Swimmer IQ: What is Undulation (From Swim Like A. Fish)
When I first “moved up” to the Gold Group on my club team, my coach sat our entire training group down in front of a whiteboard. “If one person answers this question correctly,” she said, “the entire practice will be relay work.” “Only ONE person has to answer correctly?!” I thought. “Consider it in the bag.” All four strokes were listed on the board on the left, and we had to match the stroke to the body’s driving movement. The list of body movements read: “Rotation, Pulling, Undulation, and Kicking.”
We all sat there thinking about it and eventually answered our papers. I thought about how the strokes moved through the water. At the last second, I changed my answer. My paper read:
When my coach walked up to the board, she smiled slyly and matched backstroke and freestyle with rotation and breaststroke and butterfly to undulation. “I didn’t say you had to use all four choices she said,” assuming none of us had gotten it right. While the rest of my teammates groaned, I jumped up and down. “I got it! I got it!”
There is a foundational IQ that all swim coaches must work to build in their swimmers. Although many swimmers rely on “feel for the water,” this base of swim knowledge helps them put two and two together and turn in technical feats. Here at Swim Like A. Fish this speaks to the heart of our mission to help swimmers and swim coaches get faster by increasing their technical knowledge base.
When it comes to Undulation, most swimmers couldn’t even give you a definition of the word, much less match it to which strokes.
Let’s Get Started…
What Is Undulation?
Undulation is the fancy term for the up and down motion of the butterfly and breaststroke strokes. It is a wave-like function that helps swimmers rotate around the short-axis. Think about how the waves of the ocean move: this is also how swimmers move down the pool in these two strokes. Swimmers will undulate because they must get their heads out of the water to breathe. Read more about how this applies specifically to butterfly here. But, how far out of the water changes from swimmer to swimmer and stroke to stroke.
If your swimmer struggles to understand the concept of undulation, I like to have them practice this Sculling Drill. Isolating the wave-like function that occurs during the drill helps the swimmers understand the concept.
Click here for the Underwater Press Drill
What Is Proper Undulation Form?
Another concept swimmers must add to their foundational swimming IQ is the transverse plane. The transverse plane is the imaginary line that separates the body into top and bottom halves.
To explain this concept, draw a stick figure on the board and draw a horizontal line through the hips. Then have swimmers stand up straight and point to where that line falls on them. Have swimmers practice pushing their head and chest forward while upright – draw their attention to the fact that the movement pushes the hips back. Then, have them push their hips forward – draw their attention to the fact that the movement pushes the chest and head back.
By doing this drill, they’re applying the concepts of the transverse plane (and/or short-axis on the body), and undulation.
Proper undulation requires swimmers to find a balance between that wave-like body movement and forward momentum. Too often young swimmers make the mistake of diving DOWN instead of forward. To connect undulation to the rest of the body, swimmers must understand that the undulation is initiated from the Deepest Part of the Pull for Breaststroke.
Should Every Swimmer Undulate?
Although there is a lot of debate around how MUCH a swimmer should undulate, there is no doubt that there is no Butterfly or Breaststroke without undulation. That’s why it’s such a disservice to swimmers that many do not even know what it is. The purpose of undulating is to get swimmers into a better physical position. It allows swimmers to breathe, kick and achieve the desired distance per stroke. So yes, every swimmer should undulate. We can get into the how in this blog for Butterfly and this blog for Breaststroke.
It might seem like a basic question: “What Is Undulation?” But I encourage you to ask your swimmers if they know the answer. Maybe even give them the same challenge that my swim coach gave me all those years ago. It can be easy to get caught up in the fancy, fun, minute technical concepts in the swimming world, but it’s crucial that we do not build on an unstable foundation. By building their swimming IQ, you’re helping them become the best swimmer they can be.
For more conversation starters to have with your swimmers, consider joining our newsletter at SLAF – sign up here. Otherwise, until next time!
Abbie Fish and the Swim Like A. Fish Team
