The new Australian crawl
8/6/3
We call it the Australian crawl. Australians have always been more enthusiastic and progressive about swimming than Americans. Americans are passionate about golf. Before 1900 international freestyle competitors used breaststroke, sidestroke, and trudgeon crawl. Around 1900 Australian Richard Cavill observed natives of the Solomon Islands swimming the stroke he copied that became known as the Australian crawl. He used this technique in the 1902 International Championships to set a 100 yard world record of 58.4 seconds.
In the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the Australian men improved on the crawl by introducing more body roll.
In the last Olympics in Sydney, Australian swimmers such as Ian Thorpe, Michael Klim and Grant Hackett again introduced a crawl refinement known as the high elbow catch.
In this technique, the elbow is held in a very high position while the forearm initiates the catch. The elbow remains at the surface. The upper arm is in line with the surface. This is in contrast to the traditional catch which is like your arm is going over a barrel. To make this high elbow technique work well, it also helps to have a strong catch-up style stroke so that the shoulders are flat when the catch occurs.
It is not widely accepted. Most elite swimmers do not swim this way. Jeff Pease is not an advocate of this technique, but I have been trying to emulate it, so judge for yourself.
Two advantages of this technique are:
(1) A longer pull, since the catch is farther out front
(2) More effective application of force on the water – straight back rather than down.
Two disadvantages of this technique are
(1) It uses smaller shoulder muscles, not large lats
(2) It may not be as effective for sprinters. Sprinters cannot take advantage of a glide and catch-up style. They typically dig straight into the catch.
This position is awkward and requires a lot of flexibility in the shoulder. It takes a lot of flexibility before you can even get into the position, let alone start developing pulling strength while in the high elbow position. Some flexibility exercises that help are: lying on a hard surface with arm stretched straight up, Elbow forward stretch with wrist at hip, Arm twist. High elbow crawl also demands weight room work on the shoulder girdle.
Adapting this technique takes a commitment to change
o Strengthen the shoulder girdle
o Flexibility training
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