This swimmer displays an excellent fingertip-first entry into the water.
How your hands enter into the water at the front of the stroke might not sound important but it can make a large difference to how well you swim and also the chances of you suffering from shoulder injury.
There are three elements to a good hand entry:
The hand should enter into the water at a slight downward angle with the palm facing down towards the water’s surface. We call this a ‘fingertip-first entry’ as the fingertips are the first part of your hand to spear into the water.
This angle of entry pierces through the surface of the water nicely and immediately gets you in a great position for a good catch as you start the stroke at the front. Unfortunately, in some parts of the world you can still find an alternative style of hand entry taught where the palm faces outwards and the thumb enters the water first. This is called a ‘thumb-first entry’.
This swimmer displays an excellent fingertip-first entry into the water.
Avoid a thumb-first entry, it is very bad for your shoulders and after entering the water your hand will tend to slice down in the water instead of engaging with it for the catch to follow.
During the 1970s swimmers were taught to enter into the water thumb first with the palm facing outwards. The idea was to create a cleaner hand entry into the water with less resistance but rotating the hand outwards in this manner internally rotates the shoulder, placing a twisting load on it. Some swimming coaches and websites still recommend using a thumb-first entry but we now understand that because it internally rotates the shoulder, it is the leading cause of shoulder injury in swimming and should be strongly avoided for this reason. If you’ve had a shoulder injury or are currently suffering from one, you’ll find our additional advice on this subject in Chapter 30 very useful.
A thumb-first entry is also less effective in setting you up for a good catch as the hand tends to continue slicing down into the water after it has entered rather than engaging with the water at the front of your stroke.
PAUL: If you’re serious about your swimming performances then you need to take every measure you can to avoid injury. I’ve been coaching swimmers of all levels for nearly 15 years and in that time it’s become very clear to me that consistency in preparation and training is the single most important factor in swimmers achieving their goals. Time out recovering from a shoulder injury will set you back significantly and you will lose the peak of fitness you would otherwise have achieved.
You may have been swimming for many years and you may not wish to take the time and effort to change from a thumb-first to a fingertip-first hand entry but please understand the very high risk you are taking with the health of your shoulders by not doing so. Changing to a fingertip entry does take some time and persistence but it is so important to guarantee you a long and happy swimming career.
Here are two useful visualisations you can use to help remove a thumb-first entry from your stroke:
If you stand and hold one arm straight out in front of you and practise entering with the other, the hand should enter somewhere between the wrist and the elbow of the outstretched arm. This is a good guide for most swimmers but some, particularly elite open water swimmers, like to reach a little further forwards before entering into the water. This can be a useful adaptation to make to your stroke for rougher open water swimming.
If your other hand was outstretched, the hand should enter somewhere between the distance of your elbow and wrist.
Wherever you enter into the water the most important thing is that the hand should spear in cleanly and enter before the elbow. If you overreach and the elbow collapses in first this will harm the catch phase of the stroke that follows.
A good exercise for practising a spearing hand entry is the Shoulder Tap Drill shown in Appendix A. With fins on, tap yourself on the shoulder before entering into the water using fingertip-first entry (palm facing down). The shoulder tap slows things down and gives you time to think and to ensure that you are entering from a high position angled downward. As you’ll see in the full drill description, breathe on every single stroke (both to the left and right) when performing Shoulder Tap and leave the other arm outstretched for balance.
If you overreach on hand entry you will drop your elbow in first.
SPEARING FISH VISUALISATION
To practice a positive hand entry into the water, imagine there’s a fish swimming in the water around 30 cm or 1 ft in front of you. As you swim, visualise spearing the fish as your enter the water with your hand like the blade of a spear. Enter with a big splash and you scare the fish away and disrupt the smoothness of your stroke. Enter cleanly, smoothly and stealthily and you will catch that fish! This is a simple but powerful way to focus on a clean hand entry and can be used at any time when you’re swimming or racing.
A crossover in front of the head is seen in about 70% of attendees on our Swim Smooth Clinics.
As your hand enters the water and extends forwards it should be perfectly in line with your shoulder. This keeps you tracking straight and sets you up for a good catch as you start the following stroke. This sounds simple but in reality very few beginner and intermediate level swimmers have good alignment in the water; most cross over the centre line to a greater or lesser extent as their hands enter and extend.
As we saw in Chapter 10 on swimming posture, the key here is to draw your shoulder blades together and back to enter and extend straight forward in front of the same shoulder.
MIDDLE FINGER VISUALISATION
A useful visualisation to improve your alignment on hand entry is to simply focus on the middle finger on each hand as it enters the water and extends forward. Think about that middle finger as you swim and nothing else, extending it straight down the pool as if you are aiming the barrel of a gun.
ADAM: Entering and extending forward straight in front of the same shoulder sounds easy but it is something that could well be holding you back with your swimming. This is an area of swimming technique where visualisations are very powerful. Memorise how our animated swimmer Mr Smooth looks from the underside angle extending straight and aligned – if you haven’t done so already you can download him for free from www.swimsmooth.com. If you have our Catch Masterclass DVD also watch Jono Van Hazel just before you go to the pool and aim to reproduce his stroke in the water. Jono has fantastic alignment and provides a great visual image for you to keep in mind as you swim.
To help overcome a crossover, visualise Mr Smooth extending straight forward in front of the same shoulder as he swims.
PAUL: Don’t underestimate the damage a crossover does to your swimming: it causes you to snake or ‘fish tail’ down the pool, creates a scissor kick in your stroke and ruins your catch on the water. A crossover can also place stress on your shoulder, increasing the risk of shoulder injury particularly in combination with a thumb-first entry. It will also make swimming straight in the open water very challenging. In summary, a crossover adds a huge amount of drag, ruins your propulsion and could stop you swimming completely through injury – pretty serious! Ask a friend or coach to check if you are crossing over the centre line in front of your head, even momentarily. If you do you should make fixing it an immediate priority.
The added surface area of a pair of paddles can be a great way to feel how you are entering into the water. Any paddle will be useful for this but we highly recommend the Finis Freestyler Paddle as its unique shape (like the blade of a spear) gives you immediate feedback on how straight you are entering. So much so that if you cross over or drop your elbow on entry then you’ll have trouble keeping them on your hands!
The Finis Freestyler, a great paddle for working on your alignment and catch set-up.
