Don’t Bend Your Wrist

Bending your wrist in the catch in Freestyle will slow you down.

A few things happen when you bend your wrist or drop your hand.  (See the video above.) 
One, is that because you are still in the ‘catch’ phase, you will end up pushing water with the back of your hand.
Secondly, you are not ‘catching’ nearly as much water.  You are cutting your catch short.

Thirdly, you are limiting your pull to using your hand instead of hand, arm, shoulder and lats.  And core.

As you are driving your hand and arm forward, keep your elbow high.  It’s as if you are rolling your hand and arm over a large ball or barrel. 

Keep your hand on the same plane as your arm.  As an extension.  One long, slightly curved reach.

Mark Spitz, an American swimmer - 1968 and 1972 Olympics - he trained under James E Counsilman at Penn State.  One of the things they notice was that when doing freestyle, his hand exited the water past the point in the water where it had entered.

That may not be easy for everyone but if you are going for that, it will help extend your reach.

• maximize surface area
• straight wrist keeps pressure on all muscle groups
• drill with paddle reversed