ironguides

Just what is the Forearm Fulcrum meant to achieve? Well, let me describe how I go about teaching an athlete via email just what they need to focus on when their swim is very obviously their weak point. When someone tells me they are swimming 2:00 minutes for 100m freestyle and that they are developing rotator cuff problems while using XS-sized paddles, I know right away that contrary to the on-deck advice they receive it is not a lack of rotation causing the problem (for example). Take a look at the top triathlon swimmers and see just how little rotation some of them actually have -- plenty of sub-18 minute swimmers are swimming perfectly flat in the water.

Rather, the rotator cuff problem comes from pushing a fully-extended arm straight down from the shoulder, rather than engaging the arm fully in the Catch phase of the stroke before bringing forearm and hand back. Swimming is a highly technical sport with highly refined motor patterns needed to become proficient at it. Many (most!) novice swimmers propel themselves forward with the muscles they are most familiar with: Their shoulders, their lats and their biceps. These muscles are familiar to them and have ingrained motor patterns from daily living and other sports that lend themselves easily (but technically incorrectly and inefficiently) to a modest freestyle stroke.

By using our larger muscle groups to propel ourselves, we "overshadow" the myriad small muscles that go into developing a proficient swim stroke. Swimming is no different in this sense than running or cycling: The higher up the food chain you go in each sport, the more the mechanics of the underlying motion recruit small intrinsic muscles in a very refined, beautifully synchronized, nigh-on artistic symmetry of divine orchestration. A professional cyclist has an extremely developed network of core stability muscles; a life-long elite runner a powerful, long stride that is at the same time the foundation for a perfectly balanced torso that recruits core muscles to propel and drive the arms and hips. Developing the attunement and acute sensitivity required to achieve "perfect form" is a combination of genetic luck, zen-like focus and relaxation, warrior-like determination and glacial persistence.

"Drip drip drip" -- like Chinese water torture -- is how I tell my athletes to perceive their training. The Finis Forearm Fulcrum fits neatly into this philosophy because it helps the athlete become aware of and train the tiny, intrinsic muscles around the elbow (forgive me for not knowing their name) without demanding an excess of mental focus during the complex motion that is a single swim stroke. Over time and with patiences, simply swimming many meters while wearing the Fulcrum will help develop motor patterns not inherently obvious to novice swimmers.

And while a swimmer can reach reasonable proficiency (sub-one hour Ironman split, for example), they may still not be conscious of the huge role these elbow muscles play in the freestyle stroke. Why is this? Well, due to limited training time, low volume of lifetime accumulated swim mileage and the fact that when we learn a new, complex movement all we have are our existing, established motor patterns to draw upon, many swimmers go for years without really "hearing" these small muscles at work, and without properly recruiting them in their swim stroke.

It's like learning to wiggle your ears -- once you "get" it, you've got it! But before getting it, there is no awareness even of what muscles need to be recruited and how to recruit them. (Perhaps Finis can develop something?) The largest component of our failure to recruit these elbow muscles properly is the natural consequence of old motor patterns that recruit large, "known" muscle groups and familiar movements to propel us through the water. The limited volume of most triathlon swim sessions and the volume of training required for triathlon's other two components means that most swimmers will never fatigue these large muscle groups enough for them to tire and "give up", forcing the smaller elbow muscles to take over and do some of the work.

For this reason I tell novice swimmers to think about "gluing" their elbow to the underside of the water surface once their hand enters the water to initiate a new freestyle stroke -- and to focus on nothing but that "glue", keeping the elbow high and using those small muscles around the elbow to bring an aligned arm and forearm to 90 degrees and vertical under the body. The pace doesn't matter, as long as the focus is on this single movement only. (It helps to do this with a pull buoy so that you have even less to think about.) Drip drip drip -- repeat this movement several ten's of thousands of times over the ensuing weeks and eventually you will get it!

The Finis Forearm Fulcrum makes the above process much easier and is designed to prompt your awareness of these movements with far less effort. Just as a pull buoy removes the effort of maintaining a horizontal body position in the water and frees the (especially) novice swimmer to focus on developing other, more critical components of their stroke, the Forearm Fulcrum frees the swimmer to focus on another aspect of swimming while swimming with correct technique using a high elbow. In essence, it is a shortcut to better technique and accelerates proprioceptive intelligence.

Watch this space in future and we'll explain how using the Forearm Fulcrum combined with intentional glycogen depletion and twice-monthly long swim can further accelerate your adoption of a better, much-improved swim stroke. And maybe learn how to wiggle your ears at the same time!

Brick by brick.