Pushing the limits

Swimming Technique, Oct-Dec 1999 by Whitten, Phillip

In this, our third annual "facility construction" issue, Kari Lydersen outlines the building of six new aquatic facilities in the United States. These range in size from the Hubbard Swim School's 9,000 square-foot, $650,000 teaching pools in Phoenix, Ariz., to the University of Maryland's 252,000 square-foot, $40 million aquatic megaplex that includes a 55-meter by 25-yard competitive pool, two 25yard by 25-yard teaching pools and a diving well, plus a host of other amenities. The facilities have been built for a private swim school, a YMCA, a municipal recreation department, a military academy and two universities.

Over the past five years, biomechanist Bruce Mason of the Australian Institute of Sport has systematically analyzed the factors that contribute to swimming success. In "Six Steps to Greatness," Wayne Goldsmith, Australian Swimming's sports science coordinator, takes the competition analysis one step farther, outlining the six factors that are absolutely crucial to achieving swimming greatness: long strokes, fast strokes, great skills, excellent technique, and the ability to maintain these skills when fatigued and when under pressure. These factors can be utilized by coaches and their swimmers at all levels as a basis for improvement.

Many of the advances in swimming technique in recent years have come from an emphasis on using a swimmer's core strength: the changes in breaststroke and the use of a prolonged underwater dolphin kick during starts and turns in the backstroke and butterfly. This year, Japanese swimmers began using a dolphin kick while swimming backstroke on the surface. Several Stanford swimmers are now experimenting with this new technique. In "A New Backstroke Revolution?," Scott Rabalais explains this promising, new technique, including such factors as frequency, timing, rotation, amplitude, strength, stability and coordination. He finishes by outlining two drills that can be used to develop this technique.

Two articles explore how recently simplified technology can be utilized to improve swimming performance. In "Pace Lights and Swim Performance," the University of Buffalo's Budd Termin and his colleagues describe an underwater pacing light system they have developed, along with a computer program that both runs the system and analyzes the results for each swimmer. The system, which can handle up to 24 swimmers at a time in both short and long course pools, paces swimmers at predetermined speeds and runs intervals for an entire team. In a two-year experiment, freestylers using the pace lights improved twice as much as those who did not.

Pulse oximeters can optimize swim performance by providing biofeedback to swimmers about their own specific physiology. This is especially important for asthmatic swimmers. In "Peak Performance by Using a Pulse Oximeter," John Hendy explains just how this matchbook-size device can be used by swimmers to individualize their training.

In his "Beneath the Surface" column, former ASCA president George Block muses about how USA Swimming can "win the talent battle." While USA Swimming has done an outstanding job in communicating to its members, the key, he writes, is in external communication.

Cecil Colwin has been at the archives again, and this time he's emerged with the story of one of our sport's forgotten l9th century pioneers: William Wilson. In his "Off the Blocks" column, Colwin outlines the many contributions Wilson made.