I have been coaching workouts for a while now, and it seems strange to me that people that do stroke drills to improve their strokes never put half of what they are working on into their full stroke and actually improve. Drills are meant to help you fix aspects of your stroke by slowing down and allowing you to concentrate on balance, timing, and proper movement through the water. However, if you don't take those aspects into your stroke when you actually start swimming, you can drill uselessly all day long.

 

Catch Up is very useful for reasons other than what the drill teaches itself. However, let’s get that part out of the way first and then we can progress from there. If you want to know what catch-up drill is, please refer to:

 

Catch-Up: Part I

 

There are three major problems with catch-up drill as we know it today. These are problems that have been passed down from coach to coach which then passes down from swimmer to swimmer. We may spend a couple months on this first problem, so hear we go.

1)      The first problem is the biggest of all and responsibility lies solely on the coaches who have coached you in the past. If you already know this, thank your coach today!

No One Knows Why You Do Catch-Up Drill!

Let me be the first to inform you of how many people will swim catch-up drill and then swim the exact same stroke afterwards. Here it is; the reason you have been doing catch-up drill all these years.

TRUE FREESTYLE SHOULD BE A FORM OF CATCH-UP DRILL.

The wrong way to swim involves what I call the "mirror stroke" One arm mirrors the other and as one pulls, the other one recovers, basically keeping both arms opposite of each other.

The following swimmer is in a position of enormous drag as his hips have pre-maturely rotated him to his stomach. His head and shoulders are pushing the water and working against his pull. His hips have also already turned and the power to finish his stroke must come from his arm alone.

An underwater view shows the position of the pulling arm at the point of recovery entry. As can be seen here, the shoulders are not the only new source of drag as the pulling arm is perpendicular to the body. In swimming this cannot be helped, but the timing of "catch-up" stroke allows for this position to come at a greater point of power and with a proper body roll can be minimized.

The Correct Freestyle

The correct freestyle is a form of catch-up stroke. The arm is allowed to recover and almost catch-up to the extended arm before the pull has begun. One of the best ways to describe correct freestyle is "swimming in the front quadrant".

Break down the swimming stroke into four distinct quadrants with the first quadrant being the area right in front of your face. The quadrants are laid out in this figure using the same picture as above. His right arm is passing out of quadrant 1(the front quadrant) and into 2, while his recovering arm is still in quadrant 4 and about to enter the water. As we discussed, this position is less than optimal.

Front quadrant swimming means that you are attempting to get both arms into the front quadrant (1) at the same time. To do this, a form of catch-up stroke must be implemented.

As seen in this picture, the recovering arm is beginning to enter the water and quadrant 1 while the pulling arm is still well within the front quadrant as well. This swimmer was fully swimming and not drilling during when this picture was taken.

By swimming in the front quadrant you will minimize your frontal resistance and delay the pull phase of your stroke until the more powerful hips can aid in the motion. From the picture above, notice the position of the hips. As the pull is completed the recovering arm shoots forward and the hip roll will coincide with the power phase of the pull.

In the next part of the series we will talk more about why catch-up is implemented in the freestyle, as well as how to start using it to fix your own stroke.