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Swimming Question of the week - March 10th

Posted by Jonty Skinner on Mar 10, 2009 11:04AM (1,970 views)

Do you use science on a regular basis and, if so, are there specific areas of sports science that you feel are more beneficial or user friendly to coaches than others?

Responses

Jonty Skinner	Responded Mar 10, 2009 04:08PM Must be a world wide computer brown out going on... either that or not a soul uses some form of science in training... which is a sad state of affairs and we might need to start pushing that malady as a close second cousin to global warming. Anyone out there???
Glenn Mills	Responded Mar 10, 2009 04:38PM :) No worries... I'm running a little late... getting back to east coast time and just alerting everyone to this one. Does using a Finis Swimp3 player to get me through my own practices constitute using science?
Bob Hopkins	Responded Mar 10, 2009 05:42PM Science, specifically hydrodynamics, is at the heart of what I consider the most important aspect of fast swimming and that is technique. The other four aspects, endurance, strength, flexibility and mental prep are also important but without a mastery of technique, a swimmer will never achieve his or her potential. The fact that water is 846 times thicker than air at 80 degrees is the key characteristic of water that makes movement in it so difficult. With that in mind, the most important aspect of swimming technique to master is resistance reduction via streamlining not only on starts and off the walls but during the entire swim. Feeling resistance points can be aided by super velocity training using fins or stretch cords. The second factor critical to fast swimming is power generation which again demands an understanding and feeling for how to hold on to (early vertical forearm to start with) the thick water (now the "thickness" works in your favor) and propel yourself forward. Engaging the core body muscles to power the torso twist along the long axis for free and back or along the short axis for fly and breast is another important part of power generation. Underwater video taping on a regular basis so that the coach and swimmer can see what they are doing is an integral part of teaching/learning how all this works.
fiZZLe	Responded Mar 10, 2009 06:39PM Science helps me analyze my workout videos every day I swim :). Some things that I find especially useful are relative energy zones based on Heart Rate with my Heart rate monitor (dryland) and my finger and a watch when in the pool. Getting specific times for repeats during a set and computing improvements based on that data when the set is repeated at multiple workouts. Remembering that my buoyancy comes from my lungs and that I must balance all my limbs and movements around that to achieve the body position I want. this helps me when say I am leaning with too deep on one side during freestyle I know that I must simply make my hips and legs go lower when I am on that side so that my front end can float up since that buoyant energy has to go somewhere that helps me control and understand where it is going. Also realizing how forces and power over various motions translate to propulsion and drag. For kicking, knowing that the highest potential for speed lies when the kick is most hidden and if I want to reach highest speeds I have to learn to use a small kick in a powerful manner. Learning how to quantify propulsive and drag forces in swimming based on the research people are performing is very beneficial to learning the ideal swimming form. My favorite tools to collect data and analyze are: underwater cam, Heart Rate monitor, timing device, and the power racks/resistance cords. They all get fairly specific data that has very little error :) . Other science thoughts that affect my swimming are the stiffness and stability of shoulders and other core muscles while swimming as I have learned from hearing about Richard Quick's and Mike Bottom's views. The dolphin kick research is my favorite kicking data to date and is probably about to equal massive time drops for me if it wasn't sick season in Missoury. It is hard to isolate any one topic on swimming science because the sport is so dynamic being in water which makes consistency that much more challenging... Mostly rambling, maybe that is science maybe it isn't I am not very sure. I'm sure others are in the same boat as me on being not too sure HOW sciences are really involved in swimming. Mostly I believe due to lack of quantitative data and an abundance of theoretical and observational data...
Jonty Skinner	Responded Mar 10, 2009 06:45PM A quick anecdote for the readers Many years ago I asked a room full of our best coaches to get into a debate about the dynamics of freestyle. I was hoping for a vociferous discussion that see sawed back forth on certain points and evoked passionate displays regarding a coaches belief in what they thought was right. It NEVER happened... why you might ask? People/coaches are very hesitant to talk about stuff in front of their peers. They act that way to avoid saying the wrong thing... the inevitable social gaffe that's sure to befall them if they say anything. However, I think the opposite is true. Everyone sees this sport from different angles or points of view, and if we'd all be willing to just jump in the ring and throw something out, we'd all be better off for it. I can't tell you how many times I've learned stuff from people who've been in this sport a few years. They bring fresh thinking and fresh points of view to the table. In many cases is hasn't been just the points, but the tangents they created that established new mainstream thought. So please don't be shy about throwing stuff out. You just never know when what you say will have an effect on any one of the GoSwim's readers, and if they benefit from the process, then in some way we all win because we all grow. However based off the general gist of what I've read... biomechanics seem to be something that most want... so maybe we need to debate the Bernoulli issue next week... get it all out on the table so we can all study it.
fiZZLe	Responded Mar 10, 2009 06:53PM I guess I didn't specifically answer the actual question yet haha. are there specific areas of sports science that you feel are more beneficial or user friendly to coaches than others? Heart Rates, repeat/performance times during workout and meets, general energy production nutrition (carbohydrates!!) all come to mind as being user friendly recordable data for swimmers, coaches, and others. I find "streamlining" fairly user friendly but the ability to precisely be aware of every part of your body's balance in the water at all times is no easy task for most swimmers. I believe this is a major limiting factor in performance too. I also do not believe it is very user friendly to coaches since communicating changes to various swimmers is a big challenge based on the swimmers own lack of detailed awareness of positions in water. The kick would also be ranked very unfriendly to work with since the swimmer never sees(while swimming) WHERE their legs and feet are moving. A Coach having to communicate information about the kick to the swimmer is even more challenging since the buoyancy is way up in the lungs and you have a bendy abdomen and hips before you get to the legs (rigidity aspects come into play here). I generally find that pull propulsion is more challenging that people think it is when a swimmer needs to be doing an unnatural motion with the arm and make changes as fatigue sets in and maintain power application or speed of the movement. Breathing and fuel would probably also fall into categories with the science of swimming imo. Not going to get into any thoughts about suits or caps or anything though, they are simiple to understand what they are meant for :).
fiZZLe	Responded Mar 10, 2009 07:06PM The actual nutritional requirements and what happens when you workout, taper, rest, etc are great forms of recordable data that are fairly accurate to base decisions on for me. What happens during hypoxic training? I get better at holding my breath. I find that a sort of dark area of what I understand about swimming and with underwater swimming becoming more necessary it is something that swimmers/coaches need to learn lots about imo. That story reminds me of the time I argued with my coach about him making a big deal of his swimmers swimming with their fingers apart. I argued that their fingers and hand are straight and creating even more surface area than if they forces their fingers and thumb together into a "paddle". I argued that surface area was the same and he argued something about the water slipping around the fingers. I then argued that it was also a waste of focus since small changes in surface area have negligible affect on total surface area during the pull. Now we never did go into any mental aspects of why he was saying that to swimmers at a meet, but there very well could have been one :). I decided to let it go since it was on deck at a meet and there was much meet left lol.
Coach Wobser	Responded Mar 10, 2009 07:39PM Jonty, First let me thank you for bringing up these questions. I think it is a great topic to discuss in our sport. Second, yes I use science daily with our swimmers. I use it as a means to explain why we need to do certain things to swim fast. For example, explaining the basics of drag and resistence and who to reduce it so that efficency increases. These are the same basic ideas that Coach Bill put forth in his post. However, when it comes to coaching you have to remember your audience. Doesn't do much good to explain the basics of fluid dynamic to a 9 year old. However, you can get the basic principles across to high school students. I am surprised that our elite swimmers and coaches do not embrace the science of our sport more. You would think that when you get to that level that you need to look at every aspect to gain additional speed. Other sports have done this for years and profited. A good example is Lance Armstrong and the amount of time he spends in a wind tunnel. As to why coaches don't talk about this I think you hit it on the head Jonty when you said that Coaches are afraid to discuss it openly because they might mis-speak and say something that is not scientifically correct. No one likes to look like and idiot in a group. And how many of our coaches have had training in fluid dynamics? No many I suspect. And that is because their time is consumed with other aspects of being a sucessful coach. For me I know I love to read or hear from someone, tips and ideas that I can put into use on the pool deck. I rely on the "scientists" in our sport to get that information out to the field.
Billy	Responded Mar 11, 2009 04:35AM I think that there are two areas where I would really like to see science applied. The first is technique. We have a lot of thoughts out there, and I would love to know the pros and cons of some of the schools of thought. But the MUCH bigger area in my mind is in training. I realize that is a huge area, but my area of focus would be on volume or yardage. Reading articles and books gives such massive differences from the high volumes of the 70's (which produced records that in some cases still survive today) to the specific, low-yardage programs that have been so dominant (Irvine Nova a few years ago, Auburn at the Collegiate levels), and everything in between. I know that when I step out and tell other Coaches the yardage counts on my workouts, I get looked at like I am insane (the yardage counts are pretty low). I also would love to hear any Coaches thoughts on the computer program (3S) that is touted as such a great scientific training platform that can bring you to your goals through parametric training.
sprinter	Responded Mar 11, 2009 06:24AM of course. I use my goggles and other equipment every time I swim, check my pulse to control my intervals, vary my training/ rest depending on the part of the season I am in, pay attention to what I am eating and drinking and when I am eating/ drinking it... science, that is more useful for coaches?! hm.. perhaps the stopwatches (usually 2 of those) he's holding the entire time helping him check how much he is supposed to shout at you?! :D
Juliette	Responded Mar 11, 2009 08:28AM My dad as a coach says that we should take some advantage out of what is invented and tested by NASA and other expensive investigation departments.But as important is that a swimmer keeps motivated because of his own imput in training.

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Swimming Question of the week - March 10th

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