Faster Freestyle Swimming: Part 1. Hand Placement: How to properly set up the stroke | Vasa Trainer

the first focal point that we're going to  be focusing on is going to be the setup of   the stroke it's really important because that's  going to lay the foundation for the entire frame   for your stroke so if you would for just a moment  imagine that you're going to do a pull-up what I   want you to do is I want you to place your hands  up towards the bar or you would get that grip   for most of you I'm going to imagine that you  probably put your hands right here now let me   say that everybody's just going to be slightly  different exactly where their power is but the   reason why you probably put your hands right here  is this is where you have the most strength most   balance and the most power at your disposal so  this is where we're going to start our stroke   from this basic premise now also what I want  you to do is imagine that you have a cardboard   box it's in front of you about eye level so you  start by putting your hands up right here where   you do your pull-up and then what you do from  fingertips to forearm keep it one unit and I want   you to lightly set your hands on top of that box  now what we've just achieved right there is what's   called early vertical forearm and that's the catch  point of your stroke you hear this buzzword a lot   but it's often kind of misunderstood so let's  go back over that again hands are up like you   do a pull-up set your hands on top of the box  fires are demonstrated from here you extend and   pause the elbow pops up and then you have that  nice early vertical forearm now what's really   important about this is this is where you're going  to have your most access to your power so what's   really kind of neat about this is who uses this  kind of pull well if anybody's watched any Olympic   swimming and any of the underwater footage you  will notice that almost all great athletes have   access to this early vertical forearm and it's  not just in freestyle freestyle will be here butterfly would be here and breaststroke would be here so really when  you're learning the early vertical forearm you're   also learning a stroke application or technique  that's going to apply to all of the strokes so   we're going to do here to is I want to attempt to  reach your hands out forward okay now just taking   your right arm I want you to think about making  sure that you're trying to keep your fingertips   to your elbow about as straight as you possibly  can and I want you to lift off that elbow and   start pressing back so what Tim is doing right  here is he's demonstrating to do that again a   couple of times is demonstrating an early vertical  forearm notice that when Tim is doing this that   he's really trying to keep his elbows really high  near the surface of the water now of course they   won't exactly be that high but the idea is is  you're trying to create a very shallow draught   of pull so you're not spreading out your energy  too far so that's excellent so once you do it   a couple of arms on both sides all right so when  you're seeing that Tim is doing this you're seeing   his large muscle groups activate as he's getting  that elbow into position and power now something   that most swimmers do or many swimmers do is  they swim with a dropped elbow and what that   means is instead of having a high elbow catch  or early vertical forearm they're allowing the   elbow to drop down and Tim once you go ahead  and demonstrate that when Tim is demonstrating   that what's happening is he's letting his elbow  drop down and the water is sliding past his hand   creating a very ineffective inefficient pull  so let's go from an inefficient pull to a more   effective pull with a high elbow forearm see if  you can pop those elbows up just there you go   a little bit higher and what's really neat  to see on the ergometer is when Tim starts   doing that I can see that his power wattage  is increasing now go back to the incorrect   form with the dropped elbow not nearly as much  power so one of the best ways for you to set up   the power for your stroke is to work on that  early vertical catch or early vertical forum   and that's one of the best ways that you're going  to set your pull-up for a very solid frame stroke you

Channel: Vasa Trainer

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Keywords: early vertical forearm, dropped elbow, vasa ergometer, swimming technique, freestyle technique, vasa trainer, high elbow catch, HEC, faster freestyle, ironman, triathlete, swim bench, total gym, dry land swim training, improved freestyle, efficient swimming, Triathlon (Sport), karlyn pipes, Vasa, swim training machine, swim trainer, train at home without a pool, masters swimming, ASCA, stronger swimming, power, swim specific, Swimming (Sport)

Id: ZTQpF_mmg44

Length: 4min 2sec (242 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 10 2010