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."

Wolfram Alpha

There's an interesting new kid on the block here on the internet, Wolfram|Alpha. Being the nice guys that we are, the House of Spode decided to go check out Wolfram Alpha.

What is Wolfram Alpha? Wolfram Alpha, which was released just a few days ago (officially launched May 18, 2009), is an answer-engine developed by Wolfram research. What makes it different from Google and other search-engines is that rather than providing a list of web pages that might contain the answer, Wolfram Alpha instead answers factual queries directly through computing the answer from available data.

Here is one very simple example of what Wolfram Alpha can do.



Searching for more complicated things like "caffeine," "IBM," or "war" give you much more intricate and interesting answers, as Wolfram Alpha compiles all available date on the query to calculate a quantitative solution.


Verdict: The House of Spode recommends that you go check it out. It's definitely cool enough to spend a few minutes on exploring. As to actually utility, that remains to be seen. Sure, if the House of Spode ever needs to do some calculus again, Wolfram Alpha will be the first place we turn to. Actually, we'll probably turn to Wolfram Alpha any time we have any science or economics based question, as the answer is guaranteed to be more concise than anything google or wikipedia can bring up. For other types of information ("what were the causes of the civil war?" or "what is pointillism") we'll stick with the tried and true methods.

Governator Speaks at USC Commencement

The Govenator, Arnold Schwarzenegger gave this year's Commencement Address at USC. Despite some initial worries that the trademark Austrian accent might prevent some graduates from actually understanding his address, he performed admirably. The Governator's speech had all the essential elements required to make a good commencement address, including a celebrity speaker, some humor, and an easy to remember and cliched take away lesson.





I wonder how this commencement address will compare with the upcoming address at Dartmouth College on June 14th. The featured speaker will be one Louise Erdrich.

Don't be alarmed if the name didn't ring a bell. As my friend Julia (also graduating from Dartmouth this June) said today "I can't even remember who we have speaking at ours. I just know that she's an alumna with a kid here now and she ALMOST, but not quite, won a pulitzer for a book." (Full disclosure: it was this quote and the Schwarzenegger speech, which she forwarded to me, that were responsible for this post.)

Frustratingly, both Bill Russell and General John Abizaid (ret.) are receiving honorary degrees during this year's graduation ceremony. Bill Russell is the 11 time NBA Championship winning player and coach, who was voted NBA MVP 5 times in his incredible career. John Abizaid was the 4-star general in charge of USCENTCOM from 2003 to 2007.

If you ask me, both Bill Russell and John Abizaid would have made much more interesting and appealing Commencement Speakers. Instead, we get to listen to the winner of the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction speak. The excitement is so underwhelming, I don't know how I'll be able to contain it for another three weeks...

Sunday Funday

Today's Sunday Funday comes from National Public Radio, which is currently streaming the new Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse album "Dark Night of the Soul." You can listen to the entire album on the NPR website. According to the story on npr.org:

The album was initially going to be packaged with a book of photos taken by David Lynch. But now there's word that the music may never be officially released at all.

An unnamed spokesperson for Danger Mouse says that "due to an ongoing dispute with EMI" the book of photographs will "now come with a blank, recordable CD-R. All copies will be clearly labeled: 'For legal reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will."

In addition to Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse, other artists appearing on Dark Night of the Soul include James Mercer of The Shins, The Flaming Lips, Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals, Jason Lytle of Grandaddy, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes, Frank Black of the Pixies, Iggy Pop, Nina Persson of The Cardigans, Suzanne Vega, Vic Chesnutt, David Lynch, and Scott Spillane of Neutral Milk Hotel and The Gerbils.

So go check it out!

Spode of the Week #2

To make up for the late Spode of the Week, I'm adding a bonus Spodette of the Week. Presenting our honorary co-champion, Ms. Danielle Lloyd, originally of Liverpool.

(photo courtesy of www.chickipedia.com)

Besides being an entirely useless celebrity, essentially only famous for being famous (think Paris Hilton), she also sports one abomination of a tattoo running up her neck. While the Hebrew script could look pretty awesome when properly applied, Ms. Lloyd instead wound up with this on her neck.




What appears to have happened is that in an effort to take some focus of a sex tape scandal, Ms. Lloyd decided in the fall of 2008 to add a tattoo to her neck stating in Hebrew that "Only God Can Judge Me."

Unfortunately for the young Ms. Lloyd, neither she nor the tattoo artist appeared to have done their homework. Instead of saying "Only God Can Judge Me" in Hebrew, her tattoo says that in English, using hebrew letters to approximate the phonetics. Plus, the text (and error) is repeated twice.

Therefore, instead of receiving a cool Hebrew tattoo, Danielle Lloyd now permamently sports (or at least until has it lasered off or she covers it up with another tattoo) on her neck Hebrew letter's spelling out (more or less) "wnly gwd qn jdwg m, wnly gwd qn jdwg m."

Well done Ms. Lloyd, and congratulations on your first ever Spodette of the Week!

For more information check out this site detailing exactly what Danielle Lloyd did wrong.

Late Spode of the Week

Sorry for the belated Spode of the Week awards, work caught up with the members of the House of Spode executive committee and mayhem ensued. But enough excuses, we hereby present this weeks recipients of the Spode of Week award. This award goes to everyone involved in the making of this gem of film, which makes its debut on May 19.





If you've just finished watching the trailer, and wondering what that weird taste in your mouth is, your not alone. We at the House of Spode have determined that what you're currently tasting is the bitter taste of crappy film.

So congratulations to Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, this week's winners of the Spode of the Week award. May the movie by so bad that it becomes a cult classic.

Fridge Anthropology

This is an incredible and thought provoking set of pictures I just ran into on digg. I highly recommend that everyone checks out You Are What You Eat.

We purchase refrigerators the way we fill them: out of necessity—to preserve the milk; to keep the greens from wilting. But from the right vantage point, an open fridge is the perfect staging grounds for a discussion of consumption. And if the aphorism holds true—if we really are what we eat—then refrigerators are like windows into our souls. It’s that sentiment that’s at the heart of Mark Menjivar’s inventive exploration of hunger, “You Are What You Eat,” for which he photographed the contents of strangers’ refrigerators. As you can see, whether it holds neatly ordered rows of labels-out condiments or zip-locked stacks of shot-and-gutted buck meat, there’s almost certainly a narrative to a fridge’s arrangement.

This was my favorite picture, the snake is just one the many ridiculous things that the photographer has managed to capture.





Now go check out these pictures!