Fall 2024 Week 13 Technical & Conditioning Focus

Fall 2024 Week 13 Technical & Conditioning Focus: November 25 – November 30

Technical Focuses: Catch, Pull, & Body Position

Conditioning Focus: Aerobic Power & Resistance

Macrocycle: Fall 2024; Mesocycle: Power & Resistance 2; Microcycle: Aerobic Power + Burst Speed

Hello Swim Families!

Welcome to Fall 2024 week 13!

Apologies for not getting these emails out the past two weeks. If there is sufficient desire for a recap of weeks 11 and 12 technical and conditioning focuses, I will provide them. In very brief summation, we have focused significantly on body position, high-elbow catch and pull—more on that later—and sprint power. The amount of dolphin kick in our workouts has also increased. Just ask your swimmers about "FLOB!"

What follows is an explanation of this week’s technical and conditioning focus—essentially, this week’s microcycle.

Technical Focuses: Catch, Pull, & Rotation

• DPS, one of the most important acronyms in swimming. This stands for Distance Per Stroke. How does one establish this? Through increased efficiency, of course, which is to say, constant focus on technique, which is basically my M.O. as a coach, among a few other things. How can we improve this in a fun way? Golf.
  •  Golf: Swim an effort, say, a 50, as fast as possible while taking as few stroke cycles as possible without kicking past 15 meters (of course, there is no 15-meter rule in breaststroke).
  • Golf emphasizes efficiency, which is to say, distance per stroke.​
  • Underwater dolphin kick is a vital skill in swimming, though how far one can kick is much less important than how fast one can kick before decelerating to a point where they would be faster swimming on the surface.
  • All of these are skills we work on throughout the season, with the upcoming macrocycles being the time of their primary emphasis.
• Conditioning Focus: Aerobic Power + Burst Speed
  • Aerobic Power, also defined as VO2 Max, is a training method that emphasizes, as defined by Smirmaul, Bertucci, and Teixira, “Presently, two main theoretical models… explain the mechanisms of VO2max limitation and/or regulation. The classical model proposes that VO2max is limited by the maximal capacity of the heart to provide O2 to the muscles, that means, when one reaches the VO2max the cardiovascular system is working on its limit (Ekblom, 2009). Alternatively, the other model advocates that the cardiovascular system never reaches a limit of work, and that VO2max is regulated, rather than limited, by the number of motor unit recruited in the exercising limbs, which is always submaximal (Noakes and Marino, 2009). Thus, this model proposes that there is always a physiological reserve, both cardiovascular and neuromuscular, once the number of motor unit recruited by the active muscles during exercise is regulated by the brain to prevent catastrophic failure in bodily systems (Noakes and Marino, 2009) (Smirmaul, Bertucci, and Teixira, 2013).”
  • Burst speed, meanwhile, does not need such a brainy explanation. Essentially, this refers to explosive power and an athlete’s ability to go from 0 to 100 real quick. This relies on fast-twitch muscle fibers to rapidly accelerate an athlete through whatever medium they are competing within, which in our case is water, though a swimmer starts by travelling quickly through the air—Caeleb Dressel, one of the best sprinters of all time, boasts a vertical jump of at least 41 inches (Sutherland, 2020). For reference, Michael Jordan is credited with having a 46-inch vertical jump. Jordan is, of course, the GOAT in the NBA, so a better point of comparison might be current NBA star LeBron James, who boasts a vertical jump of 40 inches (Sutherland, 2020).

While the PGA and LIV figure their things out, let’s talk about golf in swimming!

What is golf in swimming?

Let’s use the example of a 50-yard freestyle.

Let’s say an athlete swims a 30 in the 50 free and does so in 30 strokes. How does this compute?

Swimming Golf =

• Time of Effort... say, :30.00 seconds
• Number of Strokes, say, 18 strokes
• Total Score = 48

Distance per stroke (DPS) is one of the most important metrics in swimming. “Golf” is one of the best ways young swimmers can learn to conceptualize this concept.

The sets will emulate segments of 100- and 200-yard races, particularly the toughest parts such as the final 25 or 50 yards when the muscles are screaming for mercy as oxygen debt builds!

To achieve this efficiency, a swimmer must achieve excellent body position and ride high in the water. Hydroplane, if one can!

For freestyle and backstroke, an efficient and powerful rotation is essential.

For all four strokes, a strong catch—the earliest part of the pull when the hands and wrists grip and leverage the water to the swimmer’s advantage—is vital to an effective stroke. A swimmer achieves this feel for the water through drills such as sculling and single arm, among others.

Meanwhile, the pull, where the swimmer utilizes their arms like oars to vault themselves forward in the water, engaging the muscles of their back and torso—vault is mentioned because, once a swimmer has achieved early vertical forearm (EVF), they must conceptualize moving their body past their arm(s) as opposed to using their arm(s) to pull themselves forwards in the water—relativity is everything.

The point to be internalized is full-body swimming.

Sprint freestyle is driven by the shoulders… elite sprint freestylers utilize the entire body.

Distance freestyle is driven by the hips… elite distance freestylers incorporate the speed of their recovery (fast hands!) into their stroke—despite swimming somewhat “catch-up freestyle”—and a well-timed kick to engage the entire body.

Backstroke is very similar to freestyle in these technical manners, though with emphasis given to the sprint style. After all, the longest backstroke race is 200 yards/meters. That does not mean it is not without its intricacies. Arguably, underwater dolphin kick is more important in backstroke than in freestyle, especially in the 25-yard/meter format (short course). Cross-body connection and torque are especially important in backstroke. The hands must accelerate through the recovery and hit the water with force!

Breaststroke, the stroke which creates the most drag, relies on fast hands and fast feet and a high body position. If one can link the “shoulder shrug” of the pull and the “hip drag” of the… also pull—it’s an art—with a fast heel-to-butt speed on the kick, one is set up for a very efficient breaststroke.

Sources

Smirmaul, BP; Bertucci, DR; Teixeira, IP. (2013). "Is the VO2max that we measure really maximal?". Frontiers in Physiology. 4: 203.

Sutherland, James. (2020). How Dressel’s Vertical Leap Stack Up Against the NBA’s Best. SwimSwam, LLC.