Swim Team Program（游泳队计划）

小臭贝

Somax has developed a special program for teams of all levels and ages based on its exclusive frame-by-frame measurement of underwater stroke mechanics. This new approaching to coaching is so effective that it comes with a money-back guarantee: If your swimmers do not swim faster, with fewer strokes, we will refund their money.*

Conventional Swim Coaching

Conventional swim instruction is based on on-deck coaching, a technology that is more than 2,000 years old. On-deck coaching started when the first coach stood on the shores of the Aegean sea and yelled over the sound of the waves to his swimmer in the water. With on-deck coaching, a swim coach stands on the deck and tries to teach stroke technique while not being able to see exactly what the swimmer is doing underwater. Even worse,  swimmers do not see their stroke either, and just assume they are doing what their coach has told them.

In addition, most stroke instruction is based on subjective opinion.   Some coaches prefer this theory, some that. Nothing is measured.

Since each single stroke in swimming is less than one second, you can imagine the difficulty of coaching a large group of swimmers while standing on the deck, unable to see what is happening underwater.

As a result, most swim coaching is just physical training.  Swimmers get faster as a result of ever increasing age and yardage, greater intensity of training, and dryland weight training. But the improvements are slow, and often swimmers plateau or even regress.  The side-effects of this type of training are boredom, burn-out, shoulder injuries, and eventual defeat by swimmers who are accidentally more efficient.

Somax Coaching

Somax teaches swimmers to improve their stroke efficiency with frame-by-frame underwater stroke analysis coupled with its exclusive drills and training aids. When each swimmer on your team can see their underwater stroke compared to the underwater stroke of a World Record holder, when they can learn drills that will teach them to duplicate that stroke while they swim, and when their new stroke is videotaped and measured on a weekly basis, they will swim faster and faster because they will be more efficient.

The best measure of stroke efficiency is how much distance a swimmer can travel with each stroke. The longer the distance, the lower the stroke count. Average freestyle and backstroke counts for age group and senior swimmers is 14-24 strokes (single arm pulls) per 25 yards. Somax trained swimmers are so efficient that their average stroke counts are only 7-12 strokes per pool length.

This unique program of frame-by-frame stroke analysis grew out of 1500 hours of research Somax conducted during 1985-7 on underwater tapes of World Record swimmers, as well as measuring many Olympic swimmers and training numerous elite swimmers over the past 19 years.

Many of our findings were at variance with wide-spread assumptions about swimmers and swimming. Matt Biondi, for instance, while holding the five fastest times in the world in the 100m freestyle, had 10% less power output in his arms (as measured on a bio-kinetic bench), but 70% more power in his hips than other sprinters on his team. He also had a total of 70 degrees more range of motion in his shoulders.

Janet Evans' breathing ranges were at least 50% greater than her competitor's breathing ranges, while her VO2max was only 56, compared to her competitors with a VO2max of 70-80. At the time, Janet held world records in the 400, 800 and 1500m freestyle.

The elite swimmers Somax has trained have earned 43  Gold Medals and set 11 World Records in international competition after their Somax training. Independent analysis of these swimmers (hand force output curves, reduction in stroke count, and speed trials) confirmed the improvements in each of these swimmers came from their Somax training.

Elite Somax Swimmers

Matt Biondi

Somax analyzed Matt Biondi June 1988 at the request of his coach, Nort Thornton. Matt had lost several 100m freestyle races that spring, despite holding the five fastest times in the world. Underwater videotape analysis showed that Matt had reduced his hip rotation on one side by just 15 degrees.

Over a period of two weeks, Somax increased the range, speed and advanced the timing of Matt's  hip rotation. His stroke count dropped from 13 strokes on 25 yards to just 9 strokes.

His time in the 50m free went from 22.42 to 22.14 (1.2% drop) at the 1988 Olympics, a new World Record. His 100m free dropped from 49.62 to 48.42 (2.4% drop) at the Olympic Trails, also a new World Record.

Matt went on to win five Gold Medals, one Silver and one Bronze in Seoul. The Bronze was in the 200m free. Somax predicted his performance would be less stellar in the longer distance because of a decrease in his abdominal breathing range from doing too many sit-ups.

Amy Van Dyken

Somax trained Amy Van Dyken at a week-long camp at Colorado Springs during the end of August 1995 at the request of her coach. Amy doubled her peak force output, and while she did not increase her stroke length at race pace, she was able to drop her stroke count while training from 30 to 15 on 50m.

These graphs show that swimmers who increased the acceleration of their hips doubled the peak hand force (heavy solid line) they applied to the water after just one week of Somax training. You can see that neither swimmer produced much force until after they rotated their hips. The female sprinter was able to advance the timing of her hip rotation (thin, broken line) and thus doubled her insweep peak. The male sprinter delayed his hip rotation, and his initial hand force output was less. Then he doubled his peak force as he accelerated his hips. The female sprinter, Amy Van Dyken, won four Gold Medals and the male sprinter, Jon Olson, won two Gold Medals at Atlanta.

Amy dropped her time in the 50m free from 25.03 to 24.87 (.6% drop) and in the 100m free from 55.76 to 53.91 (relay) (3.3% drop). She won four Gold Medals at Atlanta.

Amy increased her AIR and hip extension ranges from 40 to 60 degrees with two sessions of Microfiber Reduction. She was able to swim free of shoulder pain after her Somax program.

Unfortunately, Amy injured her shoulder lifting weights after the Olympics, and had to recuperate for a year after shoulder surgery. She re-entered competition and won two Gold Medals at Sydney.

These photos show the improvement in shoulder and hip flexibility from just two hours of Microfiber Reduction. The shoulder range AIR (Abduction with Internal Rotation) is critical for keeping the elbows up during the stroke. Hip extension is critical for reducing drag.



Jon Olson

Somax also trained Jon Olson during the same camp at Colorado Springs. Jon also doubled his peak hand force output during the camp. He went on to win two Gold Medals at Atlanta.



Stanford Swim Team

Stanford hired Somax to analyze and train eight of its top women freestylers and backstrokers, including Jenny Thompson and Lea Loveless, in the fall of 1995. Underwater analysis showed that Jenny and Lea, who were the best swimmers on the Stanford team, rotated their hips earlier than any of the other swimmers.

All the swimmers in this group were trained to increase the speed and advance the timing of their hip rotation. There was no Microfiber Reduction.

Times were taken of the entire team during speed trials before and three months after the Somax four-day training. Three months after the Somax training, the Somax swimmers were going faster than the Stanford-trained swimmers.

This graph shows the speed of two Stanford swimmers at various stroke cycles. Times were taken before the Somax training (black line) and three months later (red line). As you can see, the Somax-trained swimmer on the left was swimming faster.

At the NCAA's the following Spring, Stanford Women won by 80 points. The prior year, with essentially the same swimmers, they won by just 19 points.

Swim Team Program Goals

Our experience working with elite swimmers has shown us that just a five-day program of Somax analysis and drills doubles peak hand force output, increases flexibility and reduces times .6-3%. The goals of the Swim Team Program are to double peak hand force output, increase flexibility and reduce times by 3% or more.

While swimmers in our five-day camps doubled their peak hand force output and cut their stroke count at training pace 30-50%, they were not able to increase their stroke length at race pace.  Amy Van Dyken, for instance, dropped her stroke count on 50m from 30 strokes per length to 15 strokes per length during training, but her stroke length at race pace was unchanged.

With our Swim Team Program, we hope to help swimmers increase their stroke length at race pace, so they can swim with the same ease and efficiency as Alex Popov.

This graph shows how Alexander Popov effortlessly swims world record times. The heavy solid line shows the amount of propulsive force generated by his right arm. The dotted line below shows the velocity of his right hip as it rotates toward the surface. Popov rotates his hip 5/30ths of a second before his insweep, and again 5/30ths of a second before his outsweep. Despite having a small hip rotation, he is able to generate 75-100 Newtons of force. Increasing the speed of his hip rotation would enable him to increase his peak force to 150 Newtons and swim faster. Our goal in our Swim Team Program is to do exactly this.

As you can see, Popov's stroke is 50% longer than most elite swimmers. This increase in stroke length comes from his early hip rotation. Popov rotates his hip 4/30ths of a second before his insweep, and again 4/30ths of a second before his outsweep. Amy Van Dyken was able, in one week, to advance the timing of her hip rotation 2/30ths before her insweep and outsweep. With constant practice of our exclusive drills and bi-weekly underwater videotaping and analysis of stroke mechanics, we hope to enable   swimmers in our Swim Team Program to advance the timing of their hip rotation to 4/30ths of a second before their insweep and outsweep.

Swim Team Program Content

We will teach your swimmers to increase their stroke efficiency through frame-by-frame underwater stroke analysis, our exclusive drills, training aids and stretches.

Unlike most underwater videotape analysis, we measure stroke mechanics by the degree every 1/30th of a second, and then we train swimmers to improve their mechanics, measuring their progress along the way.

Our drills have been developed over the past 19 years to increase the speed and advance the timing of hip rotation, the real source of power in freestyle and backstroke. We have found that the power in fly and breast also comes from the hips, and have developed drills and methods of analysis for these strokes as well.

Our training aids for this program includes the Somax POWERBELT, the only training aid that provides resistance to hip rotation, thereby increasing the strength and speed of this essential and critical movement.

The POWERBELT consists of a pair of fins that strap onto the hips and provide resistance to hip rotation and undulation, the real source of power in swimming.

In addition to the POWERBELT we will  make available to swimmers in this program  new training aids developed by Somax.   

For further information on our training methods, please see Swimming, The Hidden Secrets of World Record Swimmers, Microfiber Reduction, and Breathing.

Program Training Schedule

Our stroke analysts will travel to your team pool to teach this program to your entire team--coaches, parents and swimmers--in a series of four-day clinics (each of which can be conducted over four consecutive days or two consecutive weekends to avoid missing work or school). Each clinic will cover one stroke, with the fifth clinic for Starts and Turns.

We believe it is important that everyone on your team learn and understand underwater stroke mechanics. In this way, everyone will be on the same page. Parents and swimmers will be able to understand why someone is improving, and why they are not. Parents and older swimmers on the team will be able to help the coaches analyze and supervise drill sets.  You team will be more unified when everyone has the same goal: the most efficient stroke for each and every swimmer on the team.

Each clinic consists of four six-hour days--three hours each morning and three hours each afternoon. Two hours each morning and two hours each afternoon are spent learning in-pool drills.  The drills are first taught on the deck with the assistance of the parents and coaches. One hour each morning and afternoon is spent measuring and analyzing the tapes made in the pool.

Before any swimmers are analyzed, we show underwater tapes of World Record holders, measuring and analyzing their stroke mechanics. Once swimmers see their own stroke compared to a World Record holder, they will clearly see what they need to improve.   We then teach them how to improve their stroke with our exclusive drills, training aids, stretches and exercises.

We also teach the coaches and parents how to videotape with an underwater camcorder. If the coaches and parents do not already have underwater camcorders, we can direct you to suppliers who have excellent equipment for this purpose, or we can supply you with the same cameras that we use. Modern underwater camcorders allow you to sit or stand comfortably on the deck while videotaping underwater. Each camcorder has a detachable waterproof underwater lens. A waterproof lens is separated from the camcorder body by an extension pole that attaches to the bottom of the camcorder. A parent or coach (or swimmer) sits or stands on the deck, lowers just the lens below the water surface, and can see the swimmers on the LCD screen. Each swimmer is taped from the side and front (and back with breaststroke). The tapes can then be played back on a VCR with frame-advance so the swimmers can see what they are doing every 1/30th of a second. Every swimmer gets instant visual feedback to see whether or not they are doing their drills and stroke correctly. It is the fastest, most efficient way to learn swimming.

This may sound complex compared to on-deck coaching, but it is so much more effective, and actually very simple once you get used to the new approach.  One ten year-old boy, for instance, reduced his stroke count on 50 meters from 62 strokes to just 15 strokes in just five days.  Another 10 year-old who had plateaued for a year dropped his 200 free time from 2:19 to 2:09, and went on to win 9 Gold Medals at his state meet, setting three state records in the process. Once swimmers get to see their stroke underwater, they will never want to go back to on-deck coaching again.  

Also in each clinic, we teach your swimmers how to measure their flexibility and strength.  We provide Stretchcards and Strengthcards for them to keep track.  We also provide Strokecards to keep track of stroke counts.  Every week the entire team will get to see their stroke and drills on tape. Every week they will measure their strength and flexibility for swimming. Each week they will see improvements. Week by week they will see their stroke counts dropping, they will go through the water more smoothly, and as they improve their drills, their pace will increase. Then they will see their times dropping as they take their new stroke to competition.

As you can see, the Somax Swim Team Program engages the mind much more in swimming than current swim coaching. Swimmers will learn about muscles and physiology, stroke mechanics, how to measure and keep records, and how to set and meet goals--all skills that will help them later in life.

Once your team has completed a clinic, the team will train with the Somax drills each day.  For each stroke we have developed a 2500 yard or meter drill set consisting of 12 different drills that will develop and integrate the skills needed for an efficient stroke.  While it is possible to teach an efficient stroke in four days, we find that it takes 3-6 months of daily practice of our drills in order to learn the new stroke well enough to be able to race with it. For this reason, we recommend spacing the clinics over 2-3 months so that the swimmers have time to practice their new drills.

In order to race with an efficient stroke, you need to practice the drills correctly. For this reason, we recommend that every swimmer see their stroke at least once a week. After they have practiced for 2-3 months, it will be helpful for them to see their stroke at race pace in order to see which skills they are bringing to their racing stroke.