that all works together

and you'll see that sort of come in with

his rotation so through his hips here

and through his upper body you get that

rotation on the side

and then obviously it comes back in the

other direction so this is really this

is the most efficient

point that he will get in his stroke so

you want to make the most of that a bit

so again if you're a person that feels

like you're on the treadmill and things

are really hard

maybe you're not reaching and extending

forwards

before you start the catch so let's have

a look through here

it's going down and we'll just play it

through we need to get that reach

forwards like you're reaching for the

wall in front of you

before starting the the catch there

so we've got that part of the stroke now

if we do have a look at the um

the catch so you can see here he's got

got a really nice catch and it's not

over the top i mean we looked at uh

sun yang last week and he gets

almost a 90 degree angle with his arm on

the catch

so as we go through here

you can see the the sort of most highest

elbow the highest point of his catch

here

he's right there now sun yang he was

going from there he was getting to

almost this position

and as we said in that video that's

extreme and

99.9 people cannot get that so all we

want to do with your catch

is just get it to what we call a high

elbow position

which would mean that

you start the catch here we talked about

that before when the hand and forearm

drops down

to this position if we draw a line from

your shoulder to your fingertips

if your elbow is above above that

straight line

that's a high elbow catch and it all we

need is the arm

to be anywhere in that

in that position anywhere above it so

even if his arm was that green line that

i just drew

it'd still be a high elbow catch and the

reason that we want that is

then you've got the most surface area on

the hand and forearm that you're using

that you're working with

to to pull through now something that um

that we also look for and not a whole

lot of people end up getting in their

stroke

is what a friend of mine annie would

call one happy family

and it's basically like from here as you

pull through as your hand is underneath

the shoulder

right there and it's not the best angle

for it but i'll explain it anyway

we want to try and get the shoulder the

elbow and the hand

almost lining up underneath there

because that is going to give you

again the most amount of surface area to

work with

compared to what most people tend to do

is

all right they'll get the catch and even

if you're getting a good catch a lot of

people will then

pull back with their elbow too early and

so they end up getting their arm in a

position that's like this so the

shoulder's there

the elbow's already pulled back and the

hand and forearms in that position

and you can obviously see the difference

in surface area that you've got

pressing back against the water so what

we want to try and do and what will be

more effective

is instead of trying to pull back with a

lot of force

through this part of the stroke

so once you've got the catch don't try

and rip at it don't try and overpower

that part of the stroke

you're going to be much better off much

faster

if you can maintain a good

hold of the water by trying to keep that

hand and forearm

roughly vertical and getting to this

position here where everything lines up

as opposed to trying

to pull back hard and fast and let it

having that elbow sort of slip through

you're going to be much faster by just

backing off that power but holding

good form throughout it so i'm just

going to play this through and

you might be able to see it we'll have a

look at it on the other side here so we

get the catch

high elbow sort of set up there and then

as he pulls through

you can see is that hand i'll pull it

back

very bit more on front here so you can

see that there now it's not completely

lined up

as you can see but it's pretty close so

often we find that

one stroke will normally line up the

other side won't entirely line up but

that is

pretty close to getting everything one

two three shoulder elbow hand

roughly aligned so we do not want it to

be

like oops like this right which we quite

often see

so that is um one of the key points

there i'm just going to come back to uh

to this angle here

so when we got that front shot this is

the other thing i want to show you

quite often um i'll have people write to

me and they say

i've been working on my power diamond

uh where's this front view alright so

quite often they'll say i've been

working on my catch and my power diamond

and i'm pretty sure that's where it

should be one thing you might need to

check with that

is where are your fingers pointing your

fingers should primarily be facing down

to the bottom of the pool

the entire way through the catch and the

pool

yeah they'll come off to the side a

little bit but primarily they need to be

facing down

down here so a lot of times when i'll

get sent videos of people who feel like

they've got that power diamond

will see that this is looking great

that's in the same position

but their hand and forearm is actually

doing this

where the fingers are pointing way off

to the side and that just

that forces the elbow down it drops your

elbow and you lose that hold of the

water so

just check are your fingertips facing

down there

pretty much the entire way through the

through the stroke

now if they're not if they are slipping

in and i just can't fix it the ymca

drill which you might have seen again

i'll link that video below there's a

full explanation of the ymca drill

that's a really good drill just for

rewiring your brain getting your making

it easier

to improve your catch in your pool so

i'll put a video on the ymca drill there

below and then the other thing i just

want to show you here too

is make sure you keep the hand or the

palm of the hand

facing back behind you the entire way

through the

stroke so you can see here if we're

looking at this hand the palm of the

hand is facing behind him behind him

behind him

all the way until the very end where

then it will turn into the body a little

bit

to help him exit but i've been doing a

lot of analysis with our members lately

so if you join the uh the stroke

analysis membership

you send me your videos i do an analysis

for you and then make some

recommendations and give you some drills

to help change the things in your stroke

and one of the things that i've seen

quite a bit lately is

a lot of swimmers end up keeping the

palm of the hand facing back behind them

until about there and then the hand

turns

and their pinky leads the way out so

they're kind of slicing the water out

the back

and they just really lose a good part of

their propulsion

so like here the palm wouldn't be facing

behind them it would be facing in

towards

or under the body so just they're

missing it that's kind of it's the easy

way out and i'm not to say that people

are trying to

make it easy on themselves but that's

what sometimes the body wants to go

towards is that easier option so it

slices out the back

so if you can keep that palm of your

hand facing back behind you the entire

way

apart from the very end there and kind

of

the only sort of exception would be on

the in sweep so from

from here to here is the hand comes in

towards the center

a bit the palm can turn into the body a

little bit

but apart from those points in the

stroke keep that palm facing behind you

now let's have a look at this here so

we've got

you can see with his breathing obviously

the breathing is uh is excellent

get this nice fairly split vision so

that bottom

third of the head is in the water

he's looking straight to the side and

the head pretty much stays in line with

the spine so

we i spoke about this in um in a recent

video where if you imagine you've got a

pole

that runs through your head your neck

and your spine you've got to turn to

breathe you don't want to

ideally you don't want to try and like

lift that head up off that pole so it

shouldn't leave that straight line

it should just be turning to the side

and coming back and you see this

really well with taiwan's stroke so

i'll just play it through for you

so it's really nice through there and in

terms of his timing i know we looked at

um palchineri where he's or his heart on

a few strokes like he's hardly

front quadrant as in for what front quad

it means is

we always want to have a hand and an arm

out in front of you well

if you look at park here he's he's kind

of got a three quarter catch up stroke

which would be

when this hand enters the water the

other arm ends up being around about

here and looks sunyang's

pretty similar as well now that that

often requires a pretty good kick

requires a pretty strong kick to be able

to do that so if you don't have a great

kick

you might go for the timing that's a

little bit more like this hand's

entering

and this hand is about to pass under the

shoulder that's the timing i see with

most

triathletes and athletes that i work

with which are say like your amateur

sort of triathletes or open water

swimmers

like your everyday sort of swimmers on

the elite end obviously the kick's going

to be a little bit more effective and a

little bit

stronger so we do see a little bit more

of that three quarter catch up so

play it through similar thing there

hands entering that hands out there

now it's not to say that if you don't

have an amazing kick that you shouldn't

be three quarter catch up

um but it does it's better off with a

more effective kick

because you you will often need a little

bit more propulsion

out the back to work you through that

that slight catch up in the stroke there

and the very last thing i'm going to

show you here is the

difference in kick so park is he's known

for

he's known for having a really a really

good kick and

being six foot shorter than most of the

guys he was competing against

you're going to need to have a a really

good kick really strong kick to

um to get him up there so he here's

having a really effective six-speed kick

which you can see

here and this is the slow motion of it

so six beats when you kind of got

you've got three kicks for each arm

stroke and then we see some footage here

where when he's swinging a 1500 he'll be

doing a

four bet kick and we looked at this

again with sunyang

the other day so it goes to show that

look change

change your style a bit change the way

that you

kick depending on the events that you're

doing and this is what i'll do like when

i'm

swimming open water um depends on the

event if it's

sort of like a k to 1500 meters i'll

maintain a six beat kick

but if it's longer than that or if i'm

doing like a

400 or longer in the pool

i will often stick to a four beat four

beat kick

so you can see it here so we get the uh

there so we've got

one kick on that side so we get one then

there's a little bit of a pause

and then we get one

two and then three and then back on the

side again

then we get one so it's one two three

four

one two three four and often that pause

so you get that you get the one breathe

and then it's two three four one

breathe two three four and as i was

saying last week it's a hard thing to

get but

if you can get that in your stroke i've

found a lot of people have

improved their speed improve the pace

that they can maintain

for a much lower effort because it can

be a lot harder to maintain a six-speed

kick

maintain a fast pace over the course of

you know longer distance

sets or longer distance events as well

so for for many people a four beat kit

can be the most efficient

way to swim longer distances so it's

something that's worth trying to

to work out and get that timing and

we've got

there's a video as well that i did a

couple of months ago on that

so i hope you enjoyed this video if you

did enjoy it and you want to work on

your own stroke but you're not sure

where to start

join our membership it's where we've got

all of our different freestyle courses

all of our drills and probably the best

thing for most people is the

five core principles training course

there so that's kind of it gives you the

step by step this is what you need to

work on first

second third this is how you do it and

this is how you can just work it into

your existing program

so even if you're in a squad even if

you've got your own training programs

this is how you can work it in but if

you don't have a squad or you don't have

a coach

we've got programs there as well for you

to follow so check out the membership

i'll put the link below

thanks very much for watching and if

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when you hit the subscribe button and

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every time we release a new video so

thanks again for watching

friday we'll have another video looking

at an amateur triathlete

and this is going to be obviously quite

a different stroke than this one here

but for most people this it's a lot more

relevant because a lot of people are

making

those sort of similar uh mistakes that

this this athlete's making

and i'll show you how to correct those