How To Maximise Your Starts: Part 1

It is no secret (or at least it should not be) that in order to produce a rapid start the swimmer needs to be able to produce a high amount of force in a relatively small amount of time. This however should not be confused with ‘as fast as possible’. It is immensely common for practitioners to believe that the swimming athlete needs to produce as much force as possible in the smallest possible time frame. Contrary to popular belief, the force generated by the swimmer on the blocks needs to be fast, but not too fast in order to generate a sufficient impulse (n.s.), the higher the impulse the higher the change in the athletes’ momentum (Impulse-Momentum relationship). The higher the athlete’s momentum the easier and further they will travel through the water off the blocks assuming their body position is optimal, making the underwater phase more effective and more energy efficient.

Problems arise when strength and conditioning coaches start in swimming with little to no understanding of the sport and then proceed to take methods from other sports and think they directly apply to swimming. Rugby is a fantastic example here as there is an abundance of land training practitioners from Rugby backgrounds. Methods used in land-based team sports do not always apply to swimming, this is critical.

Practitioners must find the optimal jumping patterns that reflect the needs of the start in swimming, whether the track start or backstroke start. It is observed that elite Australian athletes demonstrate ~0.72s and ~0.77s for males and females respectively for total block time during the ‘Track Start’ and between 0.57s-0.63s and 0.61s-0.67s during Backstroke starts for males and females respectively. This allows the Australian athlete to achieve peak horizontal velocity of 4.85 ± 0.17m.s and 4.33 ± 0.19m.s for males and females respectively, and given that horizontal velocity has been shown to have a high effect size on overall start performance with elite athletes maximising this component of the race is critical.  

So, a jump that may take anywhere from 0.5-1.0s to complete is likely a poor choice to try and directly enhance the start phase of your athlete’s race. Also, being critical of the mechanics and mechanisms of each jumping variation is crucial. Looking at how starts happen and being critical in your practice is key to finding the answers to helping your athletes launch themselves off the blocks… But more on that next time.

We hope you enjoyed part 1 of this 3-part mini-series if you found it useful for your athletes please share and follow @velocityswimming_ to stay up-to-date for the next articles.