Faster Backstroke Starts

Swim Science Newsletter

April 2021

Request for Help in Academic Survey Research

Melanie Spiegel is a doctoral candidate in psychology and is asking for help from coaches. “As a part of my doctoral dissertation research, I am seeking participants for an anonymous online survey (15 minutes) about coaches’ attitudes and experiences regarding LEGAL coach-athlete intimate relationships. The anonymous nature of the survey means that there will be no way to access specific information about you. While responses will be recorded, the identity of the respondents will remain unknown.”

You can contact Melanie at mspiegel@alliant.edu

Faster Backstroke Start: Extend Hips Then Knees

A recent study compared backstroke start joint extension sequences (Nara, Ikeda, Shimojo, Sato , Ichikawa, Baba & Shimoyama, 2021). Male and female, adult, national caliber swimmers were tested using three different leg extension protocols:

extend the hips before the knees,
extend the hips and knees simultaneously, and
extend the knees before the hips.

Extending the knees before the hips was significantly slower than the other two options, as shown in the graph below. The graph also shows the angles at the hip and knee when the toes left the wall. The data support the value of extending the hips before the knees.

C lick to read the article in Sports Biomechanics.

Webinar on Strategies to Improve Arm Entry

The next ISCA webinar will address the arm entry in freestyle, backstroke, and butterfly and include information about how to minimize wasted time and shoulder stress. It will be on Zoom at am New York Time, March , 2021. Presenters include:

Coach Kathleen Prindle, Performance Aquatics
Coach Miller Albury
Dr. Rod Havriluk, ISCA Education Committee

Click here to go to the webinar on Friday, May 23 at noon New York time.

Participants can ask questions via the chat room.

Podcast on Swimming Shoulder Injuries

ISCA Education Committee member Dr. Rod Havriluk was recently interviewed about the biomechanics of swimming shoulder injuries on Dr. Les Podlog’s Mettle Minds Podcast. Click to see the video on Youtube.