The High Catch is the most essential movement for all of the swimming strokes. It is where 90% of the forward movement comes from. With stroke details that are so important, we need to focus on a constant improvement to the High Catch technique (knowing that it can always be improved on as we get stronger and more balanced as swimmers). We will break down the High Catch as well as the most common issues and how to address them.

The High Catch is made up of a very specific muscle chain. A muscle chain is the order of which muscles engage to create a shape. For the High Catch, the correct muscle chain is Forearm, Trap, Bicep and Triceps. You can see this in slow motion as the fingertips and wrist engage (forearm), then the elbow bends (traps), and then the forearm and hand swings under the elbow (Bicep and Triceps). This chain creates the High Catch. When one of the movements happens out of order, the body creates a different shape.

If the Wrist and Fingertips bend down more than 10-15 degrees, it creates a hooked hand, which negates much of the forearm, biceps, and triceps muscle engagements. Any less and 10-15 degree bend, you will not catch the maximum water and any negative bend will create a dropped wrist. The Dropped Wrist sets the entire stroke to become a straight arm or even a dropped elbow. To address this dropped wrist issue, we like to swim with our Stroke Master Paddles with a knuckle wrap (grab a fist over the front nose of the paddles). With the added pressure of the paddle on the wrist, the wrist and hand move with the forearm and prevents the hook. In our practices, we focus on one problem while doing a drill. In the video, you see a Catch-Up Drill with the Knuckle Wrap. This allows the swimmer to focus on one hand at a time. We also suggest using a snorkel, as well as isolating the arms with our Dual Ankle Buoy or Neo Band.

After the Fingertips engage, the arm has to bend under the elbow. To do this while keeping the elbow in place, the Trap muscles have to engage, and the bicep and triceps work together to swing the arm under the elbow. The most common problem with ‘keeping the elbow planted’ is they move the elbow and arm before the hand is completely under the elbow. When this happens, it creates a Dropped Elbow. All of the power the High Catch generated is lost when the arm slices through the water. This slice can be dramatic or very hard to tell.

One of the most controversial topics of freestyle strokes is the Straight Arm Stroke. Straight Arm Stroke is an issue when the straight arm is the portion under water. Even if the swimmer does not have a straight arm down the lane, you have to pay special attention to the breakout strokes. If the swimmer has a straight arm on the breakout strokes, that can contribute to shoulder pain, even when their other strokes are more ideal.

The last factor with any swim technique is learning to actually engage these muscle chains once we are swimming correctly. When learning, swimmers are more focused on the proper movement pattern and shape of a stroke and not focused on engaging muscle. A proper stroke technique can, by itself, help swimmers swim faster and thereby give the false sense that they are ‘using muscle’ when its fact they are not using that much muscle at all. Resistance must be used to help swimmers learn to instinctively engage muscle when they are trying to go fast. Without resistance, most swimmers will never really understand how little they are engaging their full muscle chain. Long cords can be an ideal way to train them to engage their full muscle chain. Parachutes are another great way to help them pull with resistance. We always recommend smaller parachutes so they can go ‘all out’ for some sort 25’s or mid-pool races with some minimal resistance so they can combine all 3 essential factors in their speed: Technique, Muscle Engagement, and Tempo. Once they start to learn all 3 of these factors, we like to do 25 yards ‘builds’ in which they do a good breakout, then focus for 5-7 strokes on their technique, then ‘add muscle’ for 4-6 strokes, and then finish by adding tempo. This allows them to process 1 of the 3 keys at a time by adding a new factor every 8 yards or so.