Tag Archives: butterfly

Breathing for Butterfly

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I was recently (yesterday) approached regarding breathing technique and frequency for the butterfly stroke.  As a swim coach, I like to see as little stroke and velocity altering movements as possible.  In other words, breath as little as possible.  However, if you are going to breath (which is somewhat inevitable), try to stay as low profile as possible.  You can do this in two ways as long as they don’t alter your stroke velocity significantly.

The first is a fading technique called side breathing.  It’s basically a freestyle breath to the side instead of a “regular” breath.  This may be a little difficult at first but it helps maintain an extremely low profile through the water and when it is mastered should not have a significant effect on the overall stroke velocity.

The second is to breath up, but jutting the chin forward in the water while maintaining a head position of 45 degrees (give or take).  This will, essentially, give you a lower profile than trying to lift the body/head up because you are trying to stay lower keep the chin in the water.

Either way you choose to breath, make sure that you stay as low in the water as possible, and maintain the same stroke efficiency and speed throughout.

As always, if you have any questions feel free to let me know by leaving comments and/or follow the discussion by subscribing to this blog!

Happy swimming!

Over The Barrel – Early Vertical Forearm

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There are several types of coaches out there, but the common thing that I hope you hear when asking about freestyle technique is the importance of swimming with your forearms!  As all of my Hamden North Haven Swim Team (the YMCA Typhoons) know, I stress technique as much as anything else that we do in practice.  In my opinion, with better technique comes faster swimmers, and better future coaches!  And better coaches mean better future swimmers (you get the picture).  Anyway, all of those future possibilities aside, it is extremely important for a high catch (an over the barrel, or early vertical forearm).

The simple way to look at the importance is to say that an early vertical forearm (EVF) is needed in all of the competitive strokes (freestyle, breaststroke, and butterfly being the major trifecta, but backstroke also includes an early vertical forearm).  EVF is where you get your forearm vertical quickly (which is setting up for an efficient pull).  In other words, when you finish the recovery phase of the stroke and begin the entry and catch phase you are full extended into a streamline axis position.  It’s in this position that you are fully extended on one of your axis and will begin the EVF.

The goal of the EVF to not drop your elbow and to set you up for a very efficient pull!  Again, do not drop the elbow!  Wait…one more time….do not drop the elbow.  Instead, try to keep the elbow at the same level and in-line with your shoulder and hips.  Bend at the elbow and the wrist in order to “grab” the water.  I find it easiest to pretend that you are reaching over a large barrel and trying to push the barrel past your hips.  Once the forearm is vertical and in-line with the shoulder and wrist the propulsion phase starts.  This is where the most amount of power comes from your stroke.  So, instead of pulling the water downward past you with a dropped elbow you are pushing yourself over the water with a vertical forearm.

OK.  This was a quick sampling and description of EVF.  So, to Dr. Councilman (who first noticed the EVF) I apologize for anything that I miss here – which is, I’m sure, a lot of information, but I wanted to give as brief of a description as possible.  Anyway, Here is where you get to comment and ask questions regarding this post!  I’m sure that you, as swimmers or coaches or parents, have many questions racing through your head right now.  So, write them down in the comments area and go for it!