Fall 2024 Week 6: Technical and Conditioning Focus
Fall 2024 Week 6 Technical & Conditioning Focus: October 7 - 12
Technical Focuses: Rotation & Recovery; Underwaters
Conditioning Focus: Aerobic Threshold + Lactic Acid Tolerance
Macrocycle: Fall 2024; Mesocycle: Aerobic Preparation; Microcycle: Aerobic Threshold + Lactic Acid Tolerance
Hello Swim Families!
Welcome to Fall 2024 week 6!
This week, our technical focus will emphasize the importance, technical skills, and pure speed that can be achieved through underwater dolphin kick. We will also continue with our work on rotation and recovery in the long-axis strokes.
Often called the fifth stroke, underwater dolphin kick is the fastest way a swimmer can move through the water.
First revolutionized by David Berkoff, who is also the reason the 15-meter rule exists for underwater dolphin kick—quick aside, there is no 15-meter rule in breaststroke—underwater dolphin kick saw a resurgence in popularity in the late 90’s and early 2000’s thanks to Australia’s Ian Thorpe. At the time, Thorpe was the best 200 and 400 freestyler in the world, and a world-class IM-er, and some might even contest the GOAT copied him when he adopted and revolutionized underwater dolphin kick and brought it into the new millenium. The GOAT, of course, is Michael Phelps, who alongside Ryan Lochte made underwater dolphin kick a mainstay in conventional swimming.
Others swimmers, including the likes of Caeleb Dressel, Tom Shields, Regan Smith, Torri Huske, Claire Curzan, Maggie MacNeil (CAN), and Chad le Clos (RSA) have destroyed many records due to their ability to kick fast underwater in a tight streamline… Thorpe is notorious for not having a tight streamline (Russia’s Danila Izotov is also an offender on this front) … I may regret mentioning this lest a swimmer use it against me, that said… tight streamlines are the way to go!
Leon Marchand (FRA) is the new face of swimming internationally (we can split hairs that he shares that mantle with Katie Ledecky) and is also the best underwater dolphin kicker in the world at this time, though high school senior and 2024 Olympian Thomas Heilman is also top tier, young, and on the rise.
From the official USA Swimming Rule Book, this snippet taken from Freestyle regarding the 15-meter rule:
“Some part of the swimmer must break the surface of the water throughout the race, except it shall be permissible for the swimmer to be completely sub- merged during the turn and for a distance of not more than 15 meters (16.4 yards) after the start and each turn. By that point the head must have broken the surface (USA Swimming, 2024).”
This is interesting because, in short course yards, the 15-meter rule is still 15 meters! In other words, a swimmer may swim up to 65.6 percent of the race underwater in butterfly, backstroke, and freestyle, accounting for a total of 65.6/100 yards in a 100-yard race, or a 131.2/200 yards in a 200-yard race (excluding the 200 IM and 200 breaststroke, since breaststroke has no 15-meter rule).
Extrapolate the math in either direction as you see fit.
It is important that a swimmer learns to recognize when they are underwater at full speed and when they begin to lose speed, which is then the time that they must transition into their first stroke cycle. This skill can’t be taught in a day and is rather a developmental process. I mention this only to emphasize that a prolonged amount of time spent underwater does not necessarily correlate to a faster performance as there are diminishing returns unique to each athlete. For some, six underwater dolphin kicks is the sweet spot. For others it's four. For others it's nine. For distance swimmers, it's usually only two or three underwater dolphin kicks.
So enough about the fifth stroke, which is one of our technical focuses for this week. Let’s talk about the conditioning focus: Aerobic Threshold + Lactic Acid Tolerance.
Aerobic threshold refers to swimming at a fast but not all-out pace. Basically, as fast as one can manage for a prolonged period.
Lactic acid is a chemical produced when cells break down carbohydrates for energy, particularly when oxygen levels are low.
“As soon as the muscles start working, they make all kinds of nasty stuff like lactic acid and urea (yeah…pee). These directly signal the capillary sphincters to open up and increase blood flow to the muscle fibers that are working. That’s good for the muscle, but the blood pressure drops because now there are more pipes open with the same amount of blood in the system, otherwise known as a drop in after-load. Your heart instantly reacts by increasing heart rate and contractility to maintain blood pressure (Hamouchie, Karl, and Peterson, Mike. 2020).”
And:
“After a few minutes of working hard, some more things start to change in order to improve cardiac output and O2 delivery to the muscles. Remember how we said most of the body’s blood is sitting in the veins? This blood starts to get pumped forward by the contraction of muscles. This “adds” to the blood returning to the heart, increasing pre-load and increasing the stroke volume (kind of like being super hydrated). This is also why your veins start popping like it’s hot when you’re working out. Yet another reason why you need to warm up, because blood that is pooling in your veins gets put to work only when the muscles are working (Hamouchie, Karl, and Peterson, Mike. 2020).”
I do love how Karl says, “popping like it’s hot,” and Snoop Dogg is such a force in 2024—and I know that’s not the exact lyrics, but it’s close enough for me—I digress.
Refer to our friends at SwimSmart for a deeper dive into this subject.
Let me know if you have any questions, and I’ll see you at the pool!
-Coach Reid
References
Hamouchie, Karl, and Peterson, Mike. 2020. The Biology of Swimming. SwimSmart.
USA Swimming. 2024. Rule Book 2024. USA Swimming. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.usaswimming.org/docs/default-source/governance/governance-lsc-website/rules_policies/rulebooks/2024-rulebook.pdf
