I’ve been hunting for example videos to which I can direct the swimmers I’m coaching as examples of what I’m asking them to try to do. I’m not interested in getting them to copy a given swimmer’s style at all because there will be elements of any swimmer’s stroke that are specific to that swimmer and wouldn’t suit others. It’s more about getting the idea into their heads about a specific component of the stroke. Ideally I’d like to be able to say to them “We’ll be doing X next session, go and have a look at this video or this set of videos because it demonstrates that particular aspect well”. Probably I should write a little summary of the things I want them to look at and things they should ignore too.
This is one example I found earlier this week:
I like the way this shows very clearly the “early vertical forearm” and that the upper arm hardly moves at all until the forearm is vertical, maximising the use of the entire lower arm and hand as a “paddle”. The arm nearest the camera shows it most clearly I think. The motion of the arm away from the camera isn’t so clear due to the angle. Obviously his legs aren’t doing much work though, so I’d ignore them 🙂
I quite like this one for the same reason:
As it’s a training rather than competition swim it doesn’t look as though it has quite the urgency that it might, but I also like the obvious relaxation of the arm, wrist and hand during the recovery.