Awesome stuff, Thank you. It’s uncommon for anyone to clearly explain the differences between sprint and distance swimming techniques, leading to significant confusion among swimmers trying to grasp the concepts.
Oppositional Sprint vs FQS Distance timing makes intuitive sense, but one notable exception is Alex Popov, who was the fastest Sprinter for a good long while and the poster child for FQS.
Watch this race from 1998 world champs at the 3 minute mark with underwater footage. Opposition. ua-cam.com/video/_8_uAE2LqX4/v-deo.html. He looks very long and smooth when he swims, but it's opposition. His 100 is a little longer, but it's not FQS.
Great video! When we work on backstroke our coach always stresses that our hips should already be rotated before our hands enter the water. I noticed that when we normally swim freestyle (not sprinting) that we rotate as we enter the water.
With sprint freestyle, the arms are in opposition. In backstroke the arms are ALWAYS in opposition. In other words, sprint freestylers are timing the entry/rotation like backstrokers:). Good observation and connection.
I think we have chatted about this before, but I still don't see the differences you are talking about between hip driven and shoulder driven. The body rotation always anchors on the pulling arm and not on the recovering arm. With the 50 meter sprint and the arms are opposite each other, the pulling arm still initiates the rotation. Guessing that is Sun Yang for the distance swimmer. He does not use as strong of a gallop style as Katie does, so he is kind of in the front quadrant at all times, but close.
I don't like the terms shoulder/hip driven. I think they are misleading. I agree that the timing always anchors on the pulling arm. And to create more speed, swimmers change the timing of the recovery arm. The terms 'driven' is very misleading because it implies that's where the force is coming from. Again, as you said, the pull timing doesn't change. But swimmers do change their recovery timing to shift from front quadrant to opposition timing. It's the switch in recovery timing that's leading to different stroke timing. The pulling arm initiate the rotation in all cases, but the recovery arm is in a different position when that happens in sprint swimming. I think we are in agreement.
Makes me wonder why, even if most know it is not correct, they still call it shoulder driven and hip driven. I guess to me, that is like calling gallop style "hybrid".... The world and people are not logical!
@@robohippy Terminology sticks. Unfortunately, I think it's a problem in this case because it implies that swimmers should be doing something that they shouldn't be trying to do.
Timing (spring versus distance) and arm recovery (straight versus bent) are not necessarily the same thing. Many sprinters will use a straight arm recovery, but they don't have to. There are sprinters that don;t. And there are some distance swimmers that use straight arms (Janet Evans/Lotte Friis). Hope that helps.
For FQS it looks common that the breathing side of the body rotates quite a lot more than the other side(which looks flatter). Is this pretty normal or should you try to balance the degree on both sides? Thx
This is pretty normal to some extent. When racing, go with what's faster. During smooth swimming, it can be useful to work both sides with the breathing to get a little more balance. Exception is that if the breath is really bad and the only way to breathe is to overrotate, then you need to fix the breath.
Thanks Andrew. Isn’t another major difference with sprint style that the hips stay much flatter and don’t rotate as much. The rotation is more through the upper body than the entire body including hips and legs? Also the depth of pull is greater with the sprint technique? Appreciate your video was about hip driven vs shoulder driven and not all aspects of the differences between sprinting and distance technique but those other differences might be a good follow up video?
I think the hips aren't moving as much because the shoulder HAVE to move more to facilitate the timing I talk about in this video. If the shoulders are moving more, the hips don't have to. And they don't have time!
Awesome stuff, Thank you. It’s uncommon for anyone to clearly explain the differences between sprint and distance swimming techniques, leading to significant confusion among swimmers trying to grasp the concepts.
You are very welcome.
Oppositional Sprint vs FQS Distance timing makes intuitive sense, but one notable exception is Alex Popov, who was the fastest Sprinter for a good long while and the poster child for FQS.
Watch this race from 1998 world champs at the 3 minute mark with underwater footage. Opposition. ua-cam.com/video/_8_uAE2LqX4/v-deo.html. He looks very long and smooth when he swims, but it's opposition. His 100 is a little longer, but it's not FQS.
Great video! When we work on backstroke our coach always stresses that our hips should already be rotated before our hands enter the water. I noticed that when we normally swim freestyle (not sprinting) that we rotate as we enter the water.
With sprint freestyle, the arms are in opposition. In backstroke the arms are ALWAYS in opposition. In other words, sprint freestylers are timing the entry/rotation like backstrokers:). Good observation and connection.
I think we have chatted about this before, but I still don't see the differences you are talking about between hip driven and shoulder driven. The body rotation always anchors on the pulling arm and not on the recovering arm. With the 50 meter sprint and the arms are opposite each other, the pulling arm still initiates the rotation. Guessing that is Sun Yang for the distance swimmer. He does not use as strong of a gallop style as Katie does, so he is kind of in the front quadrant at all times, but close.
I don't like the terms shoulder/hip driven. I think they are misleading. I agree that the timing always anchors on the pulling arm. And to create more speed, swimmers change the timing of the recovery arm. The terms 'driven' is very misleading because it implies that's where the force is coming from. Again, as you said, the pull timing doesn't change. But swimmers do change their recovery timing to shift from front quadrant to opposition timing. It's the switch in recovery timing that's leading to different stroke timing. The pulling arm initiate the rotation in all cases, but the recovery arm is in a different position when that happens in sprint swimming. I think we are in agreement.
Makes me wonder why, even if most know it is not correct, they still call it shoulder driven and hip driven. I guess to me, that is like calling gallop style "hybrid".... The world and people are not logical!
@@robohippy Terminology sticks. Unfortunately, I think it's a problem in this case because it implies that swimmers should be doing something that they shouldn't be trying to do.
Kind of like tumble turn vs flip turn... If it is a flip turn, then you are still coming into the wall.....
@@robohippy Yep. I think the 'catch' is another. Misleading in terms of what is supposed to happen.
Is it not primarily straight arm vs high elbow?
Timing (spring versus distance) and arm recovery (straight versus bent) are not necessarily the same thing. Many sprinters will use a straight arm recovery, but they don't have to. There are sprinters that don;t. And there are some distance swimmers that use straight arms (Janet Evans/Lotte Friis). Hope that helps.
For FQS it looks common that the breathing side of the body rotates quite a lot more than the other side(which looks flatter).
Is this pretty normal or should you try to balance the degree on both sides?
Thx
This is pretty normal to some extent. When racing, go with what's faster. During smooth swimming, it can be useful to work both sides with the breathing to get a little more balance.
Exception is that if the breath is really bad and the only way to breathe is to overrotate, then you need to fix the breath.
Thanks Andrew. Isn’t another major difference with sprint style that the hips stay much flatter and don’t rotate as much. The rotation is more through the upper body than the entire body including hips and legs? Also the depth of pull is greater with the sprint technique? Appreciate your video was about hip driven vs shoulder driven and not all aspects of the differences between sprinting and distance technique but those other differences might be a good follow up video?
Good points. I covered the pull depth in the video below. Hope it helps!
ua-cam.com/video/zdq0RPOtePI/v-deo.html
I think the hips aren't moving as much because the shoulder HAVE to move more to facilitate the timing I talk about in this video. If the shoulders are moving more, the hips don't have to. And they don't have time!
@@Andrewsheaff thanks Andrew!!!
@@Andrewsheaff thank you so much!!
@@richardtrass You are welcome!