Sidestroke Variations

This seems to be easy to do but gets some criticisms from the viewers:

https://youtu.be/YK1QRGFPXs8

I am new to this topic and haven,t yet tried it.

The head is always breathing out of the water and all the thrust comes from the legs. I saw other methods that had more arm streamlining but anything with glide is always going to be slow compared to the crawl.

There seems to be different ways of doing sidestroke and any new ideas for me will help me swim in the busy socially close pools that I go to.

This is much more muscular using a lot more arm thrust plus an alternating dolphin kick in addition to the scissor kick.

https://youtu.be/ziymDC73Eug

Ooo Er! Are we trying to resuscitate the old early 1900's Trudgen stroke?

You mean like this!

https://youtu.be/UllOELIWwoA

Named by Mr T (1852 - 1902).

Aka Racing stroke or Indian stroke.

This developed into the Front Crawl.

Yus!   I have a little story to tell about that.  Not long after I had learnt to swim. probably around the late 1950's, I was practising Trudgen in the old Victorian Swim Baths in Pompey.  There were never any pool attendants - just the manager Mr Bland (who had swum The Channel twice) watching swimmers with an "eagle eye".  To my great embarassment and confusion, he called out to me "Hey! - why are you swimming that 'old-granny' stroke!  It was good enough for my granny, but not for these days!' .  So as not to offend his sense of dignity I went back to swimming freestyle. which I was not very proficient at - then!.

 Usually Mr Bland would at lunch-times have a swim himself, doing a bit of butterfly stroke - and that was the start of my interest in fly stroke - well he could scarcely call that an 'old-granny' stroke!

 I still love the first stroke that I ever learnt - the old English Back Stroke, from an old swim book I once had.  after discovering I actually could float! It is the most relaxed of all the strokes I reckon.  Sad that my pool is usually too busy to allow the use of wide arm strokes!

 Just general swim chat!.... Although my pool conditions are usually too busy for "wide-arm" strokes, when the lane is clear at an end as I approach, can do a couple of such strokes for a short distance towards the wall.  (Well that's better than nothing!).  I soon discovered that through lack of practice, that I had to re-learn the essentials of fly stroke.  The first thing was to utilize the quick "head nod" down , below the level of the outstretched arms, to elevate the the legs (as a "ripple" travels along the spine,  as they start the major kick upbeat,  otherwise the body is too much below the horizontal.  Also, I reckon it is vitally important for the "scoop" or first part of the double arm movement, to come to a close with the arms being brought in under the body and the elbows almost digging into the tum, while the "more trailing" forearms are out in font lower down under the head, forearms maybe at 45 degees below the surface.  By getting into that attitude before the major kick downbeat, the forearms (thumbs close to one another!) can exert maximum power like a big paddle,as they push back and up towards the surface, giving a good upward lift, to facilitate inhalation.   That lift causes the body to slope well below the horizontal - so another quick head nod down is soon needed to start the next dolphin kick upbeat while the arms are recovering OW.  Think one needs to concentrate on the feet going through a continuous without any pause up/down kicking action.

  Muggins is trying further adaptations to his FS.  I don't think the lungs function so well as one gets older,  consequently buoyancy degrades.  I still prefer inhaling on each 4th arm stroke, but it is "harder" than inhaling on each 2nd arm stroke - yet gives more time to concentrate on what one should be doing!!!
   In trying to make the normal 2 arm stroke inhalation when swimming FS, less of a rush, to expel all the stale air and quickly suck in the next lungful (which does not work well for me - I seem to be a slow breather!) am trying  to "briefly pause" the arm on the non-breathing side, before recovering it OW.  That gives me a little bit more time for exhalation before the breathing-side arm stroke.   But I also make a pronounced roll to my beathing side as I start that arm stroke before inhalation - so I briefly use the old "T.I" idea of the old "sideways-on tea clipper" (which "may or may not" be true for swimmers, but it feels OK!. * That seems to make life easier for me.  Have reached the stage when am not fussed by being slow, I just want to be relaxed!

* Perhaps I been watching tropical fishes in an aquarium tank too much, they have flexibility for spinal "sideway-on" body ripples and we don't. Also by tilting oneself to swim briefly "on the side" have we reduced frontal drag? so that our motion is more like that of a narrow skiff rather than a wide tug-boat i.e. when our shoulders are more horizontal? I know we still project the same frontal area to oncoming water - we aint changed shape but why does it seem better I wonder! Is it partly because the uppermost shoulder may be slightly above the water line, reducing the frontal area slightly?