About Mr Smooth's Catch

Some background on Mr Smooth's hand entry and catch technique.

If you are a coach or technical swimmer, you may be intrigued by Mr Smooth's hand entry and initial catch technique.

Mr Smooth's stroke is Swim Smooth's representation of an ideal freestyle stroke technique - as we teach it. In his catch there are some subtle differences from what some other swimming coaches may call ideal. There are some good reasons for this:

Flexed or "Tipped" Wrist

Mr Smooth uses a slightly flexed or tipped wrist position - an emerging style in elite swimming and one that's good to copy for normal swimmers too.

Mr Smooth uses a degree of wrist flex during the catch initiation. As Mr Smooth's leading hand enters the water he lengthens forward with his body rotation but never allows the tips of his fingers to drop below the level of his wrist.

Mr Smooth then initiates his catch by "tipping his finger-tips over" to engage the water and start to show the palm of his hand back behind him. Doing so generates forward propulsion: a swimmer will move in the opposite direction to where the palm of the hand is facing. Mr Smooth's palm looks backwards and therefore he moves forwards - great technique.

Instead of doing this, many swimmers and triathletes drop their wrist and then apply a good deal of downward force which simply lifts the swimmer at the front end and causes their legs to drop at the back. Employing Mr Smooth's wrist flex in your swimming technique helps emphasise a high wrist and elbow - an important step in improving your catch and pull.

We are not alone in recommending this subtle flex of the wrist during the initial catch. It is an emerging style from the elite swimming world: swimmers including Rebecca Adlington (winner of both distance swimming gold medals in Beijing) use this stroke technique to great effect, you can see her using such a wrist position here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VhZm2fj3Ck

Dropping your wrist ruins your catch - tipping your finger tips down goes a long way towards fixing this problem.

If you struggle to develop your catch and feel for the water, or are a coach with a swimmer who does, we suggest you try tipping your finger tips over from the wrist once you've reached full extension at the front of the stroke. It can be extremely effective and there are no disadvantages to doing so.

You can develop the "Tipped Wrist" position by kicking on your side with fins. With the lower arm and hand extended out in front of you, focus on developing this position by keeping your elbow higher than your wrist and your hand flat (not cupped) with that slight downward flex at the wrist. Whilst kicking in this position, if you feel the hand being pulled to the bottom you've tipped the wrist too far. Experiment with the angle until you have a slight downward angle to the hand but you still feel support from it.

When coaching swimmers and triathletes of normal ability we have found Mr Smooth's tipped wrist technique to be extremely effective in helping them improve their catch and we recommend this style to all swimmers. This shouldn't be a forced or rigid movement but a flowing caress.

A tipped wrist on arm recovery makes for a clean hand entry.

Improved Hand Entry

A side benefit of the tipped wrist is that it can be instigated during the recovery phase of the stroke before hand entry. This can help swimmers spear into the water - useful for those swimmers who tend to drop their wrists and push their palm forward through the waters surface. Doing that creates lots of drag and pushes lots of air into the water which hurts the catch.

A Non-Extreme Vertical Forearm

You might also have noticed that Mr Smooth does not have a particularly extreme catch technique. His elbow does not get close to the surface and his forearm does not achieve an extreme vertical position.

There has been a growing trend in the 21st Century to teach an extreme Early Vertical Forearm (EVF) to elite swimmers. This was pioneered predominantly by the Australian freestyle swimming greats such as Grant Hackett and Ian Thorpe. This technique requires a very high skill level with excellent alignment in the water and very good rhythm and timing.

Elite swimmer Rebecca Adlington's extreme catch position

Most importantly, these very extreme positions require a lot of shoulder mobility and strength - our belief is that the injury risk of extreme catch positions is high to developing swimmers.

For these reasons we chose a less extreme stroke technique for Mr Smooth, featuring the key teaching points for a great catch:

- High elbow

- Elbow higher than the wrist at all times

- Fingertips pointing straight down after catch initiation.

- Bent elbow on pull with hands pulling straight under the body without S Shape.

Swim Smooth believe it is not appropriate to teach extreme catch positions to most non-elite swimmers. Mr Smooth's catch is realistically achievable for non-elite swimmers, it is very powerful techique and it won't limit any amateur swimmer's or triathlete's (whether elite or not) potential.

Find out more about our thoughts on EVF on our advanced swimmer's Catch Page.

Article © Swim Smooth 2009

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