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Backstroke Starts
Backstroke, as its name implies, must be done on the back. Given this fact, backstroke starts cannot be done from a starting block the same way that all other strokes are. You must start on your back. In order to be positioned this way from the beginning of the race, the backstroker starts from in the water with their back facing the opposite end of the pool. Now this may seem to be a terribly complicated way of starting a race, but in reality, once you know what you're doing, it's far easier to do a backstroke start well than a normal start.
The Backstroke Start The balls of your feet create most of the force you get from this start. However, as you pull yourself up to the starting position in this start, you create a significant amount of shearing force on the area where the balls of your feet meet the wall of the pool. So if your feet have to be on vinyl, tile, or metal in the slippery environment of a swimming pool, there is a real chance you will lose your footing and waste all the energy of your start. Slipping wasn't always a problem though. Before starting rules were standardized, backstrokers were allowed to use the gutters on many pools to aid in their starts. They'd curl their toes over the gutter in order to get a better purchase for their start. In fact, some backstrokers, would not even enter the water at all before the race, preferring to start standing up in the gutter while holding on to the sides of the starting block platform instead. Unfortunately, the days of these elegant starts are done now that US and International Swimming rules state that all backstrokers must start with their toes underneath the water level and never curl their toes over the gutter even when the water level is above the edge of the gutter. I cannot hazard a guess as to why this rule has been put in place but since it has, backstrokers have to look to their ingenuity in order to work around it. Some backstrokers, simply lower their angle of attack to the wall in order to avoid slipping. Instead of pulling themselves up to their marks, they pull themselves directly toward the starting blocks. A start like this is terribly flat and shallow compared to those that once used the gutter to great advantage. Another way that some backstrokers handle this issue is to set their feet below the waterline, pull themselves up at the starter's mark, and once the starting signal is given, quickly place their feet on the gutters, then start normally. While this solves the problem of slipping feet, it adds another beat before the backstroker can start and in some cases, a slower start is worse than a bad start. One way to solve this problem is to borrow a trick from the minor leagues of the sport and use pine tar. Now you might wonder if I had suddenly changed subjects to baseball, but like baseball there are small organizations of summer swimming teams dotted all over this country. Here is were many swimmers get their start into the world of competitive swimming and many of these swimmers never make it any farther, but they in their circumstances make some of the most interesting innovations to the sport. For instance, few, if any, of these summer pools can afford starting blocks, so all starts happen from the side of the pool, which is terribly close to the water for someone used to starting from blocks. Furthermore, with no starting blocks, the backstrokers have to use their teammates to be their starting blocks. Their simple and elegant solution to the lack of starting blocks is to have their teammate stand at the edge of the pool with their backs to the water. This teammate is called the backstrokers, "legs," and legs are what they use. Instead of using the handles underneath a starting block the backstroker simply pulls themselves into starting position by pulling on their teammate's legs. Now even with these "legs" the backstrokers in these summer leagues have the same problem with their feet slipping that backstrokers at the higher levels of the sport have. What was their solution? They used a variation on the baseball player's pine tar called pine oil. Pine oil is a tacky substance used to paint the hooves of horses for equestrian events and is available at any tack shop. It is a non-water-soluble, tacky substance that can be painted on the balls of the feet then washed off with soap and water (or turpentine if you really want to be clean). I suspect that this innovation was adapted from another sport because swimmers at this level of competition are rarely just swimmers. They compete in many other forms of athletics as well and the commonly used equipment in one sport was easily adapted to swimming. The fact remains though that it worked. With the pine oil on their feet these summer-league swimmers were able to execute better starts. They were able to pull themselves higher on the wall, add more potential energy to their start, and go farther in the air above the surface of the water than their opponents, which is exactly how the start is supposed to be done. With the added friction of your feet on the wall, pull yourself up into the starting position. At the starter's signal, let go of the starting block and turn your palms facing up while dropping your head back. The palms-up orientation of your hands makes it easy to bring your arms straight outside your body, as if you were doing an upside down butterfly recovery. Explode off the wall using the enhanced traction of your feet to arch your body backwards through the air. As your arms come over your head, stretch them into a full-streamline position with your head tucked against your chest just as your fingertips enter the water. The act of tucking your head into the streamline position just as you enter the water will reverse your arch. Breaking the surface tension of the water in as small an area as possible is an important key to any good start so be sure not to flop or smack the water in any way as you enter the water. As your arch reverses itself under water, watch for your depth under water and adjust accordingly. Hold your streamline until your water speed is just under that of your normal backstroking speed, and begin your underwater butterfly kick. Feel the pressure stay constant on the bottom and tops of your feet as you start kicking lightly and crescendo your kick in strength as you approach the water's surface near the fifteen meter mark. When you're approximately a hand's-width underwater, begin your first stroke. Separate your hands to shoulder-width apart and feel for your first catch. As you begin your catch, roll your shoulder down into the first stroke and break the surface of the water with all the power you can muster. The surface tension of the water is your enemy and you want to power through it on every start and turn. A good backstroke start feels like flight, even more so than a normal start. As you leave the blocks flying in a direction you cannot see, you know the water is there, but part of you always wonders a little so the sense of free-fall is a lot more prevalent. It's both a relief and a burden to return to the water after your short flight through the air since you've just started a period of time when you cannot breathe and your orientation to the surface of the water pulls the air out of your body. Yet, once you begin your return to the surface of the water for your first stroke, your instincts that have been trained into your body over years of practice take over and you get down to the business at hand of preparing for your first turn. It's been a terribly long time since I had anything to do with summer league swimming so there may be yet other products like pine oil that can be used to help a backstroker's start. The ability to add friction to a water-soaked environment is hardly a new need. So experiment. I'm sure you'll find your own ingenious methods of handling this problem. |
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