Guidelines for increasing propulsive force

Always wait until a high elbow catch position has been achieved before apllying backward force against the water. Inexperienced swimmers try to apply force when the arms are facing downward or against the water. They must learn to wait until they have positioned the undersides of the arms and the palms of the hands to push back against the water before apllying force. The arms and hands should travel through approximately one-third of their underwater armstrokes before swimmers begin to push backward against the water.

The arms should be flexed approximately 90 degrees when the catch is made, and they should not be extended or flexed further by any significant amount during the propulsive phases of the strokes that follow. In other words, swimmers should form a boomerang-shaped paddle with the undersides of the arms and hands when they make the catch, and they should press backward against the water throughout the stroke without changing the shape of the appreciable. In this way, the work of forward propulsion is done by the large adducting and extending muscle groups of the shoulders and torso instead of the small muscle groups that tend to rotate the forearms and hands. The only exception to this rule occurs in the backstroke, in which the arms extend backward and below the thighs during the propulsive phase of their strokes.

Keep the palm of the hand and the underside of the forearm aligned as though they were one jointless unit during the propulsive phases of the various armstrokes. The tendency to rotate the hand in and out in advance of the arm in the same direction and the tendency to overflex or hyperextend the hand at the wrist during the propulsive armstroke phase are two of the most common errors swimmers make. The hands do rotate during the various underwater armstrokes, but this is only because they are facing in the direction the arms are moving. This rotation is not initiated by rotating the palm and allowing the arm to follow. Swimmers should keep the palms of the hands aligned with the undersides of the forearms and allow the direction the arms are moving to dictate the pitch of the hands.

Always stroke in diagonally backward patterns during the propulsive phases of the underwater armstrokes. Even though drag is propably the dominant propulsive force in swimming, pulling and pushing the arms straight back through the water will not provide the greatest distance per stroke, nor will it provide the fastest forward velocity. Effective swimming requires deviations from the straight backward application of force.

Hand speeds should accelerate in pulses with each major change in their direction, from the time they make the catch to the end of each underwater armstroke. The hands accelerate in pulses during underwater armstrokes, slowing as they make the transition from one sweep to the next and then accelerating  to the next point of transition. Nevertheless, hand velocity does accelerate from the start to the finish of their propulsive phases. Although they accelerate and decelerate in pulses, the hands should never reach maximum velocity until they are near the end of the propulsive phase of a particular underwater armstroke.

Propulsive efforts should cease as the hands approach the legs on their way to the surface. Many swimmers make the mistake of pushing against the water until the hands reach the surface. Because the arms will be facing too far upward after they pass the legs, applying force at that time will not create any additional propulsion. Instead, it will push the body downward, decelerating forward speed in the process.