Maintaining Your Speed Out of a Turn
by BR
One battle that we face on a daily basis is the battle against resistance of the water out of a turn. It is widely known that one of the easiest ways to drop time is to improve your times is to improve your streamline. It's easy for a coach to say tighten up your streamline. I'm sure you hear it all the time. But what we sometimes forget is making sure that our break out strokes from the streamline don't fall flat.
An efficient streamline helps us reduce the amount of resistance which in turn, helps maintain and maximize that speed. If we can hold that speed longer, we will go faster. Seems simple enough, but what about when you begin to slow down?
Freestyle breakouts are something that we do very often in practice, and yet we take for granted daily. There seem to be very few swimmers that have mastered this skill. I know our college kids struggle all of the time, especially as they get tired. The very first stroke you take after a flip turn can determine how much of your speed you maintain, depending on how it is executed.
After a flip turn, swimmers are often winded and are really looking forward to replenishing the oxygen they were unable to get when they were under the water, so as soon as they surface they go right into a breath in their first stroke. I’m not going to say that breathing on your first stroke in Freestyle is a bad thing, if you breathe efficiently. Many times as coaches we get hung up on the idea that we have to not breath going into or out of the wall. But what we sometimes forget is that in trying not to breath in or out of the wall we put ourselves in such great oxygen debt that we may not be able to overcome it in certain situations. If you want to focus on not breathing start with not breathing into your turns. But it is still important to think about how you are breathing coming out of your streamline. We want to make sure that the bottom arm (the arm closest to the black line) is taking the first stroke. This will allow you to maximize your first pull as well as help the body rotate through the streamline. Those first two or three strokes off of a wall can really help you maximize your walls and may even help you distance yourself from an opponent or catch one. Most importantly always remember to tighten up your streamlines. They will undoubtedly be the make or break of a great swim!!
