Swim Form Critique

Swimming is all about form, which is why 12 year old girls with twigs for arms and beer-bellied 55 year old guys with good technique can crush me in the water. This post is about some specific things I can improve.

I reviewed a few videos Stacey recently shot while we were swimming and compared my form to the immodestly christened Mr. Smooth.

Let's look at my arm extension first, as I think this is the origin of a few issues with my stroke:

(Sorry for the poor image quality; these photos are stills from video.)

Note that these two photos are in sequence with the top photo being the earlier picture, even though it looks like I'm beginning the catch in the top photo while I still haven't started the catch in the bottom photo. The red lines are an estimate of the height of my hand relative to the surface of the water.

My arm and hand position looks good in the top photo. My arm is extended, my hand is aligned with or slightly lower than my shoulder, and my hand is flexed ready to begin the catch. However, in the second photo I raise my hand closer to the surface of the water, as the red line in the bottom photo is shorter than in the top photo.

Here is a picture at a point slightly later in my stroke than the bottom photo above that better shows the positions of my hand and elbow:


My hand is now above my elbow and my forearm is angled upward! Applying leverage from this position is not easy and causes additional problems explained below.

Compare my hand position to Mr. Smooth's:


Mr. Smooth has his leading hand lower than his elbow. As his stroke progresses, his hand goes slightly forward and then down and is always at least slightly below his elbow.

The takeaway is that I need to avoid raising my hand. I should commence my catch with my hand in the position shown in the top photo of the two-photo sequence above. Keep that hand down!!!

Like I mentioned above, my hand being too high causes a few problems with my stroke. Here is another photo of my too high hand with the red arrows showing torques that I create (please avoid looking directly at my apparently massive butt):


I need to somehow generate torque to rotate my forearm into a vertical position, with this torque being shown by the clockwise red arrow near my hand. Normally a swimmer uses his shoulder and lat to apply this torque, I think. However, my hand is in a position that makes applying torque with my right shoulder and lat difficult. Instead, I end up pushing my torso out and down to create the necessary torque. The counter-clockwise red arrow is intended to illustrate this torso-produced torque.

In other words, in order to get my hand into a vertical position I end up sticking my whole torso out and creating a bunch of drag:

(My torso rotation being linked to rotating my forearm is more apparent in the video than in an single frame that I could find.)

If I kept my hand lower in the water I could more easily generate torque properly, meaning using my shoulder and lat. Then I wouldn't need to stick my torso way out and I'd look more like Mr. Smooth.


Having my chest rotated so far forward greatly increases my frontal area, which is the last thing a swimmer wants. Generating torque differently will likely improve my slipperiness in the aqua.

There are a few other things I can try that will probably help streamline my body. Raising my head a bit, pushing my sternum down a bit, and using my abs to keep my lower torso in line with my upper torso should all improve my streamlining ability.

However, I still think the main culprit is the whole torque issue caused by my hand being too high as explained above. I think this is the case because I'm nicely aligned at other points in my stroke as shown here:


"Hey," you might be thinking, "your arm looks nice and vertical in that picture!" However, looking at my pull from another angle reveals that my arm is in fact in a pretty poor position:


The videos I have show this a bit more clearly, but my forearm never gets vertical (despite my high elbow!). If I were to post the video, you'd see that my elbow is rearward of my hand the entire stroke -- my hand never catches up.

Instead of pushing backwards, I'm pushing back and down, while also likely allowing water to slip off my forearm. I start my pull before my forearm is in the correct position. This is potentially still caused by my too high of a hand, as the too high hand prevents me from getting my forearm properly aligned in time for the pull (i.e., it takes too long to move my forearm from angled upward to angled vertically -- my hand actually rotates a similar amount as Mr. Smooth's, but since my starting point is too high my finishing point isn't vertical enough).

Mr. Smooth, however, gets his forearm vertical by the time his forearm is inline with his head, and then his hand continues slightly rearward of his elbow as shown below:


Mr. Smooth's arm position allows him to apply more force in the rearward direction, and thus to generate more forward propulsion. The idea is to maximize the amount of force that is applied in the rearward direction; force in the vertical direction is wasted!

Finally, a note on the phrase "high elbow": It seems to me that swim coaches are after a vertical forearm. Coaches likely noticed that whenever a swimmer's forearm is vertical, the swimmer's elbow is above an imaginary line extending from the swimmer's shoulder to hand, or "high". However, a swimmer can have a high elbow without a vertical forearm, as I demonstrate in the photo of me above. A high elbow in and of itself is not important. After all, it's the vertical forearm that provides propulsion. The high elbow is just the result of a vertical forearm. But since a high elbow can also result without a vertical forearm, the emphasis should not be on the elbow position.

Check out Mr. Smooth's elbow position in these two images generated at the same point in his stroke:

His elbow isn't high relative to the surface of the water but his forearm is vertical.