Friday, 15 November 2019

Coaching Underwaters-The "Fifth Stroke" in Swimming Part 2.


In my first post about this issue I mainly covered the "how to" of coaching underwaters. For this post I want to go continue with the subject of underwaters, but take one step further and discuss in what events we as coaches should have our kids use this valuable tool. 

Illustrated importance of the underwater kick in a few selected races. 

1.  Michael Phlps v Erik Vendt
2.  Katie Ledecky's 800 Free from 2019 World Championships
3.  Caleb Dresell's 50 m Free 2019 World Championships
4.  Katie Ldecky's 800 Free from London

I choose these races because if you watch the winner in each race they use the fifth stroke very effectively to generate, and sustain momentum. From Caleb Dresell's 50 m Free to Michael Phelps 400 IM to Katie Ledecky's 800 Free, each of these great swimmers use the fifth stroke in different ways.

Discussion: Whether it is important to use underwater kicking in the longer races, or not use? 

From the videos we can surmise that it is important to use underwater kicking off every wall. I believe the race that makes this point very powerfully is Katie Ledecky's 2019 World Championships 800 m Free. If you watched that clip you witnessed Quadrel the Italian swimmer pass Katie at about the 500 m mark. At that point Katie, who had withdrawn from several of her signature events due to illness, and had been treated for dehydration. Katie stays with Quadrella, and gains on her between 600 m to 750 m and then on the last turn Katie blasts off the last wall using her strong underwaters and blows away Quadrella to win her 4th straight World Championships title in the 800 m Free. How did each of these very talented and disciplined swimmers to what they did?

Keys to being able to use the underwater kicking relies on:

1. Discipline
2. Superior conditioning
3. Doing all the little things right, which leads to doing all the big things right
4. Belief in themselves and the use of underwater kicking

Discipline

Every swimmer who desires to learn to use the underwater kick must discipline themselves in practice. They MUST use the underwater kick at all times-from warm up through to main sets, to test sets and so on. Never can the determined swimmer quit or slack on using underwater kicking. Swimmers must practice perfectly, or as near perfect as possible to achieve the desired results, that of being able to use underwater kicking in tight races as did Michael Phelps against Erik Vendt, or Katie Ledecky did against the world, or Caleb Dresell did in a tough 50 m Free field.

Superior Conditioning, doing the little things right, and belief in themselves

As coaches it is up to us to so organize our practices to help the swimmers be able to learn and do underwater kicking. This means that we must expect the swimmers to us the skill at all times and insist that they do all the little things correctly at all times. We must insist on tight streamlining, and strong push offs, off every wall regardless of where the swimmer is at in the workout-warm up, drill set, main set and so on. We must insist that the swimmers keep their head and body in alignment and build the fly kick out of each wall. We must provide the swimmers with dryland exercises that will strengthen the core, enhance functional movements that translates from land based endurance and strength to water based endurance and strength. We must provide the swimmers with effective practices that will help the swimmers be able to use underwater kicking without thinking about it. As coaches we must build the swimmer's confidence in themselves and their skills so that they are confident in being able to use underwater kicking to be successful.

Recommendations

My opinion is that our swimmers should use underwater kicking in all their races where it is legal to do so. The breaststroke is the only one where you get one dolphin kick only, so no underwaters here. I like to team the swimmers to use the following number of kicks off every wall:

1. 50-100-200: 4 to 6 dolphin kicks off walls before transitioning into their regular stroke
2. 500 on up: 2-4 dolphins kicks off walls before transitioning into their regular stroke.

In order to help the swimmers be able to do this underwater kicking must be trained using sets that help give confidence in the skill to the swimmers. See Part 1 of this topic for a few sets and other recommendations. To help with push offs I like to do the following:

1. Resisted tubing push offs
2. Vertical leaping off the bottom of pool trying to get up as high as possible. This an especially good exercise to do with a weight belt on
3. Give swimmers a point beyond flags to hit within each swim/set o n their breakouts.

Conclusion

I believe that using the fifth stroke makes the swimmers faster, more efficient between the walls and will enable them to get to the next level in their progression. Please remember that it is important to start out small and gradually add more skill and higher expectations. I hope these few thoughts have helped. Please feel free to comment back as I learn from your feedback and input.