You have likely noticed that the concepts and drills presented so far each build on prior information. You are constructing both a skill base and a knowledge base, and you are only partially done. Fundamental skills are the foundation on which refinements and more complex skills can be built. This sections details the entire stroke cycle—stroke, recovery, and entry and extension—and offers refinements and additions to what has already been discussed. In subsequent chapters, there will be even more. Why don’t I just explain it all at once and then send you to the pool? Because experience gained in another complex endeavor is instructive here—that is, detailed instructions for juggling chain-saws while riding a unicycle on a high wire are not germane until sometime after you can juggle tennis balls while standing on terra firma. In other words, too much information too soon gets in the way of learning.
Propulsive Arm Stroke
It’s time to explain more fully what the hand and arm do during the underwater propulsive part of the stroke. Simply put, your paddle (that is, your hand and forearm) should be vertical to the pool bottom as far out in front of your body as possible and should be kept vertical for as much of the stroke as possible. This is often referred to as swimming with a high-elbow stroke. It sounds simple, but as usual, there are details to clarify.
The stroke begins with what is called the catch—the spot where you first get a propulsive grip on the water. To get a feel for the catch, place an empty beer keg (or similarly sized round container) on its side on a low table. Bend forward and extend your arm in front of you at a bit of a downward angle, placing your hand lightly on top of the keg. Now step forward, keeping your hand on the same spot on the keg so that the keg rolls forward. As the keg rolls, curve your hand and arm over it, lifting your elbow slightly to avoid leaning on or otherwise exerting any downward force on the keg. Continue rolling the keg until your hand is on the far side of the keg and the inside of your elbow and upper arm are touching the top of the keg (remember, no leaning). To reach this position, you had to flare your armpit and contract your back muscles, which engaged a line of muscular tension across your back, through your shoulder, and to your paddle. I call this your paddle linkage. You will recall that the muscular tension of your tight-line posture firmly connects your head, torso, and hips into a kayaklike shape. In the same manner, this new line of muscular tension firmly connects your paddle to your tight line. Now you have an idea of what the beginning of the stroke—that is, the catch—will feel like.
Try it in the pool with an imaginary keg that is just deep enough in the water that as you side glide with your arm extended at a downward angle, your hand rests just on top of the keg (figure 5.5a). As you glide forward, curve your arm over the keg, rolling it forward (figure 5.5b). It should feel as though you are running your elbow forward over your hand (figures 5.5b and c), not pulling your hand back or down. As you reach over the keg, consciously flare your armpit and feel your back muscles connect your paddle to your tight line—engage your paddle linkage. Avoid applying downward pressure—don’t sink your imaginary keg.
Depending on your shoulder’s flexibility, when you reach your arm over the keg, you are either just about to initiate your next rotation (more flexible shoulders), or you have just begun your rotation (less flexible shoulders). In either case, the typical action is to drop the elbow and to use arm and shoulder muscles to yank the hand backward through the water. Don’t. Instead, keep your armpit flared, use mainly your arm and shoulder muscles to keep your paddle vertical through as much of the stroke as possible (figures 5.5c and d), and use your paddle linkage to transmit core rotation to your paddle (figure 5.5e).
The sensation should be more like levering past the keg, with as much as 75 percent of the work coming from the back and core rotation and as little as 25 percent coming from the arms and shoulders.
FOCUS POINT ➤ Downward Angle Arm Extension (expanded)
The stroke begins with what is called the catch—the spot where you first get a propulsive grip on the water. To get a feel for the catch, place an empty beer keg (or similarly sized round container) on its side on a low table. Bend forward and extend your arm in front of you at a bit of a downward angle, placing your hand lightly on top of the keg. Now step forward, keeping your hand on the same spot on the keg so that the keg rolls forward. As the keg rolls, curve your hand and arm over it, lifting your elbow slightly to avoid leaning on or otherwise exerting any downward force on the keg. Continue rolling the keg until your hand is on the far side of the keg and the inside of your elbow and upper arm are touching the top of the keg (remember, no leaning). To reach this position, you had to flare your armpit and contract your back muscles, which engaged a line of muscular tension across your back, through your shoulder, and to your paddle. I call this your paddle linkage. You will recall that the muscular tension of your tight-line posture firmly connects your head, torso, and hips into a kayaklike shape. In the same manner, this new line of muscular tension firmly connects your paddle to your tight line. Now you have an idea of what the beginning of the stroke—that is, the catch—will feel like.
Try it in the pool with an imaginary keg that is just deep enough in the water that as you side glide with your arm extended at a downward angle, your hand rests just on top of the keg (figure 5.5a). As you glide forward, curve your arm over the keg, rolling it forward (figure 5.5b). It should feel as though you are running your elbow forward over your hand (figures 5.5b and c), not pulling your hand back or down. As you reach over the keg, consciously flare your armpit and feel your back muscles connect your paddle to your tight line—engage your paddle linkage. Avoid applying downward pressure—don’t sink your imaginary keg. 
Depending on your shoulder’s flexibility, when you reach your arm over the keg, you are either just about to initiate your next rotation (more flexible shoulders), or you have just begun your rotation (less flexible shoulders). In either case, the typical action is to drop the elbow and to use arm and shoulder muscles to yank the hand backward through the water. Don’t. Instead, keep your armpit flared, use mainly your arm and shoulder muscles to keep your paddle vertical through as much of the stroke as possible (figures 5.5c and d), and use your paddle linkage to transmit core rotation to your paddle (figure 5.5e). 
FOCUS POINT ➤ Downward Angle Arm Extension (expanded)
An effective catch eludes most swimmers because they extend the arm either horizontally or at a bit of an upward angle. For most swimmers, unless the arm is extended at a bit of a downward angle, there is not enough room between the ball of the upper-arm bone and the roof of the shoulder to allow for an effective high-elbow catch. Instead, the swimmer will do little more than push down on the water at the beginning of the stroke, which will not propel him forward. Extending the arm at a bit of a downward angle allows greater range of motion as the swimmer attempts to achieve an effective catch.
FOCUS POINT ➤ Over-the-Keg Stroke
Reach over an imaginary keg as far out in front of the body as possible to make a high-elbow catch at the beginning of your stroke. Then use your core rotation, transmitted through the muscular tension of your tight line and paddle linkage, to lever past the keg.
FOCUS POINT ➤ Snappy Hips
Want to put more power in your stroke? Think snappy hips. In the car analogy, the faster the engine turns the crankshaft, the faster the wheels turn. Similarly, the faster you rotate your hips from one side to the other, the faster your body rotates forward past that imaginary keg. Use your long-axis rotation skills to drive a faster rotation of your hips. Your tight-line posture and paddle linkage will transmit that extra speed through your paddle to the water, which will produce a more propulsive stroke.
FOCUS POINT ➤ Finish Your Strokes
A common error is to not finish your strokes. While standing up straight, reach down with both arms and touch your thighs. This is roughly where you want to finish each stroke when you are practicing drills or when swimming at easy or moderate paces. When swimming or drilling, occasionally brush your thumb against your thigh as you complete a stroke in order to see where you are finishing your strokes. Do this on both sides, as it is common for them to be different. Correcting strokes that are even a few inches short will let you travel noticeably farther with each stroke and thus take fewer strokes.
Safe and Efficient Recovery and Entry
In swimming, even the motions you make in the air are important. They affect how you move in the water in much the same way that a kayaker’s arm motions above the water affect the kayak in the water. Correcting how your arm comes out of the water, moves forward, and reenters the water can increase the effectiveness of your technique. The following focus points are offered in order from the beginning of your recovery to the end of your entry.
The recovery starts from where the stroke and rotation have finished—you are on your side, with your hand just below the surface by your thigh (or, in some drills, resting on your thigh). Imagine that you are a marionette. Your puppeteer has a single string attached—to the elbow on your recovering arm. Your puppeteer lifts your arm out of the water by pulling up on that string. Your elbow rises while your forearm and hand hang down, relaxed from the elbow, with the fingertips near the water’s surface (perhaps even dragging through the surface) and close to the body (figure 5.6a). As the elbow travels toward the front end of your vessel, the hand follows a nearly straight line forward, never straying far from the body or the water’s surface (figure 5.6b).
FOCUS POINT ➤ Marionette Recovery
The recovery starts from where the stroke and rotation have finished—you are on your side, with your hand just below the surface by your thigh (or, in some drills, resting on your thigh). Imagine that you are a marionette. Your puppeteer has a single string attached—to the elbow on your recovering arm. Your puppeteer lifts your arm out of the water by pulling up on that string. Your elbow rises while your forearm and hand hang down, relaxed from the elbow, with the fingertips near the water’s surface (perhaps even dragging through the surface) and close to the body (figure 5.6a). As the elbow travels toward the front end of your vessel, the hand follows a nearly straight line forward, never straying far from the body or the water’s surface (figure 5.6b).
FOCUS POINT ➤ Neutral Shoulder
A common recovery mistake is to allow, or force, the elbow to move behind the plane that divides the body between the front (navel) side and back (butt) side. This causes the head of the upper-arm bone to bind against the back and top of the shoulder socket—a no-win bone-on-bone conflict. Over the course of thousands (or millions) of repetitions, this motion will almost certainly cause an injury. But in the marionette recovery, you want to keep the shoulder roughly in the center of its front-to-rear range of motion. This keeps the elbow in front of the body plane and allows the shoulder to stay high and relaxed throughout the recovery (figures 5.6a and b).
FOCUS POINT ➤ Laser-Beam Rotation Trigger
I have talked about rotating the body from one side-glide position to the other, but not much about when to rotate. The secret to timing your rotation is in the recovery. Imagine a laser beam stretching across your lane at the front edge of your head, a few inches above the water’s surface. As your puppeteer moves your elbow, forearm, and hand forward, nothing else about your body position should change (i.e., you stay on your side and you keep the other arm fully extended). When the recovering hand crosses the laser beam, this is the trigger to begin rotating your body (in the side view of the marionette recovery figure, the recovering hand is just crossing this imaginary laser beam). As your legs drive your core rotation, the recovering hand continues moving forward toward the entry point. Using this mental image will result in a nearly perfect front-quadrant stroke.
FOCUS POINT ➤ Sliding-Board Entry
Your legs are not alone in driving your core body rotation. Their job is to initiate the rotation, and another mechanism helps complete the rotation. Lifting your arm and shoulder out of the water during the recovery stores energy (potential energy) in the form of a lifted mass that is poised to fall again (kinetic energy). As your hand passes through the imaginary laser beam and you begin the next core body rotation with your legs, you release that stored energy by allowing your arm and shoulder to fall toward the water. You guide its descent—as if the hand were zipping down a sliding board so that it pierces the surface of the water at a downward angle toward your extension point. The kinetic energy of this falling and extending mass adds to the energy of your core body rotation and is thus transmitted to the stroking arm through your tight line and paddle linkage. The muscles that you use along that side of your body to aggressively enter and extend further add to the power and snappiness of your rotation.
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