Why You Can't Swim Front Quadrant Freestyle

if your arms pretty much straight so there's very little bend in them as you're passing underneath the body you're probably going too deep and too straight now the problem with that is in the way it can throw off your front quadrant timing is high branch in here in today's video we're going to look at a front quadrant freestyle stroke now you might have heard the phrase before if you look above someone swimming bird's-eye-view break it down into four quarters we always want to try and have one hand in that front quadrant there that's a front quadrant freestyle now with most elite swimmers you'll find that they are fraught front quadrant now the exception they're sprinting fifty hundred meters sometimes they're not front quadrant and some distance tumors are front quadrant but most of the time people will be content with their freestyle so always one hand or an arm out in front of their head at all times now when we run clinics we often find that I'm about a third of the people their front quadrant so we generally want to try and develop that in their stroke now the reason for that is it is one of the best ways to keep your heart rate down swim comfortably have good distance per stroke and have overall good timing with the rotation and the catch and coordinating everything together so front quadrant stroke is typically what we want to aim for especially if you are newer to the sport if you're only been doing it for one to three years you probably want to aim for a front quadrant freestyle stroke now there's a number of things that where you often find makes it difficult to be front quadrant very first one is the entry position so when you're coming over the top and freestyle when you go to enter we want to try and have the fingers going first so your fingers entering first with the elbow up it'll make this triangle sort of shape with the arm we want to enter in that position because then it's so much easier to extend and reach forwards in the water at shoulder depth there now what we often find happens there that makes it hard to be front quadrant is you'll come over top over rate should be fully extended above the water and then the elbow will typically lie on first and the hand and the wrist and the palm will be last that causes you to push straight the water it causes the Handy pull through two soon-to-be front quadrant so the first thing we want to try and get right is that entry position now let's say that you are overreaching on top of the water what we typically recommend to change that there's a number of drills but the one that I like to use with people is six one six drill so you do six kicks on one side take one stroke swap sides do that drill with fins on and the snorkel on now the reason for the snorkel takes the breathing out of it that way you can focus only on the thing that we want to focus on so six one six straw with fins and snorkel and as you're coming out the top of the water the aim is to get those finger tips in first but if you're used to overreaching you're going to probably have to make it feel like you're entering super early compared to what you used to doing so have that entry go fingers first but it might need to be exaggerated feel like you're going really early but when you go to extend for words in the water out in front of you instead of above the water it's going to feel very foreign compared to what you used to doing so you may need to feel like you're going quite deep with the hand and just get used to that awkward and uncomfortable feeling of extending in the water if you're not used to it now for whatever reason that the people tend to make that change and then they'll extend for is gonna be very close to the surface of the water if they're not used to it just because that's where they feel most comfortable but we want that rich phrase to be at about shoulder depth you'll see that with most elite swimmers it's about shoulder depth sometimes a little bit higher but that's the position to be reaching forwards in because that will create the least amount of drag and resistance when you are extending out in front there so number one make sure you get the entry position right which is fingers first elbow up you can use the six months six drill to help with that then we want to make sure we have that rich phase in the water now it's counterintuitive to what you think would be fastest you think you'd be better off to just enter the water start the catch start the pool straight away because that's the propulsive phase of the stroke but the thing with that is when you're reaching and extending forwards in front of the shoulder that is when you're in the smallest possible space that's when your most streamlined in the water so you want to make use of that nice efficient position there so you'll see that with a with all the best moves there's that rich in front of the shoulder while they're rotating their hips rotating their shoulders and pressing back past their hip there so you want to make use of that part of the stroke instead of going straight into the catch now even if you've got a high stroke rate let's say you're up in the 80 to 90 stroke rate yeah you're not going to spend long in it but you're still going to spend that little bit of time in that reach phase there so I know a lot of coaches sometimes talk about you should never glide in freestyle get straight into it but they're still going to be that element of extension out in front there so while we don't want to completely stop and pause you're still going to reach so there's a lot of new arts with all of these things so that's why I find just see what works best for you and don't take anything or any I guess phrase as that's the way to do it for everyone there's a lot of new answers to a lot of these things and that's why I trying to go into a little bit of detail with them so you have a better understanding of them so we want to make sure we get the entry right secondly we want to make sure that we we've got the reach phase out in front of the shoulder at shoulder depth there now along with that you need to make sure you're rotating through the hips and through the upper body to correct them out what we normally teach rotate to thirty five to forty five degrees sometimes a bit more sometimes a bit less spa thirty five to forty five degrees through the hips and through the shoulders as you are reaching forwards so I like to sort of combine that that's the reach and rotation phase of the stroke it's in that phase of the stroke that's going to then allow you to keep your hand out in front a little bit while the other arm starts to recover over the top of the water which will give you that front quadrant timing now what we'll often find there is if if you don't reach and rotate and you just extend out you're probably going to start to catch a little bit too soon so use that reach and rotation together to allow this arm to just be reaching forwards and this arm to start to recover over the top to give you the timing now if you know that you're too flat when you swim let's say you've got 1520 degrees rotation through the shoulders so to flatter a good draw you can do there is slide and glide drill you might have seen this in previous in a previous video where we just looking to isolate that part of the stroke the region rotation so I really like slide and glide drill for that because we're just working on that alone reach and rotate so that's a good one to do if you know that you're too flat now the other the flip side of that is you might be over rotating especially when you breathe a lot of summers will tend to rotate their shoulders and their hips too far when they go to breathe so they sometimes will get all the way on to their side to ninety degrees but it's too far that puts too much pressure on the shoulder to be able to keep the hand out in front long enough and it will typically cause you to press straight down on the water so what we want to try and do that is just make sure that we bring it back to about that forty-five degree range with your upper body rotation that's going to allow you to keep the hand out in front that a little bit longer and it'll give you stability and balance when you're going to get that breath so if you ever feel like you're on this treadmill that you can't get off like the arms are going and you've just got no point in time where you can actually feel like you're resting or you can keep your heart rate down it's probably because you're not frantic quadrant so if you can slow it down out in front of you through the reach and through the catch phase a little bit that will allow that timing to come in and that is what is going to make your heart rate stay down it's gonna make it feel a lot more comfortable in our previous video about the base position it's kind of that position that we're talking about that position where you can feel like you're comfortable and relaxed every single stroke there so that is the the base position or the position where we're reaching forwards so we want to make sure we get the entry right we have that reach at in front of the shoulder and get the right amount of rotation at that point in time the other thing we want to make sure that we have with the arm is it's in the right starting catch position so we teach the four key positions through the catch and pull we want to achieve you've got the starting caps position the high elbow catch the power Dimond and the exit now the starting catcher position is it's subtle but this will make a difference is you want your fingers blow your wrist wrist below your elbow as you're extending forwards ever so slightly it doesn't any much but just ever so slightly it's pretty common to see people just drop the wrists so they're extending like this or to really drop the elbow a lot now what 10 to happen there is if you're extending forwards in that position you're probably going to just be drifting down and pressing straight down because of the the angle of the hand and the arm it just forces you to do it it's a lot harder to keep it reaching forwards so have that really subtle slightly downwards angle from the fingers wrist and elbow as you're extending forwards there and that will help you keep the hand out in front a little bit longer now we often teach the the front kick drill or the side kick drill there to just get a sense of where the hands are and the a good way to check it is just look forwards when you're doing those drills make sure you're in the right starting catch position and that is going to allow you to make those adjustments if you're not in it because again when we run clinics we have a lot of people who do clinics and it camps quite often you know with about half the people on there to make these little Corrections with them and they're there 1% changes but it's sometimes those 1% changes that make a difference so just look forwards check your position make sure that the fingers aren't coming up or the elbows dropping it's really common and what you think you're doing is very different than what you're actually doing a lot of the time so that's why it can be good to check in on each of these things so entry extend falls out in front of the shoulder get the right amount of rotation through the hips in the upper body as you're reaching forwards get that hand in the right position with fingers below wrist wrist below elbow then the other thing that you'll probably need to do there make sure you're slowing it down through the reach phase and the catch phase so you're timing in your strokes should be slow too fast it's not this constant speed that the arms are continually moving through it even with like a sprint sort of stroke you're going to be slowing it down a little bit in the reach and the catch phase of the stroke it's that slowing it down through the reaching catch phase that's going to give you enough time for the other arm to start recovering through and to come out in front so you will keep that front quadrant timing the analogy I like to use here and some people have said that this has been helpful for them is pretend like there's mud out in front of you so that muds a little bit thicker than water it's gonna take a little bit longer to travel through with your arm then it would would be if it was water there so if you look at the timing here at they said these rumors you can see you can imagine that mud is out in front of them it's a bit thicker it's taking that a little bit longer to travel through and that's the time that you typically want in your stroke so if you find that your heart rate just skyrockets and you feel like on this treadmill that just can't be gotten off of then you may find it's helpful just to think of that mud out in front slow it down through the reach phase and the catch not only will it keep the heart rate down not only will it help you with your front quadrant timing but it is also going to help you with your catch and pull because that's actually going to give you a lot more time to set up a higher go catch position and to then keep pressure and maintain pressure on the hand and forearm as you're going through so it helps with a lot of other aspects of the stroke so if you've got all of those things in place the last thing I'd check check in with and make sure that you're doing right is that you're not going too deep and too straight with the arms in the catch and pull so if we look front on it you swimming towards the camera if your arms pretty much straight so there's very little bend in them as you're passing underneath the body you're probably going too deep and too straight now the problem with that is in the way it can throw off your front quadrant timing is that when you're really deep underneath the shoulder there the hand and forearm is it's coming towards the hip will often be coming up towards the hip and if we want to move forwards you've got to be pressing back with your hand and forearm most of the way but if you're too deep the hand and forearm will be coming up towards the hip and that's just going to push your hips down and your legs down so we want to try and make sure that we have that you've might say in a previous video it's like a light globe shape on the side we want to try and make sure that the hand in the forearm comes a little bit shallow through the back part of the stroke so we just need to be at the right depth when we're going through the catch and the pool so it's not down really deep with where the arms are completely straight in that power Dimond phase we usually want to see that 100 to 120 degree angle so the elbows out to the side hands a little bit shallower and that can help you get to the right depth there so it's a little bit to cover there but follow that order follow that progression because if you don't get it right at the start if you overreach on the entry it's probably gonna be hard to correct those other things so that's why we like to start in the right order and followed those progressions in in that sort of order so we've gotta fingers fingers first entry elbow up slide the hand forwards out in front of the shoulder use the six one six drill to develop that and and correct it and we're fins and a snorkel then after that we want to make sure that we have the right reach and rotation so two reaching forwards hand in the starting catch position of fingers below wrist wrist blow elbow and then as you're rotating hips and shoulders will be about 35 to 45 degrees rotation to the side not all the way on to the side there so slide and glide drill can help you develop that part of the stroke there then after that we need to make sure that you're slowing it down through the reach and the catch phrase a little bit more than what you would do through the rest of the stroke so you'll eventually will gradually build up the speed through your catch and pull but it will be a little bit slower out in front so it might feel like you're kind of lighting a bit and there's nothing wrong with that I've seen people talk about you should ever glide in freestyle but there's so much new ice to all these things that you know you're still going to spend some time reaching and extending out before you start the catch so give yourself that time as you can see with the swimmers that we've looked at in these videos then after that just make sure you go into the right depth through the catch and through the pull through because if you're going too deep you're probably going to be pressing up towards the hip it's going to cause you to get a little bit a little bit stuck out the back and then it's just too hard to get the arm out and over while the other hand is out in front there so that's the progression that we would normally go through so I hope you enjoyed today's video and if you're not sure whether you're doing a front quadrant stroke the easiest way to check is just get someone a friend get a camera record you side on or ideally above but side on and when you slow it down there should be one arm or hand out in front of the head at all times only needs to be slightly but there should always be something out in front there so please like and subscribe if you did enjoy this video leave a comment below let me know if you think your front quadrant at the moment or is this something that you need to work on and out of those drills is there a drill that you think would be helpful for you so thanks for watching if you are looking to improve this for me you can check out our video membership that's where we have all of our step-by-step process to swim faster swim more efficiently and basically just make you something a whole lot more fun when you're swimming faster and easier so we've got our step by step progression in the video membership it's only fifty five dollars a year check that out in the link below thank you for watching and I'll see you next week [Music]

Channel: Effortless Swimming

Views: 65,291

Rating: 4.9545999 out of 5

Keywords: front quadrant, freestyle swimming, front quadrant swimming, front quadrant swimming drills, front quadrant freestyle technique, front quadrant swimming video, front quadrant freestyle, front quadrant technik, front quadrant schwimmen, effortless swimming, how to swim for longer, freestyle technique, what is front quadrant swimming, what is front quadrant freestyle

Id: rFKLvk2ET20

Length: 15min 53sec (953 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 13 2019