Backstroke Entry

For years I have had some decent backstrokers. Although even my good backstrokers tend to have a over reach in their stroke. This over reach creates wasted motion, and possible push outward creating a side to side path in the water, and also a side to side motion created by setting the swimmers "mast" or lead arm, in an angled position.

At Sectionals I talked to Phil about what he was doing, and he mentioned one thing that he was going to start trying more often. It came from Kohlton Norys who swam for Phil and now is training at Auburn University. He mentioned that in his first year at Auburn that noticed an 8% over reach on his backstroke entry. That utilized a skill they do a lot for backstroke at Auburn which is doing backstroke kick in "rollercoasters." This position was very much close to what I call "Superman" position, so I decided to start doing backstroke kick in superman and have the fingers lifted upward towards the sky and palms facing backwards.

This position is the actual feel to the correct backstroke entry. The thought process is that we do some much kicking in streamline that the swimmers get use to bringing the arms to a streamline position with one arm, thus resulting in an over reach. So I have now started to use this both my age-groupers and my masters swimmers. It has helped slightly with the over reach for some, but some swimmers do need some more repetition as the entering in a streamline is so engrained. It has also allowed me to focus on the flexing of the tricep to create straighter arms during the "Superman", which in turn, has resulted in better streamlines, as they have begun to incorporate the straighter arms into the streamline position.

I am curious to see what happens to the backstroke through a season of utilizing this method, and can't wait to see the results in three to four months.