Hey guys. Welcome to this week's video from Propulsion Swimming.
I'm Dan and in this week's video we're going to do our first ever race review.
There's no better place to start than taking a look at the world leading 200m IM swim time
done by Michael Andrew at the US Olympic Swimming Trials. So there's been a lot of talk about this
race. Some people really like how we swam the race and some people really don't like
the way he swam the race. So what we're going to do, we're going to take a little look at it,
we're going to break it down length by length, stroke by stroke, and see whether we think
it's a good idea to race it the way Michael Andrew does. Alright so let's get into it.
There's some good swimmers in here. Seliskar's a pretty decent swimmer.
So as you expect, Michael Andrew's got a pretty good start being a sprinter and if I just pause
it right there, not like Caeleb Dressel. Caeleb Dressel uses his entire body to do the
under water phase whereas Michael Andrew, if I rewind it a little bit for you guys,
he actually keeps his arms perfectly still and the whole movement comes from his hips.
Just before he does his break out before 15 meters, everyone has to do that, that's part
of the rules of course and for me, I think that's a perfect breakout for him. You can see already
that he's got half a body length lead on the rest of the field alone. So it's different, I mean you
look at Caeleb Dressel, he's got the best start in the world because he's he uses the entire body.
Doesn't work for Michael Andrew but at the same time you wouldn't use what Caeleb does
on a 200m race because he'd be using too much energy just on that start alone. So Michael,
because he's doing a 200m race, he does need to he needs to need to save his energy. But this
is a pretty good start from him, you can't fault it really. Pretty much five seconds to 15 meters.
One thing I have noticed when he does this is that he barely uses a second kick for this fly
and you can see he's already taken heaps out of this field. One thing that's also noticeable is
he breathes every two. So you do need to breathe every two to get the oxygen in as well otherwise
towards the end of the race you're gonna suffer badly, you do need that oxygen in your body.
So breathing every two is the correct thing to do and maybe the way I've looked at it is that if he
doesn't do his two kicks he's actually saving his legs, because breaststroke is his favourite event
or favourite stroke, so he's probably saving his legs for that breaststroke leg. That's one thing I
would take away from it but he's absolutely flying here. I mean he's split 23.9. He is currently,
pretty much, a second underneath the World Record and that World Record is held by Ryan Lochte who's
a pretty good flyer. People would be extremely happy with a split of 23.9 if you were swimming
100m fly. That's how quick he was out. I mean absolutely sensational stuff. I was watching it
and he did a 23. and you think he's going to suffer so badly unless he takes it steady on this
backstroke. Going into the backstroke, good strong underwaters, getting to about 10 meters I'd say,
and it doesn't look like he's holding back. I mean he's still using his legs quite well,
still basically a body length ahead of the field here. He's already won this race.
If you take a look at this angle, I've always said or most people have always said, you've got to
keep a still head on backstroke. And if you take a look at Michael Andrews, it does rock side to side
a little bit. Other than that, it's pretty good. You've got the rotation, strong arm pull. Yeah,
the only reason I would critique his backstroke is that he's got a bit of a head rock which is
strange but still a body length ahead. Still got legs kicking, maybe not as strong as what you'd
see from normal backstrokers. Split here 53.09. So Ryan Lochte's world record, Lochte being a
backstroker, he's caught him up a little bit but still underneath the World Record by 0.39. That
backstroke split was a 29.1 which is good. Nothing wrong with that, I mean that's pretty average I'd
sort of say, that's a good solid split. Doing the crossover turn which you see in 200m IM's now.
Going into the main leg, Michael Andrews breaststroke leg. He's the breaststroker and
he did an amazing 100m Breaststroke at US Trials of course. There's a few question marks over
his stroke, where he's got a very wide kick, and hopefully we'll see in this angle, but he's got a
very wide kick. You take a look at Peaty, you take a look at some of the other best breaststrokers
and they keep their basically keep their knees together. It's a very short and snappy whip kick,
whereas Michael Andrew actually does a really wide kick. So it's very leg, well breaststroke
is a very leg dominated stroke anyway, but he uses his legs more so I would say than any of the other
swimmers. But this leg from Michael Andrew was absolutely incredible. I mean he was a body length
ahead after the backstroke and now he's he's just leaving them behind, it's absolutely amazing.
Keeps it nice and long, the stroke rate is quite strong, quite fast but look at this,
he's running away, honestly. This is kind of Peaty-esque. This is what you expect from Peaty,
that's absolutely amazing. The split here he's now suddenly, so he was 0.39 off the
underneath the World Record on the the backstroke to breaststroke turn, he's now 1.2 underneath the
World Record. So you look at that turn and you think he's going to get the World Record here.
It's absolutely incredible. And then this is probably the biggest talking point,
his freestyle. I mean based on the spits he's already done before you kind of expect him to
die off but maybe not to the point of how he looks when he's swimming. So when I'm looking at this,
it looks pretty good for his first 15m or so but then it's almost like, it's like
boom. Now, you can see the strokes are getting shorter, the right arm is slapping into the water,
the legs are still going but there's no propulsion going there. He's basically he's on survival mode
right now. He's just driving to the end, breathing every two which is probably normal anyway. But
it's the shortness of the strokes, the hand entry is so close to the head. I mean he took a breath,
what two breaths in that final five meters? That's almost like the rule in junior swimming
to not breathe in those final five meters to drive yourself into the end and keep your head down and
just plow yourself into the end. But he took two breaths into the end which shows how much he was
suffering towards the end. But a final time of 1.55.2, world leading time by over half a second.
But to go back to that front crawl swim, 29.9. Ouch! That really, really hurt. At the same time
the big question is: did he swim it correctly? For me if it's the world leading time, yes he
absolutely swam it correctly. I would change a couple of things, I wouldn't go out as fast in
the fly. 23.9 is extremely quick. I would probably take off 0.3/0.4 off that fly and then hopefully
that then saves himself for that final 50m of swimming. But the breaststroke leg was absolutely
fireworks. I mean he left them all behind and these these guys aren't slow in the water, these
are top 200 IM swimmers in the world and he's left them behind. 1.55.2. You take a look at him after
he can barely move. The arms must be absolutely dying, big breaths from Michael Andrew as well.
Yeah that really hurt but he's happy with the time, I mean you would be wouldn't you?
1.55.2 - that's a very good time. If he does that at Tokyo, I think he's on for a gold medal.
It's going to be difficult to beat him during that time. I think there's a lot of work to be done
actually. Because the weaknesses are so clear, the stuff in training that you can do to fix it
is not easy, it's always going to be hard to do, but it's quite clear what he's got to do.
Just keep the stroke nice and long. This is a good slow motion here of his front crawl
and you could see how slow the arm and stroke rate is going because the lactic acid is building up
so much that last stroke was just get to the end and breathe. You can see yeah, oh
and he didn't even finish on this side. You got to finish on your side on freestyle,
so could have found another 0.1 potentially there as well. So yeah very good swim from
him. There's a couple of things I would change. Of course he does a lot of the short race pace
training that he does which a lot of people question are you fit enough to do a 200m IM.
He's definitely fit enough to do it, absolutely. It's just whether he can bring that last 50m
freestyle leg down. But yeah overall I think it's a pretty good swim so I think going into Tokyo,
Michael Andrew has to be the favourite for the 200 IM gold medal. He's over half a second
second clear of everyone else in the field. It's going to be great for us Brits watching on with
Duncan Scott trying to catch him up on that last 50m front crawl. If you've enjoyed this
video please like it, please share with your friends. If you want to see more videos like
this of different race reviews, please leave a comment below of what races you'd like to see.
But until then guys, thank you much for watching and I'll catch you on the next one you!