Flexibility test

How did you perform?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8tLoN_AmKM&feature=youtu.be

I'm worse than Jim Lubinski (which however is a pro triathlete)...!

Salvo

I can get them at shoulder width with my own muscles without any external help.Arms pointing 20 degrees down and parallel backward.
I dont get why this is important, never swim in this position.

good find, he will be making more videos I guess.

I am kind of in the middle: if somebody presses, getting the hands together is fine, but don't know how much further I can go.

And I totally agree that this shows how misleading the *early* vertical forearm is for most late starters.

Hands chest width apart under own muscle.

Reminds me of the pole test when you grasp it each end and take it back over your head. That test depends on how far apart the hands are.

I did all these rubbish flexibility exercises in my childhood while swimming in clubs, our trainers were forcing us to do these waste of time things.

Water polo players, triathletes who swim faster than me with weird techniques are not doing early vertical forearm pulling and also quite less flexible than me. Keep in mind that being flexible is not a key for swimming better and faster, it is just a show, a material for the trainers, will never make you faster, because everyone has a natural body type, you can not turn a pear into an apple I.E M.Phelps was also swimming fantastic and very flexible at the age of 12 when he hadnt started hard working in his early years of swimming life, on the other hand his opponents were weaker and slower though they had started swimming earlier than him.
I have never had such a fit body in my 35+ years of swimming life, have you?
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ8DJlLWgvDSk4hNUni4jzPDeyrySMC7kxWc7NhbwfvZwVBaFkY

As I mentioned before swimming faster is related with our genetic capabilities such as natural power, natural flexibility, natural agility.

These things can be increased very much, if you were born to be flexible, then you will grow and be flexible. Only including the wattage(power) may help us to swim a bit faster (max. 10-15% with spending tons of hours in the gym or at home weighting lifts, pulling ropes, doing core body exercises - actually all are becoming boring after a while and you give up) after the age of 16.

So regularly swimming(minimum 1000 K a year), doing intervals, doing clever drills, doing some power sets during the sessions, eating healthy food especially in the evenings (i cant do this), doing some power exercises at home (minimum 15 minutes a day) is a key to swim faster after the age of 16. If you are already doing these but still cant get faster, then you must give up swimming and start archery

nightcrawler wrote:Only including the wattage(power) may help us to swim a bit faster (max. 10-15% with spending tons of hours in the gym or at home weighting lifts, pulling ropes, doing core body exercises - actually all are becoming boring after a while and you give up) after the age of 16.

Moreover after about 40 years of age (even earlier for someone), lean body mass starts to decline, so it's even more important to add some weight training. Not only for swimming purposes but for health in general.

Salvo

SA wrote:

good find, he will be making more videos I guess.

Curious to see Gerry swimming?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMLSvrS2UT0&feature=youtu.be

About Jim: he's a good example of a late beginner with limited flexibility who can go sub 19:00 and sub 1h in the swim leg of respectively an olympic distance triathlon and an ironman.

Salvo

Very aligned, but looks a bit robotic. All those swimmers trying to look good on video dont swim like they normally swim. He is promoting his taut advice I guess.
Have you some race speed footage too?

Still dont understand why I should want to have my arms so much behind my backplane....

Note that his left hand pulls along a different line to his right hand. The right hand does pull along the centre line unlike the left which pulls along the side.

SA wrote:

Still don't understand why I should want to have my arms so much behind my backplane....

Since you need to have a range of motion much greater than just what's needed in the normal swimming motion, so that you can swim fully relaxed, even if applying force.

We late starters all swim on a shoestring, especially when going streamline, then we need to apply considerable force to just reach and maintain the streamline --- and that harms the swimming, finally destroys it.

Though one can improve: over the last 4 years my flexibility improved a lot; and, objectively, that's one of the most important gains for me from swimming --- without it perhaps I wouldn't be able to perform my work anymore, due to the accumulating problems especially in shoulder and neck, but also in the thoracic spine.

And with improving flexibility you start *feeling* the value of these typical swimmer exercises, taking the arms back --- it stretches the whole system, the whole system changes from a solid block to something more vivid.

Agree thats more ideal to swim within the limits of range of motion.
At the same time I think this is more a general shoulder flex assesment than a specific stroke relevant measure.
My streamline and high elbow flexibility have improved over the years but the result of typical test where you should touch the hands behind the back (one arm over the shoulder) is not.

There are a lot of stretches that only weaken the position stability of the shoulderjoint in the socket.
Stretches that increase the range of motion of the shoulderblade are the best ones I think.

SA wrote:

Still dont understand why I should want to have my arms so much behind my backplane....

maybe to intimidate the other swimmers right before you dive (like Phelps on the blocks) so they move away and let the lane free