Recently, at the Ohio state high school championship meet, Erik swam 19.6 in the 50 free, 44.0 in the 100 free, 48.2 in the 100 fly and 22.5 in the 50 back…all within the three hour meet. Not bad….for  a 5’ 10” junior in high school.

So how does a kid from Lima manage to do this? Talent certainly has a lot to do with it.  For me, Erik is an ongoing experiment, though. It all started about three years ago when Erik came to his first Race Club camp. Of course, I saw the talent and potential, but in one week I began to orchestrate the technical changes and pathway that would help lead to his recent successes (he won Junior Nationals last summer with a 22. 7 LCM). What makes the journey unusual is that aside from one annual visit to Lima for a few days and an occasional visit from Erik to the Keys, I have done all of the coaching of Erik vicariously through his father who is a dentist with a busy practice. Erik Sr. and his brother, Cory, coach Erik and a few of his teammates on the side, starting at 5 am. I just map out the strategy and workout plans and Erik’s father and uncle carry them out.

Erik has not been the only beneficiary of this new Race Club coaching strategy. Shawnee High School, where Erik attends, set a new district record in the 4 x 50 free relay with a time of 1:24.47. Having a 19.6 lead off didn’t hurt, but the other three swimmers on the relay consisted of two cross-country runners who have no intention of swimming in college next year and one football player who is only a sophomore and had never swum a complete season before. After one Race Club camp last fall and following the same plan, the three of them averaged 21.6 split times, again not bad for non-swimmers.

At The Race Club, we pride ourselves in helping swimmers make important technical changes in their swimming strokes. We pay attention to the details that make a difference between fast and not-so-fast swimming. We also share lots of information about why swimmers should pay attention to those details and the five important training disciplines of fast swimming. Yet, when the Race Club campers leave us, we have not had the opportunity for ongoing interaction with them. We could only hope they would retain much of what they learned here until the next visit.

The fact is that many of our swimmers come from areas like Lima that may not have an ideal training environment. I have known many parents and families that have uprooted and moved to a different community just to help their children or themselves succeed with a better program environment. Sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn’t. The point is that now there may be another option.

The Race Club now offers on-going coaching services that will provide continuity for our swimmers’ training and camps. These services will range in scope from minimal to comprehensive, depending on the situation and the swimmer’s needs. Whenever an existing coach is involved, we will work with that coach to develop a seasonal and career strategy, mapping out cycles, workouts, meets and goals. For comprehensive training, as we did with Erik, we will provide a regimen for all five important disciplines of training: swimming, strength/stretching/dryland, mental training, nutrition and recovery.

So the Erik experiment is working. While it may be very important to have a coach on deck, that coach does not need to necessarily be the conductor of the orchestra in order to achieve the desired outcome. We are very excited to offer our new coaching services. We hope you will discover what we can do for you.

Yours in swimming,

Gary Sr.

Email for consultation packages and rates.

What makes the induction process unusual is that the public gets to join in the voting. Voters are allowed to cast a vote once per day up until April 9, the final day of voting on the following link:

http://halloffamevoting.teamusa.org/

The public vote totals will be added to the totals of the Olympians’, Paralympians’ and US Olympic Family members’ votes to determine which of the six Olympians and one Paralympian will be inducted. In addition, there is a category for the team of the year and one of the nominees is the 1976 USA Women’s 4 x 100 freestyle relay that upset the steroid-laden East German team to win the Olympic gold medal.

This year, I am very proud that my son, Gary Jr, is one of the Olympian nominees. Biased as I am, Gary’s Olympic Games history of accomplishments is extraordinary; three Olympic Games (96, 00, and 04), 10 Olympic races and 10 Olympic medals; 5 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze. Unlike many athletes that had amazing careers, Gary saved his best swims for the Olympic Games. He was an Olympic Gamer.

What many people do not remember is that six of Gary’s ten medals, and both individual gold medals, were won after he was diagnosed with type I diabetes. In fact, the diagnosis came about one year before the Olympic Games in Sydney, when three different endocrinologists told him that he would never make an Olympic team again. Once he decided to prove them wrong, he elected to train for the 50 meter sprint only, leaving the more difficult and taxing 100 meters behind.

On the last day of the Janet Evans Invitational in Los Angeles in 2000, a last-chance meet to qualify for the Olympic Trials, Gary’s coach, Mike Bottom, asked Gary to lead off the 4 x 100 free relay. Gary hadn’t swum the 100 meters for over a year. Even though he hadn’t trained for that event, his lead off leg was barely under the cut for the Olympic Trials. Mike then convinced Gary that swimming the 100 meters at the Trials would be a good warm up swim for the 50 later in the meet.

On the morning of the 100 meter freestyle preliminaries at the Trials in Indianapolis, Gary was in one of the first heats, having one of the slowest qualifying times. He reeled off a 49 low, qualifying second behind Neal Walker. In the finals, he placed second behind Neal, qualifying to swim the 100 free in Sydney, an event he had not planned to enter just 3 weeks before.

Who can forget the famous or infamous 4 x 100 men’s freestyle relay of Sydney, perhaps the most exciting relay race ever…at least until USA vs France in 2008? In this relay, the lead changed hands between the Australian and American teams seven times, before Ian Thorpe touched out Gary Jr on the final stroke to the wall. Michael Klimm may have had the best swim on both teams, leading off for Australia with a world record, but Gary Jr had the fastest split of everyone, even though his team did not win.

That night, in a meeting of a rather despondent Team USA, Gary Jr broke the silence by saying ‘we may have lost the battle tonight…but we haven’t lost the war’. Team USA rebounded to have one of its best Olympic performances ever, while Team Australia, after their emotional air-guitar celebration of the relay, did not fare as well. Gary Jr also rebounded in those Games to win the bronze medal in the 100 freestyle from lane 7, tied his American teammate, Anthony Ervin, for the gold in the 50 meter freestyle and anchored the gold-medal winning 4 x 100 medley with a new world record.

Minutes after the medley relay victory, when NBC was trying to herd the four swimmers together for an interview on the Today show, the manager of Team USA asked for my help. Gary Jr was nowhere to be found. We searched high and low and finally, I found him lying in the grass near some tents behind the swimming stadium. He barely knew who he was. He was nearly in a diabetic coma. His blood sugar was in the low 20’s.

After getting some juice, he later came around and even made the end of the interview, but it reminded me of the seriousness of his disease and what he has to deal with every day, Olympic competition or not. Of all his career swims, including winning the 50 meter freestyle in Athens as the oldest male ever to win, I still consider those five 100 freestyles he did in Sydney, 2 on relays and 3 in the individual races, as his most courageous efforts. I often wonder what he might have done if he had been able to train for them.

In the long run, it doesn’t really matter. All of his Olympic performances, from nearly upsetting the great Russian swimmer, Alex Popov, in Atlanta in 1996 and coming from third place to first in the 4 x 100 relay with the fastest split ever, to becoming the oldest male swimmer in history to win an Olympic gold at 29 in Athens in 2004, were stellar. With his second fastest lifetime 50-meter freestyle, he narrowly missed making his fourth Olympic team at the age of 34 in 2008, ending his swimming career. He deserves his place in the Olympic Hall of Fame. I hope you will vote for him every day until April 9.

Vote for Gary Jr!

Yours in swimming,

Gary Sr.

So how important is it to have strength training be a part of your regimen? For sprinters who want to be competitive, I would say it is vitally important. However, just as in your swimming training, the type of strength training one does can play a huge role in the success or lack of.

What makes swimming so interesting and somewhat unique is the paradoxical relationship between the forces that slow us down (frontal drag) and the forces that propel us (biomechanics of propulsion). In most sports, the stronger one gets, the further one can hit the ball or faster one can run or harder one can hit. Not always so in swimming.

With swimming, the relative value of adding strength is greater when one is younger, smaller and slower than it is when one has gotten bigger and faster. The improvement in speed attained from the natural growth and additional strength from going through puberty, for example, may be greater than at any other point in the career of a swimmer.

Once a swimmer reaches a certain size and speed, however, gaining additional speed by purely adding strength (and size) becomes more problematic. The physics of frontal drag simply get in the way. With the density of water some 800 times greater than air, the sensitivity of frontal drag forces to minute changes in the shape of the human body, including arms and legs, moving through the water, particularly at speeds of good swimmers, is extraordinarily high. The sensitivity of adding speed from additional strength at this point is relatively low.

In other words, if we put aerobic conditioning aside just for a moment (albeit fully understanding how important this is), if one had to choose between spending more time getting stronger versus swimming with less frontal drag, ie better technique, I would choose the latter any day.

Does this mean our days in the weight room are over? Hardly. In order to swim fast, one needs to be strong. The key is to develop swim-specific strength in the correct swimming motions and positions that also create the least frontal drag. That is the tricky part, because in swimming, the pulling and kicking motions of the arms and legs that create the most power also contribute more to frontal drag, resulting in a slower swim. In order to swim fastest, we have to learn to avoid the temptation to go to the motions of power and find the motions of least frontal drag, even though they are not as powerful. Then we have to become stronger in those positions. That is what I mean be swim-specific strength training.

To help accomplish this, I have been working with VASA, the swim bench company in Vermont, to try to improve on their existing model. The first prototype that we completed last week, adds several new and unique features to their existing ergometer model. Though I cannot provide any details yet, I am really encouraged that the new model will enable a swimmer to develop the correct swim-specific strength that is vital to swim faster, while simultaneously providing a full body workout.

Yours in swimming,

Gary Sr.

In 1999, one of the most promising thoroughbred stallions on the racing circuit, Fusaichi Pegasus, sustained an injury to the front elbow at a crucial time in his career. The owner was considering putting the horse to stud and never racing him again. Dr. Doug Herthel, an equine veterinarian in Santa Ynez Valley, California, heard about the injury and offered to help. The owner agreed and allowed Doug to take the horse to try to rehabilitate it. His program included changing nutrition and using Platinum Granular formula, essentially the same ingredients as in the Platinum bar.

Remarkably, a horse that was never supposed to race again, Fusaichi Pegasus came back from the injury to win the Kentucky Derby in 2000. Doug attributes much of that success to changing the horses diet.

About the same time, Doug and his son, Mark, decided to produce Platinum nutritional products for humans. The Race Club World Team in 2000 became one of the first groups to use their products. While Fusaichi Pegasus was preparing to win the Kentucky Derby, we were preparing 13 world-class swimmers for the Olympic Games of Sydney, using Platinum bars and other Platinum products.

Up until our coach, Mike Bottom, who introduced The Race Club to Dr. Herthel, began using Platinum products for our swimmers, workout performances had been mediocre and recovery times very slow.  Once we began to use the Platinum products, we saw an immediate improvement in the quality of workout swims and shortened recovery times. Faster workout times and more good practices helped to build the confidence our swimmers needed for racing. Instead of eating sugar cereal for breakfast, our swimmers began eating one Platinum bar before and after each practice. We stopped our swimmers from going to fast food restaurants and began to provide healthy lunches and recommended healthier dinners. In 2000, our swimmers’ success was similar to Fusaichi Pegasus.

Ten of our thirteen swimmers qualified for their respective Olympic Teams (six were Americans). The American athletes won ten Olympic medals in Sydney, about 1/10th of the total that the USA won during those Olympic Games in all sports combined. A big part of our success was undoubtedly due to the improved nutrition. Of all their products, the Platinum bar was likely the most important one.

In my opinion, there are two key differences between the Platinum bar and most of the other health/energy bars on the market. First, Platinum bars have a very low glycemic index. Although they provide enough carbohyrdrates for athletes (23 grams), they are not the kind that will seriously elevate the blood sugar. Gary Jr is a type I diabetic who had been diagnosed one year earlier in 1999 and yet he was able to take the Platinum bars effectively without a significant rise in his blood sugar level. He could not do that with most of the other energy bars. Second, the Platinum bar is rich in healthy essential fatty acids, particularly the Omega-3 and Omega-6, and a multitude of vitamins and minerals. The Platinum bar digests quickly and does not leave a bad taste or unsettle the stomach.

Today, I recommend Platinum bars to all swimmers of all ages that attend the Race Club camps. I put all of my fastest swimmers on the product daily. With three good flavors to choose from, chocolate/sunflower seed, strawberry and blueberry, there is one to suit everybody’s taste. It is a great product to take before and after each practice, on the run when there is no time to stop and eat, or during competition, particularly when the wait period is longer than expected.

I take a Platinum bar every single day and if you want to swim fast, I recommend you do too.

Best in swimming,

Gary Sr.

Get Your Platinum Bars Today!

Since the hand/arm are now moving in the forward direction again, the objective of this phase is to slip the hand and arm out of the water with the least amount of frontal drag possible. To achieve this, the swimmer draws the elbow up and forward first with the forearm and hand following. The hand then rotates internally with the palm facing toward the swimmers body in order to reduce drag as it leave the water.

The duration of this final phase of the pull is about .15 seconds, slightly longer than the previous phase, but not much. Since the motion of the hand and arm are now forward and up, there is neither propulsion nor lift to be gained from this final phase of the pull. Once the hand leaves the water and begins the recovery above water, the sooner one can get the arm and hand back in the water for another pull cycle, the better.

The recovery of the arm above water takes only about .27 seconds. It is important to realize that while the pulling arm is in the fourth phase of the pull cycle, the other arm is already in the water and initiating the first lift phase of its new cycle. However, neither the release nor lift phase contributes to propulsion, so all of the propulsive power for this brief time must come from the legs.

The frontal drag forces of the human body in water, even in the most streamlined position we can manage, are so imposing that without some source of propulsive power happening, the body will begin to decelerate quickly. This is one reason why the kick is so important; to sustain some propulsive power during this brief ‘down time’ of the underwater pull.

For the record, this analysis of my underwater pull was done without any kick (pull buoy was strapped to my ankles) in order to isolate the effects of the pulling motion. My entire stroke cycle, including the recovery, took 1.1 seconds. This equates to a stroke rate of 110 strokes per minute or a cycle rate (rpm) of 55 cycles per minute. (Normally coaches consider stroke rates not cycle rates). In other words, I was sprinting using a shoulder-driven freestyle.

One can slow the stroke rate by holding longer in front (hip-driven technique), but the rest of the pull cycle (phases II through IV) as well as the recovery, should be just as fast as with the shoulder driven technique. By holding the hand in front longer, one effectively lengthens the propulsive ‘down time’ of the pull. However, because there is more time to rotate the hip, this type of pull will generate more power each time it goes through the propulsive phases because of the greater hip rotation creating a greater force to pull against. In order to use hip-driven freestyle effectively, however, one must also have a strong propulsive kick to sustain the body speed and help create more lift during the down time.

Virtually all of the fastest sprinters in the world use a high stroke rate, shoulder-driven technique. Where I live in the Florida Keys, instead of catch-and-release fishing, I call this catch-and-release swimming; quick catch (no hold out front) to get into the propulsive phase soon and quick release to get ready for another pull. Stroke rates for world-class swimmers vary from 110 to 140 in the 50 sprint and 85 to 110 for the 100 meters. For distance swimmers doing the mile, stroke rates will vary from 60 strokes per minute for hip-driven freestylers to nearly 100 strokes per minute for some shoulder-driven freestylers.

For distance swims, both hip-driven and shoulder-driven techniques can be effective, depending on the strength of the kick. In the former, one uses more of Bernoulli’s principle taking advantage of lift, so long as there is a good kick behind. In the latter, one uses the arms more like a propeller, trying to keep a more constant propulsive force applied by the arms. The technique that works best for you will depend on how strong a kicker you are and how aerobically fit you can become in order to sustain a higher stroke rate.

Yours in swimming,

Gary Sr.

Since the hand/arm loses power biomechanically as it moves rearward into the back quadrant, several things happen in order to help sustain the propulsive force. First, the hand elevates and the wrist dorsiflexes to keep the maximum surface area pushing backward. Second, the upper arm tucks into the swimmer’s side creating some motion backward of that part of the arm with a resultant propulsive force. Third, as a result of the body coming to the end of its counter rotation during this phase and stopping its motion to initiate a new rotation in the opposite direction, the stabilizing force from the body rotation is now minimized. To replace that force, the most powerful of the three down kicks that happen during the underwater pull (with a 6 beat kick), occurs toward the side of the pulling arm, as the body is now rotated to this same side, and coincides with this final propulsive phase of the pull. This hard kick now acts as the primary stabilizing force for this phase of the pull and enables the swimmer to maximize all of the power possible from this weaker back quadrant pulling position.

By the time the hand reaches 9 o’clock and it is near the hip, the elbow is now nearly fully extended and there is no longer any propulsive power available to gain from that arm pull. At this moment the body speed is as fast as it will get during the stroke cycle, primarily because the propulsive phase has just ended and the position of both arms (one out front and the other behind) reduces the drag coefficient to its lowest point. It is now time to get the hand back into the front quadrant as quickly and efficiently as possible in order to start another pull.

Yours in swimming,

Gary Sr.

The amount of body speed that is generated by this propulsive phase of the underwater pull is related to the effective surface area of the pulling arm/hand, the speed or acceleration of the hand/forearm as it moves backward and the amount of force generated by the counter-rotation of the body. The body speed is also inversely related to the amount of frontal drag created by the ever-changing shape of the entire swimmer throughout the pull cycle.

I often ask my campers the question of whether the power of the arm pull is greater in the front quadrant or the back quadrant, separated anatomically by the shoulder. I would say that the responses that I get are about half and half, which is to say that at least half the people don’t know the answer. The others are probably good guessers.

Since the propulsive phase begins when the hand is at the 3 o’clock position, the hand is then situated in the front quadrant, about one foot in front of the shoulder. By the time the hand reaches this point, two important things have happened. First, as the body counter-rotates in the direction of the pulling arm, the arm has moved from an extended position (negative angle) of the shoulder joint to initiate the lift phase (using a high elbow position), to a flexed position (positive angle) to initiate the propulsive phases. The flexed position of the arm/shoulder joint puts the arm in a much greater biomechanical position of strength than the extended position. Second, the rotation/counter-rotation of the body requires that the rotation of the body starts slowly, accelerates to a faster speed, then it slows again to a stop, before rotating in the opposite direction. The greatest amount of counter force that is generated by this rotational motion occurs in the middle when the rotational speed is greatest. This also coincides with the hand propulsion in the front quadrant moving from 3 o’clock to 6 o’clock. The greater the counter force, the more power we can generate from the arm pull.

The biomechanical strength of the arm not only changes as the body counter rotates, but also as the hand moves from 3 o’clock, a position about a foot above the shoulder, to 9 o’clock, when the hand is closer to the hip. When the hand begins this propulsive journey at 3 o’clock, it starts out with the highest level of strength, engaging arm, shoulder, back, chest and core muscles. By the time it ends the propulsive journey at 9 o’clock, close to the hip, the tricep muscle is just about the only muscle still working. Most of the others have all dropped out.

If one were to try to equate body speed to power of the underwater pull, it would be easy to believe that more power is generated in the back quadrant because the body speed (in my example with arms only) increases from 1.39 m/sec at the 3 o’clock position to 1.58 m/sec at the 6 o’clock position to 1.71 m/sec at the 9 o’clock position. In other words the further back my hand gets, the faster I am going. However, body speed is not just determined by the power of the underwater pull. It also depends on frontal drag and most of that extra drag is being contributed by the upper arm moving forward during the entire front quadrant phase. By the time the hand reaches 6 o’clock and enters the back quadrant, the elbow gets tucked into the side quickly and the upper arms stops contributing to frontal drag, as it begins to move backward slightly.

For both of these reasons; greater biomechanical strength in the front and maximum rotational body speed in the front, I believe most of the power of the arm pull is generated in the motion within the front quadrant from 3 to 6 o’clock, rather than in the back quadrant, from 6 to 9 o’clock. So the next time your coach tells you to push your hand out the back, think twice before you do it.

Yours in swimming,

Gary Sr.

Short of wearing a wetsuit, the only two natural contributors to lifting the body while swimming are the arms and legs. While using a six-beat kick, the legs contribute three times the number of lift efforts to each arm pull. However, the arms are capable of making a huge contribution to lift, but that occurs only at the beginning of each underwater pull, from the 12 o’clock to the 3 o’clock position on the ‘glare’ clock. During that time, the arm and hand are in a lesser frontal drag position, stretched out in front, close to the line of motion of the body.

There are two reasons why the hand/arm create lift in the early phase of the underwater pull. The first is from Bernoulli’s principle, which requires the relative speed of water above the arm and hand is greater than below it, resulting in a greater pressure below to create lift. This type of lift is greatly dependent on the speed at which the arm and hand are moving through the water. Unlike an airplane, which requires tremendous speed in order to lift it off the ground, one can achieve lift in the water from this mechanism at relatively slow speeds. Yet the faster one is moving in the water, the more of this type of lift occurs. Since the outstretched arm and hand in front are responsible for creating some of this type of lift (the rest occurs on the body or legs) and at this particular moment in the cycle the front arm/hand does not contribute at all to propulsion, that means the propulsion needed for the Bernoulli lift is coming from either the legs only (shoulder-driven freestyle) or both the other hand/arm and the legs (hip-driven freestyle). It is for this very reason that hip-driven freestyle, which requires a longer push out front with the arm/hand and delays momentarily reaching the propulsive phases, results in more Bernoulli lift, particularly with a strong kick. The other hand is contributing to the propulsion at this moment. In addition, the kick itself also provides much lift from its force downward.

The second means of creating lift with the arm/hand is also by simply applying a downward force. This motion always occurs in either a hip-driven or shoulder-driven technique because it is necessary to get the hand into a deeper position where it can move backwards, creating propulsion. The difference is timing, as the hip-driven freestylers will delay this downward force while driving forward with strong legs and a bigger hip turn (rotation), while the shoulder-driven freestyler requires an immediate downward force after the hand entry, resulting in a higher arm stroke rate.

In my example, using a shoulder-driven technique, the hand remains in the lift position for .35 seconds, longer than all of the other phases, including the above water recovery. In the hip-driven technique, where the stroke rate may slow to 60 per minute, the cycle time slows to 2 seconds (from 1.1 seconds in shoulder driven) and the duration of the hand/arm in the lift phase would be about l to 1.25 seconds, longer than the entire cycle time of the shoulder-driven freestyler.

Regardless of which freestyle technique is used, the way in which this downward force of the arm/hand is initiated has a huge bearing on how much frontal drag is caused from the remainder of the arm motion underwater. In particular, it really matters what is happening with the upper arm, from the elbow to the shoulder, as that part of the arm is moving forward for 2/3 of the entire duration of the underwater pull (or ¾ of the underwater pull time for the hip-driven swimmer). Once the hand reaches 3 o’clock, it starts moving backward and no longer contributes to frontal drag (except slightly during the release phase when it is moving forward again). The upper arm continues to move forward contributing to frontal drag until the hand is past 6 o’clock. At that point, the upper arm is tucked into the swimmer’s side, moving backward for a brief moment before the release. One can choose either to pull in a more natural way by pushing down with the entire arm from the shoulder to the hand to create this lift from 12 o’clock to 3 o’clock. Not only will this motion create more lift, it will also put the arm in a more favorable biomechanical position for the second and third propulsive phases of the pull. However, this is not the way the fastest swimmers pull. So what is the catch (no pun intended)? This motion also causes the highest amount of frontal drag by immediately putting the upper arm off axis (this means it is not in line with our body’s motion). This deeper pulling pathway also keeps the upper arm off axis for a longer period of time. The result is in an increase in frontal drag that more than offsets the amount of additional power and lift that this motion allows. It is like putting one’s foot on the gas and the brake at the same time. The net result is a slower swim and a more exhausted swimmer.

The better option for the lift phase of the underwater pull is to create the lift motion with the forearm and hand only. Leave the upper arm moving more or less straightforward, elbow near the surface, while the hand moves from 12 o’clock to 3 o’clock. This position is known as early vertical forearm. If one is rotating the body properly, whether using a hip-driven or shoulder-driven technique, this motion puts the lead arm initiating the underwater pull into an extended shoulder position. That means that the arm is actually angled at the shoulder joint behind the body (negative angle). In this position, the arm is simply not as strong as it is in a neutral or positive angle, pointing forward. Fortunately, as the body counter-rotates while the hand/arm go through the pulling motion, by the time the hand is into the propulsive phase at 3 o’clock and begins to move backward, the shoulder joint is now back into a positive angle. Not as much power is sacrificed during this crucial propulsion phase as one might think. Yet, even though by using this pulling motion, one reduces both lift and some propulsive power in the arm, one still ends up being better off because the upper arm in this motion creates much less frontal drag. Bottom line: Reducing frontal drag trumps power.

In order to swim fast, you need the lift from both your arms and both your legs. When it comes to getting the lift from the arms, however, use the hand and forearm, not the upper arm. This motion creates the high elbow or early vertical forearm position that reduces frontal drag and is paramount to fast swimming.

Yours in swimming,

Gary Sr.

Underwater Pull Video Series:

• Introduction
• Lift
• Propulsion Front Quadrant
• Propulsion Back Quadrant

In the late 60’s and early 70’s, my coach at Indiana University, Dr. James Counsilman, began to study the motion of the hand underwater using strobe lights attached to the fingers of the swimmer in a completely darkened pool. ‘Doc’ would lie still on the bottom of the pool with his scuba gear and his high speed Bolex movie camera, encased in a plastic waterproof housing, and film swimmers such as Mark Spitz, Charlie Hickcox and me overhead. He would then do the same from the side view. From these movies, ‘Doc’ was the first to observe that the hand releases from the water very nearly at the same point as it enters the water to begin each underwater pull. He also observed that the hand moves with considerable sculling motion, from side to side, during the underwater part of the cycle. From this, he deduced that the primary function of the hand/forearm was not a paddle, as previously thought, but rather more of a wing, providing lift. This function obeyed an entirely different law, Bernoulli’s principle, which requires that relative to the arm and hand, the water molecules above the arm are moving at a greater speed than those below. The difference in relative speed of these molecules results in a pressure differential from above and below the arm, creating lift.

Later, other scientists, such as Dr. Joel Stager, also at Indiana University, proved that both theories are correct. The hand and forearm act as both a wing and a paddle, but at different phases of the underwater pull. Much of the side to side motion of the pull, the so-called S pull that ‘Doc’ advocated, is really not beneficial to increasing propulsive power. However, maximizing propulsive power may also not be the most desirable way to pull underwater, as the resultant body speed is related not only to the propulsive power, but inversely related to the frontal drag created by the swimmer’s body and motion of the arms and legs. What makes swimming so challenging is the need to find the right compromise between the motions that produce the most propulsive power and those that result in the least frontal drag.

I have learned more about the mechanics of the underwater pull from a technology called the velocity meter than any other. A few years ago, Dr. Budd Termin came to The Race Club in Islamorada with this technology that uses a Kevlar line attached to the swimmer’s waist. As the swimmer moves through the water, he photographs him/her using four simultaneous stationary video cameras; three from the side and one from the front view. As the Kevlar line unreels, he can then measure the precise body speed at all points during the stroke cycle. For some of the freestyle analysis, in order to understand the pull better, I eliminated the contribution of the kick and isolated the arm and body motions by attaching a pull buoy strapped to my ankles. One of these shots in particular turned out to be very fortuitous as a circular glare spot on the camera lens just happened to coincide almost exactly with the motion of my hand during the underwater pull. From the known length of my arm, I was able to estimate the size of the glare spot projected onto the location of my body to be approximately two feet in diameter. As one views my hand moving through the underwater pull relative to this motionless glare spot, one can also easily appreciate the actual motion of each part of the entire arm and hand relative to the water, that is motionless like the glare spot.

It turns out that if one were to consider that the glare spot were a clock, my hand enters the water at 12 o’clock at the surface and travels nearly exactly around the perimeter of the clock until it reaches 6 o’clock. At that point, the hand cuts inside the quarter of the clock face by elevating toward the center of the clock, and then it proceeds backward toward 9 o’clock. Once the hand reaches 9 o’clock, it releases from the water by following the perimeter of the clock again back to 12, exiting the water almost precisely where it started. In the analysis of this pulling-only stroke cycle, the entire trip around the clock occurs in .85 seconds, while the entire cycle, including the recovery above water, takes 1.1 seconds.

While I am using a shoulder-driven sprint stroke for this example with a relatively high rate of 110 strokes per minute, it serves to demonstrate how the hand and arm are functioning during the underwater pull.

I will use the ‘glare’ clock to divide the underwater pull into four phases; lift, front quadrant propulsion, back quadrant propulsion and release. The lift phase occurs from 12:00 o’clock to 3:00 o’clock. The front quadrant propulsion phase occurs from 3:00 o’clock to 6:00 o’clock. The back quadrant propulsion phase occurs from 6:00 o’clock to 9:00 o’clock. The release phase occurs from 9:00 o’clock back to 12:00 o’clock.

Yours in swimming,

Gary Sr.

I address you from my inter-web computer in California, my new home state. It’s kind of like the bat phone, but for swimming. And it’s a computer.

After one year and eight months I moved out of Seattle. While there is a lot to love about Seattle I couldn’t get over the rain. By the way, Seattle gets a lot of rain by reputation, and reality.

Platinum Performance

The Hall, Jr. family moved to Santa Barbara County. I took up a consulting role with a company that I’ve worked with since 1999. Platinum Performance® human formulas were developed in 1997 with the purpose of advancing preventive, therapeutic and sports nutrition. I was introduced to Platinum product in 1999 and since used it religiously through my swimming career and beyond, and found that the Platinum products help to increase performance, reduce recovery time and helped maintain my blood sugar levels.

The Race Club is proud to share association with such a prestigious brand. I’m sure that you’ve noticed Platinum Performance presence on The Race Club webbed-site. Platinum makes a product that we believe in, wholeheartedly. More importantly, we believe in the company, and the family that stands behind that company.

In the wake of the Brazilian “tainted supplement” scandal, now more than ever it is imperative for an athlete consuming nutritional supplements to know their source. An athlete risks their reputation and career on the integrity of the nutritional supplement company they choose. Why take that risk?

Simply put, because you need to. You can’t expect to train or compete at the highest level of sport without taking some nutritional supplements- unless you are more talented than Michael Phelps. Because Michael Phelps takes supplements. So does the overwhelming majority of your competitors, every baby on formula and anyone that has consumed a Vitamin Water.

There is nothing wrong with taking legal nutritional supplements as long as you are certain that your chosen company has taken every precautionary measure to assure the highest levels of quality control and purity.

Platinum Performance Quality
• All formulas are developed and produced in our own California facility
• All formulas are tested for banned substances, eliminating the possibility of cross contamination
• Highly bio-available ingredients
• Sourced from high quality suppliers
• Each lot of raw ingredients is tested for purity and potency before entering the facility
• All Platinum suppliers are vetted and certified
• Internal quality assurance team

There are some great articles in the most recent issue of TIME magazine describing how we are just beginning to understand how important nutrition is in the prevention and treatment of injury and illness, health maintenance and athletic performance.

As athletes sensitive to our body’s output levels and recovery ability this information that nutritional supplements are good for you, may seem like old news. I remember being on National Team trips with an incredible swimmer (known for a heroic anchor leg swim), who would pack an entire suitcase full of various supplement bottles when he traveled to competitions.

When I was competing I longed for a nutritional supplement resource that could direct me to high quality product that was safe, reliable and effective. The “hotline” that I reached as one of the world’s fastest swimmers had a looped recording of “Take at your own risk!” It was a liability release. How could I verify the quality and purity of a product? This was one of my most frustrating experiences as an athlete.

My liability release: Call your federation/NGO “hotline”. Check your NCAA or FINA list, and check it twice. Take at your own risk.

I’m comfortable encouraging the use of Platinum Performance. I’ve staked my reputation on the quality of the brand. If that’s not enough for you (and it wouldn’t have been for me as an active, tested athlete), I invite you to tour our manufacturing facility in Buellton, CA. I think that you’ll be impressed with our 45,000 sq ft facility and I know that you’ll be more impressed with the difference that the Platinum products make in health and performance.

Watch the video Video of Gary Hall Jr. on Platinum Performance

Other stuff I’ve been up to:

National Youth Sports Health & Safety Institute

Last week I was named to the Leadership Board for the National Youth Sports Health & Safety Institute . This is a collaborative effort between the American College of Sports Medicine and Sanford Health (more info here).

I will help NYSHSI determine the parameters of how much training is too much training for age group swimmers. The identified parameters will eventually be legally implemented in youth sport. Smile at that one, sprinter friends!

Sanford Children’s International Board

Serving on the International Board I will assist in the site selection and construction of 100 children’s hospitals in underserved areas over the next ten years.

American College of Sports Medicine and International Diabetes Federation

I was in NYC this week for the UN Summit Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases. I attended events and a panel discussion for ACSM and IDF meetings.

And I’m competing in an open water swim off Malibu.

Aqua Notary,

Gary Hall, Jr.