Michael Phelps and Straight-Arm Freestyle

This last weekend saw Olympic wunderkind and all-around American hero Michael Phelps returning to swim competition from a three month drug suspension and an even longer post-Beijing break from swimming. Among all the extraneous reporting on the competition at the Charlotte Ultra-Swim were reports on such fascinating and news-worthy tidbits as "Michael Phelps Swims in Torn Suit" and "Michael Phelps appears to have lost some weight" or "Michael Phelps shows up for warm up just 5 minutes before competition starts" and even "Michael Phelps still a popular celebrity at a swim meet."

Truly impressive stuff.

As the competition drew to a close, reports focused on news that Michael Phelps had actually lost two races. Worse, Phelps lost to Fred Bousquet, a dirty Frenchman. The horror of it all!

The Boston Herald reported that:

The Charlotte UltraSwim showcased Michael Phelps’ vulnerability one more time Sunday night.

France’s Fred Bousquet beat Phelps in the 100-meter freestyle final in the last event of the highest-profile UltraSwim ever. Charlotte’s Ricky Berens finished third. Tyler McGill was fourth and Cullen Jones was fifth.

Phelps ended up winning two of the five events he entered at the UltraSwim in his first real competition since the 2008 Beijing Olympics last August, when he won a staggering eight gold medals in eight attempts.

Phelps finished second in two UltraSwim events — losing to Bousquet Sunday and to Aaron Peirsol in the 100 backstroke Saturday_and he dropped out of the final of the 50-meter freestyle. So his final tally here was two firsts, two seconds and one "incomplete."

"For my first meet back, I have no complaints," Phelps said.

Actually, he did. Phelps was angry with himself for the way he swam in the 100-meter final before a third straight sellout crowd at the Mecklenburg County Aquatic Center. Phelps finished in 49.04 seconds, well behind Bousquet’s 48.22.

Buried deep in the story (and all the other stories, do these people just copy everything from each other?) was this little nugget:

Phelps alternated his new, straighter-armed stroke with his old one during the race, flip-flopping between the two several times while he tried to track down Bousquet.

For all the focus on the crowds at the Ultra-Swim, Phelps' suit, his drug suspension, potential weight-loss, rumors about girlfriends, allegations that he once attempted to beat up a certain Nate N. (entrepreneur and co-founder of petduel.com) over a girl, and every other bit of fluff in between, this is arguably the biggest piece of news to come out of Charlotte.

Why would Michael Phelps want to change up his freestyle stroke?

Because he wants to be a sprinter. In an effort to spice things up, Phelps is moving away from his the areas he has been so dominant in, middle distance and stroke events, and moving to the shorter (and more glamorous) sprints.

To succeed in this sprint events, Michael Phelps needs to move adapt his swimming techniques and strategies to maximize his output in the water. In his old events (such as the 200 free), Phelps won by finishing stronger than his opponents. The sprints however, simply can not be won with this technique.

When racing the 50 or 100 free, the swimmer only has seconds to run the full race in, and there simply is not enough pool for some one to make a move in the second half of the race. Instead, the sprints favor those who can punch out their maximum effort over course of the entire race.

In an effort to analyze why the straight-arm technique appeals to Michael Phelps, Brian Palmer analyzes the technique over at salon.com.

In terms of explosive speed, the straight-arm technique has a couple of advantages. Traditionally, freestylers bend their recovery arm — the one that's not in the water—keeping the elbows above the hands. The newer technique, which Phelps used only intermittently in this past weekend's UltraSwim meet, gives the impression of a semi-submerged windmill. A traditional recovery arm is still moving forward when it touches the water. The water slows the hand down and prolongs recovery time, resulting in fewer strokes per minute. A straight recovery arm transitions more quickly to a propulsive stroke because the hand is moving down and back toward the feet almost as soon as it touches the water.

The straight arm also offers rotational advantages. Freestylers don't swim on their stomachs; they knife through the water on one side, then the other. The more quickly they rotate their shoulders, the faster they move forward. The straight recovery arm creates torque on their torsos, turning the swimmer into a flywheel. "Think of a baseball pitcher," says Glenn Mills, a former Olympic swimmer and founder of a popular swim technique Web site. "The windup and kick create a rotation that whips the throwing arm forward." In swimming, "when you throw the extended recovery arm over, it helps turn the torso and pulls the other arm back out of the water."

Most biomechanics coaches agree that the straight-arm technique is potentially faster. The problem is that it requires much more power. The quicker transition from recovery to propulsion means the swimmer's arms must drive through the water that much faster. The swimmer also expends significant energy swinging his recovery arm through the air. Very few swimmers can maintain that level of output over 100 meters. (This may explain why Phelps alternated between his old technique and the new one in last weekend's 100-meter final.

It's also difficult for anyone to maintain proper form when he is working that hard. "Remember," says Russell Mark of USA Swimming, "the propulsive arm is still doing most of the work. If your form under the water suffers, there's no advantage to a straight-arm recovery."