Recovery mistakes in butterfly

The three most common mistakes swimmers make when they recover the arms are to recover them too high, recover them with too much effort, and drag them through the water.

Dragging the arms through the water will considerably reduce forward velocity. The shoulder muscles should also be given some time to relax during recovery. Therefore, swimmers should use the minimum force necessary to overcome the backward inertia of the arms and get them moving forward. They should not thrust them forward into the water with great muscular effort.

Recovering the arms high overhead requires shoulder flexibility that is outside the range of most swimmers. It is neither necessary nor even advisable for swimmers to recover the arms in this manner. The only reason for recovering high would be to keep the arms from dragging through the water. Dragging can be prevented with a lateral recovery, however, provided swimmers let the trunk and shoulders rise out of the water during the upsweep and recovery.

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