What Can You Learn from Katie Ledecky?

by Terry Laughlin

Tonight, Katie Ledecky swims the final of the 800 meter freestyle at the Rio Olympics, an event in which she owns the top 10 or so performances in history, and in which her closest competitors will probably be far behind by the halfway point.

As yesterday’s NY Times article Long Swims Are Boring? Not When Katie Ledecky Is Racing the Clock notes “The distance freestyles used to be swimming’s equivalent of baseball’s seventh-inning stretch: a convenient time to take a commercial break or make a trip to the restroom or concession stand.”

No more. As with millions of others, Katie’s race will be “can’t-miss TV” for me. And I hope for you too. Not only for the thrill and inspiration of seeing her break a world record, but for what you can observe about her form and apply to your own swimming.

TI and the Olympics

This week I’ve been invited to comment on Olympic swimming on two occasions. On Monday, I appeared on the public radio program The Takeaway, to talk with host John Hockenberry why the US is so good at developing Olympic medalists and horribly ineffective at teaching beginners.

On Thursday I joined Slate sports editor Josh Levin for a podcast to explain the techniques that make Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky so special–and seemingly so different from the rest of us.

But you can swim more like Katie than you think, by studying these aspects of her technique this evening then emulating on your next pool visit:

Head Position and Breathing (i) Her head is quite low in the water and aligned with her spine–though I think she could do even better with this. If you study TI video, you’ll see even less of the head visible above the surface. (ii) She breathes inside the bow wave, often with only on
e goggle above the surface and water at the corner of her mouth. (iii) When she breathes, her head moves in synch with her body not independently. Compare my breathing position–at super-easy pace–with Katie’s–swimming super-fast–at the same point in the breath.
Stroke Length. As I wrote in last summer’s blog Swim like Katie Ledecky? You Can! the most obvious (and measurable) advantage Katie has over her peers is a longer stroke. Click to read ‘secrets’ of Stroke Length.
Streamlined Kick Katie will probably use a 2-Beat Kick (the one TI teaches for distance and OW swimming) during parts of her 800m race (she uses it for most of her 1500m), before shifting to a 6-Beat Kick for extra speed near the end. In either case, her kick will be controlled, integrated with core-body movement, and–most of all–streamlined. No matter how she kicks, her legs will remain in the ‘slipstream’ behind her upper torso.

Katie in Flow

My favorite aspect of Katie’s swimming–and the one I consider most significant–is psychological, not physical. She takes a zen-like enjoyment in the wonderfulness of how her stroke feels. This was best illustrated by her attitude while racing at a low-key meet in June 2014. I wrote about it in the blog Zen and the Art of Breaking World Records.

Learn both the physical and psychological skills that make Katie a 1-in-7,000,000,000 phenomenon with TI Self Coaching Courses–the Freestyle Mastery course if you’re a TI vet; the Ultra-Efficient Freestyle course if you still have a lot of upside potential in efficiency.

August 12th, 2016 Terry Laughlin. 8

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David

Watching swim teams alongside me in the pool, I’m always struck by their day-after-day robotic routines. Everything about Ledecky, on the other hand, screams joy and exhilaration. There are huge differences in technique: the guys I see, are swimming almost entirely flat, for example, but it’s her energy that makes her amazing.
Kirill

Terry, interesting observation on Katie’s head position, thanks!
Looking at the picture you posted i couldn’t help noticing Katie doing “rag doll arm” and “paint the line”, as if she was following TI course.

What about Sun Yang freestyle, he seems very smooth and close to TI technique too ?
SEB

I was really surprised by Katie’s style, her head was always way above the water at times as if she was competing in an open water tri. Definitely a powerhouse, not the most ‘elegant’ style but it works for her!
Ed Woodall

Thanks for the comparison picture Terry. Not only is her head up quite a lot but it bobs up and down a lot. Still fantastic to watch her and I actually counted her strokes in an early race an in my estimation it went from 40 strokes for the 50 in an early lap to to 37 in the last. Phenomenal no?
Can I hijack this thread for a moment to share with you my morning swim. I was back in my beloved Thames, and was a bit rusty. After a while however I started to play with moving my scapular up and over my ribs as i went towards the “vw bumper”. I was thinking about some instruction I saw you give in an ‘unofficial’ video with a group in Hawaii I think. You talk there about extending out and down as if over a Swiss Ball. I have contemplated this quite bit and am still not sure whether I am on to it or not. But I had an incredible set of realisations this morning ( on my own in a big bit of the river-not the ideal place to process the learning but sometimes that’s where there good stuff happens!) of what I think is needed in the catch, which is not something I do much practice on yet. But the slight extension of my arm as it is sinking to wards the bumper then gave my an amazing feeling of security as i started to “pull”. I have an old rotator cuff niggle in the Right Shoulder and I could feel that this new position of shoulder blade higher up created the conditions where I felt I could put much more pressure on the water ( back!) without any fear of the niggle and more importantly perhaps ( for me at any rate in terms of Feldenkrais) was that I felt that the catch or “pull” came much more from my back than my arm or chest an particularly not from my shoulder. It was almost as if the shoulder joint “disappeared” ! I felt the the shape from my low back to my fingers was a kind of a banana instead of what I have had recently as a straight line in my back and then an angle down to my finger tips.
It was all quite exhilarating and tiring but I am sure that is simply the excitement of the new and that I can go and integrate this in the pool. I feel that it will a. decrease my stoke count and b. speed me up! I will see what you say and I don’t expect a reply ( you have bigger fish to fry!) and then get it checked up with coach Kim to make sure I am on to the correct thing.
I didnt reply to your very moving post about the cancer and I would like to say along with all the others how you have and will continue to change my life as long as I live and I and so many have so much to thank you for.
With love.
- Kirill
  
  Awesome discovery, thank you for sharing. I feel jealous and tempted to rush to pool. Unfortunately I will have to wait till next week
  It resonates with my recent experience of better “catch” feeling, and I still can’t reliably reproduce it all the time. I was planning to obtain a copy of new FS mastery series to work on that.
  I would be curious to know if you managed to maintain your success and decrease SPL in pool. Good luck and productive laps!
  - Ed Woodall
    
    Thanks for the interest. Quick session last night in the pool confirmed to me at least that I am on the right track. No massive reduction in SPL but probably a good one less than normal on that kind of practice session.
    I am going to practice the Speed work with a Tempo Timer this week so that I have the session clear in my head before the new academic year starts, so that I can practice but not have to dredge too much mental energy up each time I do it. I am hoping for some real improvement in my ability to change gears which at the moment is minimal! All the best with your practice.
Marjorie

I thought of you as I read the recent article in the Sunday New York Times magazine on Ledecky (In the issue about the Olympics, not surprisingly). The author wrote, for example, about her “high elbow” catch, how her arm spends less time out of the water than most swimmers, and how she grabs the water. Her coach said that the way to get speed is first to lengthen your stroke, then increase the tempo. It was a lesson right out of TI.
Harry Smith

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