Andi Murez Freestyle

Important Note to the Viewer

LESSONS: 17 VIDEOS

Andi - Warming Up

Andi Murez came by the house to swim in the Endless Pool Elite. We spent a bit over an hour swimming, talking and me asking her about her swimming. This is a casual opportunity to talk to an Olympian about her stroke, her development, and her continued search. We'll be posting an automatically generated transcript of the conversation below. We hope you enjoy these videos. --------------- So obviously big straight arm stroke, this is a big, big time. Here, Olympian, Andi Murez says just swim in nice and smooth at this point. Water set at a slow speed. So I would say actually looking at it, it is the left arm. And when if you look in there, if you're looking in the mirror, watch how the left arm starts to fade out further outside, especially when you breathe to the right. And remember what we talked about the last time you were here, the hand should feel almost a fall, because you're bracing a little bit. So there's a, there's this, when you when you go to the right, the left hand kind of leans out a little bit. So watch it first look in the mirror, have it go right down into the catch, and then have that same thing. Well watch it without breathing first, see what it feels like to have it roll down in Yeah, and then go ahead and take a breath. And it's interesting because my dad was actually watching me yesterday. And he said that when I was coming around, my wrist was already bent. Okay, so then maybe even that it's coming in, because I'm so used to it, and then I have to readjust. Now that I'm thinking about it. So think about almost taking your fingers on entry and turning them in a little bit, which then pops the elbow. So just like that, okay, because it's easier to get on top of the elbow. If the fingers come in. You can see how it turns it. And then you can almost come in in that catch position. And then on the left side, it's going to feel like you're slipping a little bit. Okay, all right.

Andi - Direct Catch

Andi Murez came by the house to swim in the Endless Pool Elite. We spent a bit over an hour swimming, talking and me asking her about her swimming. This is a casual opportunity to talk to an Olympian about her stroke, her development, and her continued search. We'll be posting an automatically generated transcript of the conversation below. We hope you enjoy these videos. --------------- I think that's a little bit better. Yep. Left hand doesn't get quite as in here start to travel off to the side a little bit. I like the breath of the left. Right here, the hand went out. Just a left hand slide now a little bit, still. Okay. So the, I think turning the fingertips in on the right hand was effective. But just make sure that you enter a little bit more firmly. And maybe we're just feeling out at the beginning. But you want to make sure that you come in all the way through the surface of the water not stopping before you get there. exaggerate the left hand just a little bit more this time. So we're gonna do is we're filming her with the iPhone. We're just going to show her that if she feels like the hand is really rotated, and she'll see that it's now just a straight. How turned into that feel on the left? Okay, come here. Look at it. And does this speed. Feel good? look good? Yeah, it's, it's smooth. You know, you'll get better as you go faster. But you see, it's just straight now. But remember where it was? Where was it? It was out. So you have to feel really in to get it straight. So, yeah. Now I just felt how I sort of glide around. Yeah. Yeah. One more time. You wanna try a little faster? Sure. No, I was thinking it was too bad. Do you think so? Okay, let's, let's go. Let's go. 120. Yeah, that's good. That was really good. Much better. That's better. Or you just became more propulsive immediately. I think that was better.

Andi - Where do you look on freestyle?

The first thing that we want to ask is where do you look when you swim freestyle. So I think I have a tendency to look forward and lift up and it makes my head out of line. And so I try to look forward as much or straight down as much as possible, because I think I still end up looking slightly forward. But I really am trying to work on my posture, and keeping my head back up. Let's see it. So I'm going to put the water speed a little bit faster to make it a little bit more natural for you for this particular skill. So probably come down to about 105, I'd say, you know, just take 2030 strokes, something like that. Okay. If it's too slow, it's not as natural. Yeah. Good to see the underwater where she's looking. And in this pool, obviously, you can really look at yourself in the face. Because you're looking straight down. So it seems like some of the sprinters are going to go deeper and not look as far forward. But that was really nice. So in here, you can really look right down at yourself and see that you're looking directly at the at the bottom. Yeah. I want to see. I want to see myself I feel like yeah, it depends on it depends on what you're looking at, you know, looking at hand entry, the head can be a little bit more extended. But if you're looking at rotation, you're probably looking more towards your lats and the midsection so the head can be further down. So if you're looking at your hip rotation and things like that, you probably look forward at the front mirror, because then you can see more of your body that way. So, so it really does kind of what you're looking at on your body and what you want to see activated. It'll change where you look. So really good.

Andi - Position-11 Balance

To position 11 freestyle is just to work on a standard balanced body line. And the last time you were here was so beautiful, you started almost every swim with a position 11 push off working on your balance. So one of the things I want to I want to show is the mastery of balance. And so before we get into position 11, you have done such a great job of really achieving balance in so many different positions, that the one that was most impressive to me was actually the static position on your side, you're completely underwater, but it was perfectly parallel to the surface of the water. So if you start with just a flat balance, and then do what you did last time, just play Yeah. So the faster you go, the more efficient you want to be, you have to have this ability to stay and remain balanced at all times from fingertips to toes, and just play with it. It's just, it's pretty incredible. How good Andy is at this skill, you can imagine that any propulsive force she puts on the body is gonna cause her to go forward. And even throwing the weight of the arm pushes the front down. And we have to remember we go down to balance, we don't go up to balance, you see that her breath is involved in this because air is buoyant. So how long have you been working on that for the past three years. Another one is starting with your arms and legs straight down. And then without moving too much, bringing both of them straight, and trying as much as possible at the same speed to bring up to a balanced position on the surface. I like starting swims like that, because it takes a lot of control. And then you're high on the water before you start swimming. So we'll slow the water down for this, obviously, because it's just nice and relaxed. So go back about a 120 pace. And I think what you did the last time was you push off the back wall and position 11 and then just started. Well, it's position 11 swim, let's go even slower. Because you're gonna there's gonna be a pause in between each one to reestablish balance. So she starts off flat on the surface of the water. And then just slowly starts to add her strokes. Maintaining a good long balanced body line. So this is this is really more of a balance exercise than a freestyle exercise. Always reestablishing the balance because we don't really want to end up in the center when you swim freestyle. So catch up is one of those things that is, you know, it's good and bad at the same time, but it's good. If you're working on balance. It's bad if you're working on timing. So what what do you consider is good and what would not be so good about that particular drill on your stomach, and when you're swimming freestyle, you want to be continuously rotating and spending most of your time on your side. But I think it is good to have that balance and be able to maintain your position there. So yeah, good drill. Give me the exact same thing.

Andi - Almost Position-11

So this is almost position 11. So this is taking the weight of your arm, and having arms, you know, start to start to move into a more natural sort of, you know, where the cross body connection and all that stuff. So they get close, it's a little bit of a catch up, but it's but it's not, you know, the arms are still in the line of position 11. But they're, the timing becomes a little bit more natural. So I had to, I had to change the water speed on that, because you were gonna have to kick too hard. But this, this should be back down to like 130, because it's slow. We're gonna move into almost physician 11, which is more along the lines of a catch up stroke, but and he's going to spend more time on the side, the arms are going to move into the position, 11 line, but they're just not going to be there at the same time. So this is what she was talking about before, in that you want to spend the majority of your time on your side and get through that center position pretty quickly. That's basically really slow freestyle. I like I like how you do it from a standpoint of a very slow recovery. And there's almost a hesitation in there to throw some extra balance demands on your body. But so would you think about that? I mean, I like that, because it's really hard to maintain my normal technique, when I'm going that slow. So it requires more stability. But it feels good. I think one of the things for me in working with so many great swimmers like yourself is your ability to swim, your stroke your fast stroke very slowly. So it's almost like you're swimming, you're rehearsing the the fast stroke in slow motion. Whereas a lot of times people have a totally different stroke when they're drilling, then but they do when they're sprinting or going fast. So I've seen this so many times, the great swimmers have this mastery and ownership. So is this something that when you do something that slow, you're trying to imagine how you want to take this forward into a very fast stroke. Yeah, I think it's just sort of thinking about the same things that I think about on my fast stroke. And really, being able to execute those well is more difficult. So I'm constantly thinking about it. And I think it's kind of a funny thing to try to master your slow stroke even more than my fast one because my fast one sort of comes naturally at this point. So it's almost like why practice something you wouldn't use? Yeah, well, yes, but it's just another type of drill.

Andi - Hand Exit

All right. So because you need such a big stroke, what is your thought process from, you know, when you think about where the hand enters to where it exits, and especially the the full pole the connection from front to back. So like I, when I first learned how to swim, I learned an S pattern. But now I just tried to pull straight back. So the finish of your stroke, how do you finish the stroke? Do you? You know, we were taught that 100 years ago that you had to flip your hand out of the back. What do you think about as far as the exit is concerned? Yeah, so I do flick, especially as I get faster. But I am trying to eliminate that as much as possible. We've seen so many great sprinters that exit pinky first, that it slices out a little bit more. And what they've told me that all they're trying to do is get the hand back up to the catch as quickly as possible that sometimes pushing too deep into the stroke is detrimental in the exit. So I know it'd be interesting, I might use the iPhone and actually film you swimming. And just to see what you do instinctively. Because the flick may not be back. The flick may be across. Yeah, you know what I mean? So you may be doing the pinky exit. Yeah. Yeah, it's still a fine balance between getting the stroke and trying to get back. Okay. So we're gonna put you at 110 which is hugely demanding, I know. But we take a look at the we'll take a look at a stroke on on the iPhone, just to kind of zoom in on the finish a little bit. It's definitely the side of the hand. So her hand does come out. Thank you first is so clean. It's so clean on the exit. I tried to think more about the beginning of his stroke just so that it was whatever I do naturally. Yeah, it looks nice. Yeah. Well, what about above water? No above water. I mean, we got all the other cameras getting that but the above water was is very clean. There wasn't a flick. There wasn't you know, a lot of times people who do this will flick across behind them and so the energy is going the wrong way. Yours went straight up. And it was clean coming out. Yeah. So that was very nice. We will we will

Andi - EVF

Your stroke is so big, obviously first sprinting, do you even think about evf? Early vertical form? Are you trying to grab as much water as possible? You know, this thing? Yeah, so an interesting thing to do is scuttling before I swim. I've noticed that that sort of sets me up that I don't have to think about my cat that my forearm is already engaged. And then, yeah, then I can just swim. I think it's so important to awaken those things. And so one of the things we do in here, do you do strapless sewing? I do when I come here. All right, there you go. So I think it's so important. And what we're doing here, Andy, is that you'll start it. And you know, we'll just play with it for a little bit. And then I'll speed the water out. And when I see the water up, eventually you just drop those, and then you carry that feeling right into it. Okay, so we're going to start, it starts really slow, obviously. Because sculling should be should be nice, well, it usually is nice and slow. I've actually been doing, doing some fast, quick, accelerates the fatigue on the forums. We'll start at 215. And first, we'll just get a feel for water speed. So you noticed that Andy's arms with the only the forums really are moving, the elbows are in front of the shoulders, I'll probably just give her a little bit more water speed here. So scrolling, you want the majority of the action to be taking place from the forums to the hands. And from a physics standpoint, you can see that the the paddles are down, which is causing her to stay in one spot, if you push too much water out in in you, you will just start to fall back. So you're going to start to pick it up a little bit. Now the goal of this is not to see how fast you can score, it's just when you feel you get to a swimming speed, just go ahead and let the paddles drop off and then get into that that good catch position. Okay. So gradually, just picking up the pace of the water. Elbows come up even higher, the faster she goes on this. Now there's a beautiful scrolling pattern right there. So she just drops the paddles to pick up the speed of the water. Something a little bit more natural for her. And she just carries that feeling of the the connection in the cache into her stroke. Here comes the other one. No, you were fine. No. Well, yeah, cuz you were swimming. Yeah, I kept changing the water speed. But I mean, the great thing about this is that you can transition from sculling to swimming and you're forced to go faster and faster. The bad thing is that the paddle might come back around a hitch in the head. So the faster you sculpt, the better it looked to me, you know, the elbows came up, and you really had a much better connection, but then taking it directly into swimming. How did that feel to you? Yeah, so I really liked that, because then I felt like my catch was already set up. And then I could think about it, you know, whatever other parts of the stroke that I wanted to do, it just sets me up for the good connection with my lats. So it really is, again, we're practicing something that you want to carry that feeling into, because you're not going to have time to think about it when you're really going at it. Yeah. And that's what practice is for right? actually practicing skills that you would want to use at some point, rather than just seeing how many times you can go back and forth. Yeah. Which is sometimes lost on people, no way more fun to think about to float around and work on balance. Right. So the big thing, also is, you know, you're, you're creating such a big lever as you swim, so not breaking the wrist. What do you think about as far as when you initially catch? Do you try to get the wrist down or are you really trying to create a long lever that's pretty straight. Yeah, I think I'm trying to create a long lever that's straight. Because I think that my wrist is going to bend a bit, just naturally. And while I'm trying to keep that strong catch. So then if I think about being straighter, and it's not too much. Let's see, let's see what we can see from under you, we can get those out of there. Yeah, you don't need that anymore. Your balance is pretty good. Yeah, you just swimming, but, you know, maybe we can, we'll see what we see from above and below as far as how the catch is initiated. And then what water speed do you want? Is this, okay, I think we're at 115. Okay. So using the water, you know, kind of the thickness of the water to help initiate that down sweep or the the the initiation of the catch. Sometimes people break their wrist a little bit too much. And Andy has to make sure that she has a great connection with as much of her arm as possible, through as much of the pole phase as possible. And when we see her at high rate or high speed, you'll see she doesn't have this forward extension that you're looking at right here because she immediately gets into the catch. But, again, like she said, she might break the wrist a little bit, but it's not going to be anything overt. And she's going to have to try to fix it as soon as possible once she gets into the catch. So right there, I think at the slow water speed, you know, it's pretty straight the whole time. There's very little break of the wrist at all. And probably when you get even up to greater speeds, the hand just gonna come in pretty heavy. And and stay, I think fairly straight the whole time. So do you again, this is probably something that you're trying to avoid is too much wrist break. Yeah. Yeah, I've even taped my wrist or put on longer paddles, so that I don't break the wrist. One of the things we do is we have people hold the wrist, hold the paddle like that. So by holding it like that, it would dig into your wrist if you were trying to break it too much. So is that this thing? You are you got special paddles that are much longer than that. Yeah, there's a nice oh, the bolsters probably just strap them with velcro to your arm. Yeah, the bolster power. Yeah. I know. We've only joked or talked about taping my wrists. Okay, we're actually so maybe once I did it

Andi - Where does the catch come from?

So what part of your arm Do you focus on to catch as much water as possible? So right in there, and maybe inside the elbow, bicep, yeah, you just tried to get as much as possible. Yeah, and one thing to help me feel that and actually use my forearm is to do the fist drill. Or one of my coaches has used rubber duckies. And you hold on to the deck. So it's sort of a similar lose the hand, right as the surface. rubber duckies. Interesting. Yeah. So his idea on that is that there's the whole neurological piece that I think actually engaging your hand instead of feeling something on all of the hand, then has some greater stimulation. I like it. It makes sense. Because it's like you said, it's a little squishy to Yeah, I like to, for my club swimmers, I would always give them two pennies for each hand. So two pennies. And then if they came back with one penny, then they had to do 25 push ups. So yeah, actually, when I was just in Tenerife training, but it was for keeping my hands together, so I would put a penny here. Interesting. We'll talk about that next. So that's not something that I had. So just by keeping your arm by focusing on the forearm, the elbow, bicep, the entire arm, what muscles are you trying to engage to really push the arm through all of them, of course, but mostly the lats is the biggest muscle. So trying to keep your shoulder in the correct position, so that you can engage your entire arm into the lot is the best thing so that you don't get bicep tendonitis. Exactly. So shifting the responsibility to the big muscles, rather than the teeny ones that break all the time. Exactly. Show us for 20 strokes, please, will stay at the same speed. Establishing balance sets up the property line for us just beautiful thought process of understanding that you have to stay off the small muscles and the small joints. And it's how we professional athletes survived for so long, is because they are listening to their body and they're trying to access the power from the correct place. It looked to me like you were bouncing a little bit on that, when were you doing that on purpose just to kind of feel it? No, I've been feeling that on every single one. You start talking and I forget what I feel like I'm going around, even under. So this you know, this is the thing with swimming in a stationary pool that has a narrower feet of water than say 10 Reef does tend to if you've got the whole wall coming atcha. So in a smaller pool like this, you know something that's fantastic for a backyard but does have its limitations, you have a very narrow window in here, especially the fast you go. Once you start making mistakes in here, it starts to shove you one way or another. Now those same things will happen to you in a pool. If if the mistakes are made, it's you should get a little slower or a little less efficient. So this you have to be as good as possible. Or else you do feel that, you know, society decided sort of thing. And that would be something that, you know, we take a few times to work on and said Hey, where's this coming from? Where exactly is this occurring in your stroke? Oh, yeah, that was that the water was pushing on, like, on this side. And I don't know if that's because I was shifting and then the water was hitting from the edge, which could be Yeah. But I noticed that on the last two, okay. A few more strokes and then it will just go right by and then you know, you're in the center at that point. So, but also an interesting thing that you say that my breath is so good. I wonder if I'm lower in the water here. So then yeah, about that. I'm moving in the same, but I'm because I'm lower. It looks better here. Well, I'll take it for what it is. But we'll take a look. I think the thing that I like about your breeding so much was how fast it was. Okay, so it's very quick. And it's something that has really struck me about the great sprinters is that they spend when they do have to breathe so for 100 long course you have to breathe 50 you know, maybe maybe not but for 100 so the less time you spend in the breeding position is the less time that you spend in a dangerous position that you'll throw you off balance so the head turn is very sharp for you it's an early breath for someone like bruno fratus it's a late breath but the time that he's in the breathing position is almost faster than anybody else i've ever seen so it's a different time you know he breeds yeah much more delayed and the strange thing is dry luca breeds the same way both from brazil so is it something they teach down there or is it just lucky that I got two guys that have that that sort of breeding pattern yeah now there you go

Andi Murez - Fingers Open or Closed

So the interesting thing you just said was you're using pennies to hold your fingers together. So are you spreading your hands out too much? Or do you? You know, have you? Have you tried to just separate them a little bit? Or do you just go a little too crazy on it? Um, I think I just try to be as narrow as possible. And so that sort of helps remind me and also when I was in Tenerife and this blue, they have a glass window on the sun side. Yeah. And we got a slow mo video of my one hand going like this, and my other hand going like this. So to separated them. Yeah, yeah. And even sometimes, David is reminding me of my thoughts. So sometimes I'll be really tight with my fingers. My thumb will still be out. Good or bad. I think it's bad. Okay, too far out. I've had I've had an Olympic champion tell me he swims with his thumb out to catch water in the flap of skin. Really? Yes. So rolling? Oh, so yeah. And he his hands are more like Pullman a basketball when he's fast. So um, yeah. And I feel like if the balance because I think with the water tension, you can have them out your feet? No, no, no, no, but you want to in this, but your, your fingers are so long and slender, finding that perfect balance, it's gonna be difficult. So probably keeping them in is probably a benefit. So play with it here. See, there's benefits to be a little chubby. So do do some with the fingers together and some with the finger slightly apart and just play and see what fields you want faster or slower. When I was totally together at the beginning, I felt very strong. And then it was such a big contrast when I went totally wide. The other extreme, if only my fingers were flopping. Yeah. And then I think it's sort of hard to find that balance. Because some strokes when I then went to the middle, it was good. And then sometimes I would feel a finger flop around. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it really is kind of based on the individual. Some like Lee's hack always has this fingers. You know, typically they're a little bit open. But again, bigger, bigger hands, probably. So I think it's important to experiment and find the one that that obviously works best. There's never one answer for everybody. Yeah. And it's also interesting here, because here you can really feel it. I don't think I would feel the difference right?

Andi Murez - Low Breath and Breathing Pattern

So your favorite thing is one eye breathing. So staying low. So let's just kind of focus on that. What I mean, we just got done talking about the, the, the low breath. So have you ever tried to breathe with both eyes underwater? No, I don't think so. I feel like I would be tilting my head. It's just so. So ask Dave about Scott Tucker. No, it's you can actually just, you're just, you're just looking this way, rather than this way. So you're still going, but the eyes are looking down a little bit more, you're just not turning your head as far now you obviously have to be going a certain speed in order to have this happen. And to be honest with you, I can only do it to the left in this pool. Because again, the water is standing still a little bit more than a regular pool. Now, if you if you ask David about Scott Tucker, is the water right here like this was going this way that was going that way? Because of the flow in here. And so like you said, if if you're off a little bit, swallow water. But ask David about Scott Tucker, Scott Tucker, Sam for David at Auburn. And yeah, exactly. But Scott, you can't see him breathe. I posted a video on Instagram of Scott Tucker, breathing. And of course, everybody said, This isn't a video about breathing. But Scott Tucker had the lowest breath I've ever seen, you can stop it in one frame and see the corner of his mouth. That was it. So but again, two Olympic teams for the foreign free relay. So very successful swimmer, but very low and quick breath. So for you. Obviously, the breath has to be quick, because you don't have any time to spend out of the balance line. And we already know that if the breath is slow, what happens to the left hand? Is that good? Is it good for rate or bad for rate. So obviously, a good breath is you can you can by going slow. The one thing that you do is turn the head back down so quickly in comparison to most people. Because your head can only be out of the water for a little bit of time. When do you exhale? before? So do you in the water I try to do I don't always and that's either breath is sometimes slow. So do you exhale right before the head turn? Or do you do a continuous exhale in between the breaths. Um, I don't know, continuous exhale. Again, it's like a balance because the air in your lungs keeps you higher. So I tried to do it as late as possible, but not right before because then I tend to be exhaling outside the water. Okay. And one more question before you get to demonstrate, let's say in the Olympics, what's your breathing pattern for 100? Free, good course. I was playing with two to four. But just a few weeks. Last week, I tried only for the entire time and it wasn't bad. So I think I'm gonna add towards that. You get to spend more time again in that balance position. But I think for you probably have to start really focusing on the exhale to make sure that you get complete oxygen exchange. Yeah, you know, and it could be easier. Yeah, well, because, I don't know, I mean, cuz you know how they say like, when when you're telling someone to not breathe for 50, you don't end up getting that oxygen into your body into your muscles by the time you finish if you take a breath at 25 or later, and you don't need to beforehand. Um, and so I think that when I'm doing the two to four, one is that I try to change my rate, or my rate changes in the four versus the two. Because I'm not breathing, then it's a little quicker, so then it's constantly changing isn't good. And then also, I don't know that I'm necessarily getting a full breath, right? Or those twos. So hopefully it'll be good could almost be in a hyperventilation standpoint because you're not getting the air out as much and maybe feeling shorter breath by going to that's interesting. So yeah, it all Yeah, I mean, I used to do I don't know what's working on it. It's always a process. Yeah, show us some good breathing please Definitely one goggle only watch how fast their head turns back to head turns back long before the arm gets in. So, again, the focus of making sure that you're out of balance for a shorter period of time as possible. there's what's called a little bit longer. And this is the great thing. Now, here's someone that's already swarming the Olympics and the listen to what she's saying. She's continuing to try new things to learn, always always wanting to get better, which is really cool. There are a couple of different ways there. Yeah, I tried. I don't know what to do the under the under stuff. And then when I didn't get him, yeah. This is what I always try to if I have someone that I'm working with to try to do it. First, I film them close up on their face without breathing but with the head turn to see whether or not they could actually get air

Andi Murez - Pull Pattern

So, pull pattern, we did talk about it, let's talk about it a little bit more. So I think if you start that, over again, just talk about how you were initially started to swim with the S pattern, and the philosophy of not doing an S pattern anymore. So when I was first coached by Rachel, she taught me the S pattern. Most of the time he taught you to swim like this on the screen to stay on top of the water you taught, you helped me decide to only breathe to the right, because I just wasn't good at the left. All my athletes breathe to both sides, but not during races. Yeah, yeah, I do that. Um, yeah. So when I was first learning to swim, I was taught to do an S pattern under the water. And now I've evolved to pull straight back. So I don't really think about it too much, but just I'm just trying to move as much forward as possible. And so I just want to be pulling straight back. The way I like to explain it to people is just stay linear, linear force production. So we're gonna pick it up just a little bit on this one, just down to 110. And try to stay a little bit further back because I definitely want the front camera to get this one. Okay. And, you know, 1520 strokes and you can just stop. Have you noticed I'm not so good at counting? Okay. Well, I didn't want to stop it before you do because I don't want to shoot up and breaking your fingers. Okay. So it's so cool to see Andy swim. The way that I teach so many people, the, elbow, it's the widest part of the body. And the hand a slightly inside of that. It's almost like you've given the water a hug. But the hand is very straight and it's path from entry to exit. There we go. Yeah, that was good. Yeah.

Starts - Flatten Your Back

Swimmers, if you've heard your coach say "flatten your back on your start" and you didn't know what it meant... here's a quick illustration. First, why do you want a flat back on your start? Too many swimmers start with a rounded back as they reach down to grab the blocks. This doesn't send the energy in the correct direction when you leave the blocks. Andi Murez, great sprinter, is trying to make sure that she flattens her back so that she sends her energy forward as she leaves the blocks. This will really give you an idea of what "take your mark means". With Andi in the ready position, when "take your mark" is said, she pulls down and tightens up the core to make sure that everything is going to be heading in the right direction. Nothing is relaxed in the "take your mark" position. She goes from a relaxed ready position, to a tight, flat back "take your mark" position. Notice that the head position does not change and directs Andi into the water. So when your coach says "flatten your back for your start", get everything tight, and "flatten your back". One final look at Andi Murez, as she prepares for Rio!