Questions and Answers - July 2002 edition
by Dan Thompson

Q."My freestyle has a straight-arm recovery. I read somewhere, maybe in Swim, that this is bad technique. But what about Janet Evans? Her swing-arm recovery kicked a lot of bent-arm butt! My question is: 'How do I know whether my recovery is suited to me, as it was for Janet, or whether it's a flaw that hampers my stroke?' "

A. Pity the poor coach who tried finger-tipping Miss Evans! Seems we put something in stone, and some natural comes along to serve up crow. Janet, and Kristin Otto too, made us wary about reflexly coaching swimmers away from the swing-arm style.

I look very closely at two things. One is horizontal alignment-that is, does the spine-line stay arrow straight as the swimmer moves down the pool, or do the hips waddle side to side? Waddle, while good for ducks I guess, is death to the horizontal streamline. The wide arc of the swing-arm recovery can amplify waddle by pulling the hips out of line. If this is you, you qualify for finger-tipping and tough core-body drills.

The other is rotational rhythm. Freestyle should roll and re-roll smoothly along the swimmer's spine line. The conventional bent-arm recovery, by sliding the hand forward, is designed to avoid unbalancing this rhythm. But natural straight-armers appear to enhance rotation by using arm-swing momentum to boost the bounce and quickness of rotational tempo. So, because the swing-arm links to the generator of core-body rotational power, it is not a straight-arm version of its bent-arm cousin.

[While not a pure straight-armer myself, I use this recovery as a core-body drill. It strengthens rotation by forcing a quicker stroke rate.]

I remember sitting in the dungeon of the Swimming Center, in the underwater windows, watching Janet from below. She had straight-arrow spine alignment, of course, but also used her arm-swing momentum to dig the water for an awsomely quick and forceful catch. A thing of beauty indeed.

Send your swimming technique questions to Dan Thompson at thommed@bellsouth.net.

Update: Catch up on reader responses to this article.