Improving your swimming efficiency and preventing the appearance of shoulder injuries is possible if recovery technique improvements. Read on to learn about the technical aspects and various exercises.
The recovery is the aerial phase of the stroke which allows us to start bringing the arm to the starting position to start a new stroke.
This movement is determined by other aspects and body position, el roll and flexibility y shoulder mobility and seeks to transfer the greatest amount of kinetic energy from the arm to the body.
In swimmers we can distinguish mainly two types of recovery, with the high elbow and the straight arm. Since the first one presents a lower risk of injury, we will focus on telling you how to perform the recovery with the high elbow:
High elbow recovery
When the hand ends the underwater phase (further below the hip), the elbow must first come out of the water as if you wanted to raise it to the ceiling.
Then the forearm and hand will come out of the water, in a position perpendicular to the elbow and the water surface.
In that position, with the elbow toward the ceiling and the forearm and hand below it and slightly behind the elbow, you should bring your arm forward.
Approximately at shoulder height, the hand and forearm are advanced to the shoulder position to seek entry into the water.
The hand will enter the water with a slightly downward and backward orientation, followed by the forearm and then the arm, with a small elbow flexion that extends once it enters the water.
The fundamental role
You should keep in mind that if you perform an insufficient role, the shoulder will not be able to efficiently perform its movement, so the recovery will be flat or parallel to the surface of the water, which greatly increases the possibility of injury.
So that you can work this movement we propose several exercises focused on exaggerating the position of the high elbow:
You can include these exercises in all sessions, either in the warm-up, as the main technical block or interspersed with series to achieve the greatest possible transfer to the swim. Remember that constancy is key to technical improvement in swimming.
Laura García Cervantes