Thumb-Exit Backstroke

Ok, I must be missing something here. Everything you say in the article matches up with everything I had always been told, except for the exit itself. Once you finish that push and start to role, isn't your thumb facing down a bit? It seems like your pinky is closer to the surface at that point.
Now, if the stroke truely finished at the end of the push back, your thumb would be on top, but even in the video the hand finishes in extention (in line with the rest of the arm). If the thumb stays up for that last hand extention, the water would get pushed into the swimmer's leg, so that is the reason to rotate the arm, and use it to aid in the body rotation. I suppose that you could take care of that by controlling how much rotation you allow for the arm, still rotating, but not quite to the horizontal.

However, from a purely biomechanical point of view, your shoulder is better designed to bring your arm up thumb first. So is this better because of the reduced work for your rotator cuff? Is there some sort of basic effiency thing here I'm missing, or is it something else completely?
Thanks.

See, this is why I can't stand backstroke!

You can't see where you're going, you need all this special equipment around the deck so you can do it (flags, starting block handles, lanelines to pull on). It's a Stupid Stroke!

I move we have it banned from competition. Who's with me???

This should also alert some of you that I'm not really changing strokes, it was an APRIL FOOLS JOKE!! Stop e-mailing me about it.

Love to all the belly swimmers out there,
DD

This is actually an excellent article and video clip. At first I was a bit confused on whether or not the hand is actually supposed to snap at the end of the finish or does the hand actually stay pushing towards the feet....
I have some clips of some well known swimmers swimming backstroke and there is a slow-mo swim of aaron peirsol swimming backstroke much the way that the swimmer in the trailer does. There are some though that show the snap of the wrist but not the exit and it is too fast to tell whether it is a pinky or thumb exit.
For me personally I have always snapped the wrist but somehow managed to make a thumb exit....
Here is the Link http://www.swim.ee/videos/back/Peirsol-stroke.mpg

Yes you are right, Peirsol does have a much different stroke than most backstrokers and it is important that people don't try to emulate him without their coach giving them the proper coaching on it.
The first 5 sec or so of the clip is the basic part that I wanted to look at showing his finish and exit, the rest of it shows mostly the recovery and entry which is not what some would call "textbook" but there is no "perfect" stroke.
Strokes are highly individualized at your level. My question then is when is the right time to start teaching people the Professional -vs- learning stroke? Isn't it possible to have a professional stroke at age 10? I don't quite understand where learning ends and professional begins.
Manipulation of the water for maximum speed is what I say when I coach, that's basically all swimming is for me anyways. How to better manipulate the water to find the fastest and most efficient way through it. Thanks, ML

I agree with you both, there is a subtle shift in focus when moving from learning to professional, and it's almost a philosophical shift, rather than something that has a line drawn on it.

It really begins when the athlete starts to understand WHY he/she does things, and begins to improvise around it. The athlete can key in on focus points, and isolate them during their own training.

They'll stop thinking so much about the BIG ROCKS (pull, kick, balance, head position), and start to discover the SMALL ROCKS (how the toes whip at the end of the kick, how the fingertips pierce or land in the water, how their lats are connected during the rotation of freestyle), and discover the BEST way for THEM to maximize each move, OR minimize each move.

This is where it gets tough as a coach. I'm not quite sure a 10 year old has a "professional" stroke based on what I've just said... and trust me, what I'm saying is no gospel... just ranting here.

I just think that a 10 year old with GREAT mechanics, well, is a 10 year old with GREAT mechanics. What we still need as a coach, is FEEDBACK from that athlete, experimentation on the small points. There will be a subtle shift from being the teacher of the swimmer, to the partner of the swimmer, to the student of the swimmer. Of course, there will only be a few athletes you'll ever work with that will reach that third stage, but it's well worth it when you meet them.

Also, you'll always be in partnership with the athlete, it's a very tough sport to do alone, so they'll always need us to ask them to do the things NO human would normally do.

Of course, that's fodder for another conversation.