Best stroke

[frankiediver]

Hi

dynamic, no-fins technique (in pool, 33 metres).

I had always assumed that the best stroke was akin to breast-stroke, using arms and legs. However, I found the following:

Using traditional stroke, no push-off at start, took 42 seconds and I was out of air at the end.

Using legs only, frog-kick, no push-off, took 50 seconds but I felt I could have gone further.

Clearly, using arms as well as legs uses more O2, but do I infer from this that the legs are actually more efficient than arms, i.e. slower but using less O2 per metre?

Any thoughts?

 

[rxcnc2]

welcome to the club

 

[ThomasB]

Hi

dynamic, no-fins technique (in pool, 33 metres).

I had always assumed that the best stroke was akin to breast-stroke, using arms and legs. However, I found the following:

Using traditional stroke, no push-off at start, took 42 seconds and I was out of air at the end.

Using legs only, frog-kick, no push-off, took 50 seconds but I felt I could have gone further.

Clearly, using arms as well as legs uses more O2, but do I infer from this that the legs are actually more efficient than arms, i.e. slower but using less O2 per metre?

Any thoughts?

I'm no doctor but it sounds weird. I'd say the bigger the muscle the greater the amount of air needed to "use" them. Maybe you got trained legs (free diving with fins probably) and that's why you "feel" them better than your arms. Try training only the upper part doing no fin basically with legs still and see if it improves.

Cheers.

 

[Mullins]

I think it's more to do with the stroke mechanics than with which muscle groups are involved. The main thing is that when doing a legs-only stroke, you can stay streamlined the whole time. You can also carry a little speed over into the next stroke, because there is less reciprocal movement (i.e. the recovery part of the stroke that slows you down) than there is with the arms + legs.

 

[JennyWren]

It's going to depend a lot on the person, too. Some people have a great arm stroke and a crappy leg kick, some vice versa. Also, you can't really measure them independently and compare, because a combined arm/leg stroke/kick is more than the sum of its parts (the whole body comes into play, if you watch some of the experts on YouTube).

 

[hteas]

During the winter I practice DNF in the local pool as a goal, and besides it feels good. I have given up on the arm stroke too. Kick only is so much more streamlined that the glide it provides overrides any worry about maximum distance covered. Besides, not being a world class competitor, it doesn't really matter. I just know it's more fun that way.

 

[aris ioannidis]

Very intersting topic frankiediver.

I think legs only saves energy but you miss on speed more than you gain in energy. I best do DNF with long glides with the full cycle, arms and legs in a 25m pool. I find that in a 50m pool a 2nd kick helps although my kick is not that good.

I saw on youtube that Ilaria Bonini, an Italian female diver, did a national record with 2 extra kicks following each full cycle in a 25m pool. On the other hand Mullins, who is the master of the discipline, is not using any extra kick as far as i know.

 

[trux]

Personally, at all my top DNF dives, I interrupted them not because of urge to breath, or because of hypoxic feeling, but because of anaeorobic muscle failure. Hence, if I used only legs, I would not get that far.

 

[chrismar]

I did a longish DNF legs only recently because of a shoulder injury and the lactic load on the legs was enormous. I could have done a bit more, but hypoxia would have started being an issue soon.

DYN > DNF > DNFNA, but you're probably only talking about 10-15% difference for each step down. Obviously that depends on technique, but it would be about right for me.

 

[Tony Babowicz]

I did a longish DNF legs only recently because of a shoulder injury and the lactic load on the legs was enormous. I could have done a bit more, but hypoxia would have started being an issue soon.

DYN > DNF > DNFNA, but you're probably only talking about 10-15% difference for each step down. Obviously that depends on technique, but it would be about right for me.

Longish??? I would say that would be modest-ish statement. lol. Congratulations on that btw.

 

[sgnips]

I saw on youtube that Ilaria Bonini, an Italian female diver, did a national record with 2 extra kicks following each full cycle in a 25m pool. On the other hand Mullins, who is the master of the discipline, is not using any extra kick as far as i know.

Ilaria Bonin, not Bonini... and the records were 2, please... blackeye

me, Ilaria and Mullins talked a bit about this in another topic and Mullins said he was gonna give it a try

actually, Ilaria is using 3 kicks in a row, each with a glide, in between armostrokes
she tried 2, but seems more comfortable with 3
she has strong legs, so she might suffer from using arms more than i would

for me, i now like the 2 kicks method, but i have to work a lot more than i did by now

hope she's gonna write something here, too

here is her 125m dnf (first NR):
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km2OpRz6gDs&feature=player_embedded]YouTube - Ilaria Bonin National record DNF 125 mt[/ame]

her 141m dnf (second NR, one week later):
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQuIdQkiTQk&feature=player_embedded]YouTube - Ilaria Bonin New record DNF.f4v[/ame]


and here is a 50m i did in a limited distance comp:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIjZzlKc5Po&feature=player_embedded]YouTube - gabriele DNF saraonno.f4v[/ame]