Andy Kuo's List: Swimming

• Setting the catch is the most important part of swimming efficiently
• it uses weak muscles and is not congruent with how we are anatomically structured to be powerful

  • 所以我們覺得高肘怪怪的是正常的！！
• the elbow is held high in the water and does not move
• This is the power phase of your stroke but all the advantages are lost if you have a dropped elbow
•  Essentially, what we are doing is using the rotation of our body to move ourselves through the water.  If we just use our arms, we are using weak muscles.
• Our arms were designed to be powerful by dropping our elbow (think about climbing a rope or doing pull ups), and the muscles that we will use to hold our elbow high in swimming tire quickly as a result of our anatomy.
•  So if we have to use our weak muscles to put ourselves the most efficient position we should find some bigger muscles to help us move our body through the water; the core muscles are perfect for this cause
•  The body roll initiated from the kick engages the core giving us a powerful and efficient means to propel ourselves
•  You should think of this as pulling your hips to your arm when you swim
• The arm does not move backwards, instead the body is brought to the arm.
• if you do you are not bringing your hips fully to your hand and you are cheating yourself out of a great deal of speed.
• One way to think of the proper position is trying to push your elbow in front of your forearm
•  The elbow should be held high on the recovery
• ropping your elbow on the recovery will lessen the distance you can reach in front of you (making you shorter in the water) and flatten your rotation
•  Flattening your rotation will make breathing harder
• You should reach in front of you along your body line with a hyperextended shoulder to maximize your stroke length.
• lever he creates after his hand enters and fingers and forearm pitch down towards the bottom of the pool.  He then uses the rotation of his trunk and the anchored forearm to move his body through the water.
• He  maintains a high elbow in all three phases.
• Notice how Phelps rotates, he is much more deliberate in his rotation as compared to Tompson.  Also, their arms during the catch, rotation and recovery phases are fundamentally different
•  Phelps sets a much better structured lever, and he pulls his hips all the way to his hand and only then does he begin his recovery
• Phelps' elbow is high enough where he can totally relax his hand at the wrist thus pitching his hand down the entire time of the recovery

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