Crawl swimming technology presentation

Swimming quickly and efficiently in Kraullage requires good water location as well as good swimming technique. Learning these in adulthood is more difficult than in childhood and an extremely high level of achievement is likely not to be achieved any more. Nevertheless, efficient swimming techniques can still be learned even at an advanced age.

The German Swimming Association (DSV) names 6 characteristics for a clean basic crawl technique that should exist. Below, we will detail these 6 characteristics. In doing so, we also highlight characteristics that a trainer from outside or yourself should identify when observing your technique. To do this, it may be useful to have yourself filmed while swimming (attention! Please only ever after consultation with the lifeguard).

• Body position/water position
• Body longitudinal axis rotation
• Leg movement
• respiration
• arm movement
• Coordination/rhythm

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Body position/water position

• stretched posture
• calm head position with back extension
• The head, shoulder, hip and heel are close to the water surface
• Upper body is slightly adjusted
• Continuity across the entire movement cycle

When observing, particular attention should be paid to ensuring that the back third of the head is above the water surface. The forehead should be in water and the gaze should be directed towards the ground. The butt should also be just below the water surface. This requires good core tension. It can be helpful to imagine pulling the belly button towards the center of the body.

Common mistakes include a head that is raised up/too low or restless, moving from side to side. In addition, snaking movements involving the entire body are frequent and undesirable.

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Body position/water position

• reciprocal and uniform rotation of the shoulders around the body's longitudinal axis
• stable hip posture
• uniform rotation on both sides is maintained when inhaled

In particular, the uniform rotation with a stable hip should be clearly visible. However, stable hips do not mean that the hip remains rigid and horizontal in the water, but that it moves stably and easily in relation to the body. Overall, the hip should be stable to avoid snaking movements and excessive rotation.

Common faults include uneven, too little or too strong rotation.

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Leg movement

• reciprocal • continuous • whip-like
• Downward and upward blow with equal intensity
• Impulse comes from the hip
• Feet: • loosely and slightly turned inwards
  • overstretched in a downward blow
  • stretched in an upward stroke
• In an upward stroke, foot breaks through the water surface

Special attention should be paid to the correct triggering of impulses in the hip. The impulse triggered here continues in the leg like a whip. A nice analogy here is swimming with diving fins while snorkeling. Here, an impulse is given from the leg and the fin blade snaps afterwards and thus transmits the impulse into the water. When swimming crawl legs, the lower leg follows this fin blade principle.

Common mistakes include interrupted leg movement, onset of impulse in the knee so that only the lower legs are moved and a failure to break through the water surface in an upward stroke.

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respiration

• continuous and complete exhalation under water (through mouth and nose)
• Inhalation through the mouth
• Head turns sideways around the body's longitudinal axis to inhale
• The rhythm of arm movement is maintained when inhaled

The respiratory rhythm is also particularly relevant for respiration. Unfortunately, it often happens that swimmers have trained themselves to breathe cleanly on one side in the pool over the years. However, when the waves come from exactly this side in a competition, the technique collapses because breathing on the other side is not mastered. For this reason, you should breathe regularly on both sides during training. In addition, you can see swimmers again and again who boast that they only have to breathe every 5 or even only every 6 arm pulls (= 5/6 breathing). What they often ignore, however, is that they withhold oxygen from their bodies and may thus artificially restrict their own performance. The aim should therefore be to be able to maintain a clean technique even during 2-minute breathing in order to supply the body with oxygen as consistently as possible.

Common breathing mistakes include incomplete exhalation under water, so that exhalation still has to be carried out during the overwater phase. This extends the time of your head above water and thus also the “break” between two trains - i.e. speed is lost. In addition, combined movements of turning to the side and raising the head are often observed. It is also important to avoid this

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arm movement

The arm movement can be broken down into 3 sub-phases. These are “Dive & hold water”, “pull & push phase” and the “return phase”.

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Dive in & “grab water” [1-3]

• low-resistance immersion in the extension of the body's longitudinal axis
• complete arm extension just below the water surface (supported by longitudinal axis rotation)
• easy adjustment of hand and forearm (“touching water”) just below the water surface

Relevant observational features here include dipping the hand as an extension of the forearm and the complete extension of the arm just below the water surface. In addition to water conditions, the most important technical element in crawl swimming is the high elbow/adjustment of the hand and forearm. After stretching, the hand and forearm are brought towards the pelvic floor (until they are approximately vertical in the water). The elbow remains fixed in position and close to the water surface so that the forearm is adjusted. To do this, the upper arm must rotate inwards in the shoulder joint. As a result, in the subsequent tensile and compressive phase, the force vector is shifted in such a way that the force is not transmitted towards the bottom of the pool, but as directly backwards as possible into the water.

Common mistakes include gripping the hand when dipping (hand moves across the imaginary center line) and sinking the arm early before touching water. This is often the cause of movement restrictions in the shoulder. On land, swimmers should be able to stretch both hands over their heads when placed on top of each other. The biceps rest on the ears (torpedo position). If this is not possible on land, it will be difficult to reach this position under load in the water, so a particular focus should be placed on flexibility training.

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Pull & “push phase [3-6]

• Elbow braces
• long print up to the thigh
• Hand is directed vertically to the pelvic floor as long as possible
• Speed up your arm and hand until the end of the printing phase

Relevant observation content here is elbow groaning, i.e., as mentioned above, the elbow remains in one position for a long time in order to maintain the vertical position of the forearm and hand, and thus the favorable force vector. In addition, a strong impression should be made so that the hand is only led out of the water behind the hip. The arm movement is accelerated from front to back.

A good picture to imagine the technique of arm movement under water is the following: We don't want to move our arm through the water in water. Instead, by setting the arm (see above), we want to fix our arm in the water so that we then accelerate our body past the fixed arm. You can illustrate this more clearly by imagining a wall bar lying horizontally in water. With each arm pull, we push our arm between two rungs, have the forearm in here and push ourselves to the next rung.

Common mistakes in this phase include “giving up” the elbow stretches early, leaving the most favorable force vector and in an impression phase that is too short, so that the hand is pulled out of the water before/at waist level.

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Return phase [7]

• Low-resistance and relaxed return of the arm
• High elbow

The most important observation content here is a deliberately relaxed return of the arm across water. The return phase should be designed in such a way that the drive muscles are as relaxed as possible. This can be supported by a high elbow (pulled towards the sky/ceiling of the swimming pool).

Common mistakes that should be urgently avoided include sliding your hand forward through water and “throwing back” the extended arm. Both lead to loss of strength. The latter also affects the water situation due to the greater lever effect when the arm is stretched.

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Coordination/rhythm

• 6-leg stroke (maintaining the rhythm even during inhalation)
• 3-way breathing (integrated into the arm movement process without problems)

The coordination of arms and legs and a good rhythm in the swimming movement mean that the overall crawl is smoother and less choppy and therefore also feels faster. For this purpose, the DSV suggests a 6-leg stroke (i.e. 6 leg strokes per arm pull) and 3-way breathing. While we would generally support 3-way breathing, we would want to add a restriction to 6-leg stroke. In people who have a less efficient leg stroke, continuously performing a 6-leg stroke will lead to severe fatigue, as the large muscle groups in the legs cause a particularly high energy turnover. Here we would suggest an individual approach with which swimmers find out the most efficient frequency of their legs for themselves. For example, small stairs/pyramid blocks are suitable for this purpose in swimming training. e.g. 11x50m divided as follows: 1-stroke, 2-stroke, 4-stroke, 5-stroke, 6-stroke, 5-stroke, 4-stroke, 3-stroke, 2-stroke, 1-stroke.

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Here you can find that Handout from the DSV on basic crawl swimming techniques: