Sunday, May 16, 2010

A revolution that began with a kick

By Amy Shipley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 20, 2008; E01

Even longtime swimming coaches profess to being baffled by the more
than three dozen world records broken in the last 18 months in pools
around the world. They wonder how to fully explain such a sudden and
widespread explosion of speed in a sport contested since the first
Olympics more than a century ago.

The answer, they say, cannot lie solely in the latest high-tech
swimsuits introduced amid a swirl of controversy this winter, because
the world-record smashing began at last year's world championships --
long before the newest of the newfangled apparel came out.

Swimmers, coaches and scientists say it is impossible to pinpoint one
explanation. They cite many contributing factors, ranging from
professional training groups that have sprouted across the United
States to greater access to underwater cameras and other advanced
technology.

But some say the most significant breakthrough has been a revival of a
swimming maneuver developed more than 70 years ago by one of the
physicists who worked on the atomic bomb.

Though utilized for decades, the underwater dolphin kick had not been
fully exploited by the swimming mainstream until Olympic megastar
Michael Phelps and a few other stars began polishing it -- and
crushing other swimmers with it -- in recent years. Some say the
revival has caused a quiet sensation that has been largely drowned out
by the reaction to the suits, whose tightness, futuristic fabric and
seam-free design make swimmers sleeker and more streamlined.

It is the use of the dolphin kick, coaches point out, that keeps
swimmers where they can best take advantage of whatever advantages the
suits offer: underwater.

"You cannot succeed without this skill," said Mark Schubert, the head
coach and general manager of USA Swimming's national team.

"It's a weapon," said Jonty Skinner, the performance science director
for the U.S. national team.

"It's been a quantum-leap difference," said Phelps's longtime coach,
Bob Bowman. "Michael's going 13 meters underwater [using the kick]
instead of five. That was what he did that Ian Thorpe didn't."

Bowman was referring to Phelps's demolition of Thorpe's world record
in the 200-meter freestyle last year, an achievement that stunned fans
at the world championships in Melbourne, Australia. The mark set by
the now-retired Thorpe, the greatest swimmer of his era, had been
considered virtually untouchable before Phelps's swim.

But Bowman said the difference in Phelps's record race (1 minute 43.86
seconds) and Thorpe's 2001 effort (1:44.06) was plain: Phelps stayed
underwater longer off the turns, executing the undulating motion with
his entire body that is designed to mimic a dolphin's use of its
flipper. It wasn't that Thorpe did not use the dolphin kick. All elite
freestylers have for years, rather than the old-fashioned flutter
kick. But Thorpe came to the surface earlier throughout his race,
dolphin-kicking less and relying more on his freestyle stroke.

The problem for Thorpe? When executed properly, experts say, the
underwater dolphin kick is faster than any stroke except a full-out
freestyle sprint over 50 meters.

Phelps's turns and underwater kicking were the difference, Bowman
said. "Free-swimming 200 straight meters, Ian would probably win
handily."

Also known as the fly kick because of its connection with the
butterfly stroke, the underwater dolphin kick has become so important,
some coaches contend, it has earned its own classification.

"There are now five strokes," Schubert said. "The fifth stroke is the
underwater dolphin kick."

Origins of the Kick

The underwater dolphin kick attracted the interest of swimming
innovators as early as the 1930s. The late Volney C. Wilson explored
its possibilities before diving into later work on nuclear fission and
the atomic bomb, according to David Schrader, a research professor at
Marquette University who is Wilson's biographer.

Schrader said Wilson, an alternate on the 1932 Olympic water polo team
who studied fish propulsion at a Chicago aquarium, claimed to have
shown the kick to Johnny Weissmuller, a training mate at the Illinois
Athletic Club.

"Weissmuller reproduced it perfectly, but was not impressed by it,"
said Schrader in a phone interview, recalling a conversation with
Wilson.

Indeed, the kick did not immediately take off. For years, swimmers
relied on the flutter kick in the freestyle. The dolphin kick has
always been associated with the butterfly, which was not contested in
the Olympics until 1956.

One of the first swimmers to turn heads with the underwater dolphin
kick was David Berkoff, a Harvard graduate who became known for the
"Berkoff Blastoff." In 1988, Berkoff set several world records in the
100 backstroke by dolphin-kicking for 35 meters underwater at the
start of the race. When rivals began doing the same, FINA, the sport's
international governing body, acted quickly, banning underwater
swimming in the backstroke for more than 10 meters, then later, 15
meters.

Seven years later, Arizona-based swim coach Bob Gillet urged his young
butterfly star, Misty Hyman, not only to do the dolphin kick
underwater as long as she could, but also to swim on her side to
enhance the stroke's effects. By 1997, she was winning butterfly races
by swimming 35 meters underwater.

A year later, FINA banned swimming underwater more than 15 meters for
the butterfly and freestyle. (In the breaststroke, swimming underwater
has been banned since the 1950s; however, since 2005, competitors have
been allowed one downward dolphin kick off the turns.)

'We All Studied Him'

Despite the success of Berkoff, Hyman and others, few coaches were
tempted to try to maximize the available 15 meters of underwater
opportunity. Some looked at the success of Berkoff and Hyman as
something of a fluke, figuring that extra time underwater would
provide only temporary gains. They thought swimmers would surge ahead
but fade at the end of races out of pure exhaustion, particularly in
races longer than 100 meters.

They also worried about safety; no one wanted swimmers passing out
during practice while trying to hold their breath longer than usual.

And because the kick was executed underwater, coaches added, it was a
difficult skill to teach and evaluate. No one really knew the perfect
way to do it. No one really knew whether it would be a big plus or
not. So for years, many coaches and athletes worked on it only
perfunctorily.

"Nobody figures out what's faster until somebody goes faster using it,
then all of the coaches sit in the video room saying, 'How are we
going to beat this guy?' " Schubert said.

Among the first swimmers to perfect the maneuver within the 15-meter
limit, Schubert said, was American Neil Walker, who used to frustrate
four-time Olympic gold medal winner Lenny Krayzelburg in backstroke
races in 25-meter pools (as opposed to the Olympic 50-meter distance)
in the late 1990s and early 2000s. With the extra turns, Walker could
routinely defeat the more acclaimed Krayzelburg, surging ahead in the
underwater portion of races.

"We all studied him," Schubert said. "He was the first great dolphin
kicker. We all studied his underwater technique and copied it."

Then there was Phelps.

In August 2002, Phelps broke the 400 individual medley record in a
close race against teammate Erik Vendt at the U.S. championships in
Fort Lauderdale, Fla. In that race, Schubert recalled, Phelps -- then
a rising teenage star -- passed Vendt in the last 50 meters by
catapulting ahead with his dolphin kick. Back then, however, Phelps
was just learning to use the kick to his advantage. He has mastered it
only recently, coaches say, putting him in an elite group along with
Americans Natalie Coughlin, Ryan Lochte and Aaron Peirsol.

A year before the 2004 Olympics in Athens, U.S. swimming coaches got
together and agreed they needed to better understand this dolphin
kick. Clearly it was important. But there was virtually no body of
research on the topic. How much of a difference did it make? How
should they teach it? Which was the best approach?

They got in touch with group of scientists at George Washington
University who had been studying how fish swim in an effort to aid in
the design of small submarines for the Navy. USA Swimming's
biomechanics coordinator, Russell Mark, immediately set the GW team --
which included professors Rajat Mittal and James Hahn and student
Alfred von Loebbecke -- to the task of studying the underwater dolphin
kick. The USA Swimming-sponsored research, which began in 2003,
continues to this day.

"The advantages of doing it," Mittal said, "are very apparent to
everybody."

The race has since been on to implement the kick.

"I've talked to people about the fly kick being a weapon for your
swimming that you must have," said Eddie Reese, a two-time Olympic
team coach at the University of Texas. But in years past, "I was
always disappointed I wouldn't see [school-age swimmers] doing the fly
kick underwater. . . . In the last five years, I've been seeing it
more and more.

"Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte and Aaron Peirsol -- you can't compete
with them unless you can fly kick."
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