I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, (I sure do hope your coach has) but Freestyle is evolving and there’s a common link starting to appear amongst the world’s Elite Freestyle swimmers.

Before I dive into it, for those not in the know, there’s been a sort of quiet holy war involving the Freestyle technique that’s been brewing for a while now; and it’s not the usual bent arm vs straight arm, 6beat vs 4beat vs 2beat kick or whether or not to tuck the chin and look straight down or eyes 450 looking forwards.

It’s about Hybrid Freestyle…more specifically the Gallop also known as Lunging or Horse Freestyle. Some coaches and most swimmers still don’t understand the benefits. I’ll get into that in a minute.

Regular Hybrid Freestyle has been around for a few decades, it’s a mix of using shoulder and hip rotation. The Gallop that can develop from using Hybrid Freestyle is thought to be a remnant of the original primitive Freestyle from eons ago, or whenever people started using Freestyle to move through the water.

It’s only in the last few years that Lunging as you swim has reemerged as a contender to potentially challenge the elite, by-the-textbook Freestyle. This Classic form of Freestyle has dominated the swimming world and is known for its coveted high elbow recovery, graceful symmetry and six-beat kick.

Most Classic Freestylers move in a symmetrical criss-cross X action down the pool. Weight is evenly transferred from side to side as the swimmer swims. Rotation comes from the hips which stay high in the water, the streamline is maintained especially during the rotating for the breath and the swimmer’s silhouette is narrow as if swimming through a tube. There is little to no splash (or bubbles attaching to hands) even at maximum speed.

Yet the raw and unorthodox Galloping Freestyle has busted out of the water like a freight train to steal the spotlight. Many of the famous World Champions of Swimming (Ledecky, Popovici, Phelps, Winnington, Paltrinieri etc) are using the not-so-by-the textbook Hybrid technique to surpass their rivals and win races.

Described as a ‘flawed stroke’ or ‘stroke that is falling apart’ the Hybrid Gallop is referred to by detractors as asymmetrical, inefficient, has an impossibly high stroke rate to maintain, encourages lifting the head to breathe, includes weird kick options and most importantly has an annoyingly distracting bobbing up and down of the head and upper body.

If you’ve trained in a squad during the last decade and dared to garner a Gallop, chances are you’ve been singled out and admonished for it.

But if World Champs and Record holders around the world from sprinters to middle and distance swimmers are using it, isn’t it time to acknowledge they might be onto something?

So what are the main features of this ‘unconventional Freestyle’?

Not all Gallopers are the same, but there is a common thread to the features, some Gallopers exaggerate a feature over others but here’s the top 5, I’ll address the others in my follow-up post:

1. The arms recover over the water at different speeds,

2. One arm is bent the other is straighter in both recovery and the pull,

3. The non-breathing arm gets thrown over the water during recovery (sometimes referred to as the lazy arm),

4. The head is raised, eyes forwards to breathe and

5. They duck under the water when they return their face to the water.

Innovation does not follow the rules, so remember Freestyle is not a competition of who can swim the prettiest, it’s about who can swim the fastest. Leaving the aesthetics behind let’s look at the mechanics of what the Arms and Head are doing when they Hybrid Gallop:

The Arms

Although it looks exhausting, a high stroke rate combined with a galloping pull gives a special kind of flow to the swimmer. It follows the natural law of an object in motion wanting to stay in motion. During a high stroke rate there are no pauses in the stroke. Although some swimmers seemingly ‘skate’ on their breathing arm it is their specifically timed kick that keeps them propelling forward. I’ll address the kick in the follow-up post.

The straight arm (referred to also as the ‘weaker arm’) recovers over the water, using a swinging action. The boxing world calls this the ‘Haymaker’, a powerful primal swinging punch involving the cocking back of the arm to increase the power behind the punch.

In swimming, it is a wide straight-arm swing with explosive power that assists both the head to swing around for a breath and drive the arm very quickly back into the water to start the catch. The non-breathing arm, uses both gravity and the momentum of the body’s rotation.

I’ll address the role of the hips in the follow-up post.

The Head

The best Gallopers (Evans, Ledecky, Popovici, Phelps) all raise their eyes as they begin to breathe and lift their heads out of the water when taking a breath. Either someone forgot to tell them this is a big no-no in swimming or they are doing it for a reason.

Yes, there is a reason. The most drag is experienced at the surface of the water, there’s less drag when fully submerged and even less if you fly over the surface. Classic swimming involves turning the head to the side to breathe. With conventional swimming, breathing slows the swimmer down and can disrupt the rhythm of the stroke, but these guys and gals are deliberately lifting theirs out of the water and the reason is gravity and rotational energy.

That lazy ‘Haymaker’ swinging arm we spoke of earlier makes the lifting of the head and rotating for air effortless. Like porpoising or a rock skipping over the water.

Combine the vertical propulsion of the lifting and diving of the head with the rotational swinging of the arms and shoulders and the swimmer is essentially corkscrewing down the pool rather than trying to ram themselves through the water. They’ve created a pattern and a rhythm that’s easy to maintain and has a highly effective connection with the water

Stay tuned and I’ll be back later to tell you what’s next in the evolutionary journey of Freestyle

Just a swim teacher with an opinion

AlyT

www.BornToSwim.com.au

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