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FDS Coaching
Form...Distance...Speed!
Adult swimming instruction in Colorado's Front Range
Certified Senior Coach
Brian Vande Krol
Lead Hand Position - How Deep, How Shallow?
It's a question I hear quite often - how deep should my lead hand be?  The answer: it depends.  For humans, swimming is always a compromise of various objectives.  For instance, we would probably swim much easier, farther, and faster if we didn't


Newsletter 6 Article
Brian Vande Krol
Senior Coach
Objective 1 -  Begin anchoring (pulling) farther in front.  You will move a greater distance with each stroke by beginning the stroke farther along your line of travel. Imagine lying face down on a skateboard.  Put your hands on the ground at your shoulders, and push yourself forward.  Now try it again, but start by reaching as far out in front as you can.  Did you move farther?  Of course not!  You're sitting at your computer reading this!  But it's easy to imagine that you would have moved more by reaching farther.


With this objective in mind, we want the lead hand to be higher so we can reach farther.  But if that hand is above the shoulder, we actually decrease the reach.  So the lead hand should never be higher than the shoulder.  Also notice that there are incrementally smaller gains in reach the higher you place the lead hand.

Objective 2 -  Improve Balance and Alignment.  Ah, here it is - the first compromise. Tension and/or a lack of mobility in the shoulder can make it difficult to keep the lead hand high.  Lay face down on your bed with your head and shoulder past the edge of the bed.  Now raise one arm toward your skating position, then higher.  Do you feel a restriction in the shoulder, or tension in the neck?  For most of us, there is a "maximum armpit angle".

Lying on your bed, it's easy to keep the hips high as you raise that arm to, and beyond the maximum angle.  But water tends to be less supportive than your bed, and without some intervening effort on your part, the angle will be respected.  If you determine to keep your lead hand high, your hips might drop to accomodate that angle.

As Terry Laughlin states, balance is the one non-negotiable skill for efficient swimming.  If your hips are low because your lead hand is high, all the reach in the world won't make up for the loss in efficiency.

Objective 3 - Create Propulsion Through a Weight Shift.  At Total Immersion, we teach whole body propulsion for swimming.  We accomplish this by anchoring the lead hand (see objective 1) while we shift our body weight past that anchoring point.  As we generate that weight shift, we direct it forward onto the spearing hand which will be the new lead hand.  If that lead hand is too high, it becomes difficult to shift weight. 

To better understand this, grab a pillow and lay on the floor in the skate position with your left hand extended.  Bring your right arm forward (recovery) and switch sides so that you're laying in your right side skate position.  Did you feel the weight shift?  Now place the pillow in front of your left shoulder, where your left arm used to be.  From your right side skate position, recover the left arm onto the pillow and try to shift your weight onto the left side skate position.  Much more difficult, isn't it?   A high lead hand can impede your ability to shift weight forward.

So, Objectives 1 and 3 argue for a lead hand placement as high as the shoulder in skate position, and Objective 2 argues for a lead hand placement low enough to achieve easy balance.  The skating drill will help you define the best position for your lead hand.  As you skate, try a variety of arm postions.  Look for the highest position that maintains your balance, reduces tension in the neck and shoulders, and remains at or below the shoulder For additional help, including video analysis contact Brian!
need to breathe air.  But, survival being an important objective, we compromise.  Understanding the following three objectives will help you determine your best position for the lead hand.
With years of practice, Brian demonstrates his skill at laying around.