Is your "catch" correct? Putting Power into your swim

Is Your Catch working as hard as it could for you? 

It can be difficult to diagnose your own swim catch, but in order to really get power and speed, you must perfect the high elbow catch on your stroke.  Take a look at the photos above that illustrate a high, early elbow bend in the Freestyle stroke.  (this works for all strokes but we focus on FS here.) 

It's very important to understand what is happening in the FS swim to know where you are getting the motive force.  During your stroke, you are pulling your body over the slippery surface with your strong back and core muscles, but digging deep into the slower heavier layer of the water and pulling and pushing against the nearly immobile water.

Typical issues with strokes   
1. Hand and arm floating parallel to bottom of pool.     
2. Straight arm stroking
3. Short Stroke, coming out of the water too early
4. Crossing Over
5. S stroking

Ways to Correct your stroke
1. Hand and arm floating parallel is a typical issue.  When swimmers first learn to swim they often let the hand float for a bit then begin the pull.  This means you are losing momentum as your hand floats.  Unless you are doing a catch up drill where you want the hand out front to protect your face in OWS or you are doing this drill in the pool, you really don't want the hand to float at all.  As soon as it gets into the water, you want to begin the pull.
Drill: Using the pull buoy, focus on your stroke by swimming an easy pace but trying to keep the hand moving and not letting it ever float.  Try putting your thumb in first as you enter the water.  This tends to turn the arm in a way that uses more of the correct muscles.


2. Straight arm stroking is another common issue.  This will stress the shoulder and forces your arm through the water using shoulder muscles rather than back, chest and core muscles.  Eventually, you may end up with rotator cuff issues, sore shoulders and you'll never go very fast.  True you are digging deep into the more immobile water but you are pulling and pushing with your weakest muscles.  The improvement is to focus on early high elbow bends to get the back and shoulder muscles working for the pull and push.
Drill:  Check out this dry land but exercise to focus on high elbow bending with 4 X Olympian Sheila Taormina

3. Short Stroke means you are lifting your arm up before your hand reaches your thighs.  You may be doing this to get a high cadence or feel that last few inches doesn't provide much forward force.  In that case you probably not using your core muscles to get that last bit of push against the water.  If you don't engage your core, you won't get much from that part of the stroke.
Drill: Try imagining that you have a quarter the keep between your glutes and squeeze them together.  When you pull back imagine you have to get another quarter back there as fast as you can.  Put some cash in your pull this way!  Optional, use the pull bouy. If you've never tried to fix your stroke, this will feel odd to you.  Check out this video by Chloe Sutton, 2 X Olympian for some good instructions: Chloe Sutton

4. Crossing over is a common issue which can be quite difficult to correct.  It requires an odd feeling of almost swimming with a wide Y position.  When you cross over you cause your arm to have to move through the water before the catch begins.  Those few inches of moving across in front of your head add drag, but also are similar to floating hands where you are losing momentum as you drag your hand into a position where you can then pull back.
Drill: Using the kick board positioned sideways, Swim one handed  with one hand on the board.  Try to avoid touching the kick board as you stroke.  Focus on how it feels to swim with the arm entering in that wide position.


5. S Stroke is something that used to be taught long ago.  For older swimmers who were taught this way, it may be difficult to stop.  But if you consider what happens as you make the S shape, you will want to quit.  The S means you are slipping sideways off your pull.  In otherwords, you are losing the catch for a moment which means you aren't getting the full stroke of pull from your stroke.
Drill:  Fist swim.  Using you hands in fists, get the feel of swimming using your whole arm for the pull.  If you do an S stroke with fists, you'll see that you are not moving well.  Try to pull back in one continuous stroke to get your power and speed.


Using paddles:
Paddles can help or cause more problems if your stroke isn't in the correct form.  After you believe you have made the corrections, try using the paddles to emphasize the power pull you can get.  This and reinforce good behavior.   However, if you try to use paddles too soon, you'll stress your shoulders and simply reinforce the wrong stroke process.  Make sure you are getting a good, strong, continuous pull with high elbows from the point of entry to the thigh regularly before using the paddles!