This is REALLY good! I've watched lots of videos about Caeleb Dressel's start, and this is the best by far. Great breakdown of specific small ways to build up to adopting his best practices.

0:26 was a perfect slow-motion for the person diving into the pool on the left

this was actually way more helpful than I expected! ever since I signed up for Dressel’s course last year, I’ve been always trying to implement his start into mine, but I always found it uncomfortable, despite the extra power I would gain. I can tell you did a lot of your own extensive research, especially from Caeleb’s videos of his own and some from his course. This is gonna help me and so many others a lot, thanks 🙌

This is an absolutely fantastic video! Thank you so much for putting this together Derek.. Super helpful.

Wow, very thorough, even provided drills to work on. Thank you, Derek.

This is so good!!!! I really love the in-depth explanation of how to come off the blocks. Thanks so much!

Fantastic stuff-super clips and clear explanations! THANK YOU!

greeting from Brazil. Just started to swim now at age 38, but loving this and I learned alot with your video! many thanks!!!

Excellent analysis, footage and tips 👌

Hi Derek! Thanks So Much For These Precious Training Session. I Am Located In Umbria, Central Italy And Have Been A Primary School Teacher For 25 Years. American Colleagues Have Been Great In Guiding Us And Inspiring Us With Their Kindness And Enthusiasm. I Am Practising Athletics And Swimming In Synergy And I Am Interested In Continuous Sport Education. Blessings, Andrea

Very good analysis, thanks :)

This is outstanding!! Great analysis!

this was extremely helpful. Keep up the good content Derek. Looking forward to seeing you at NCAAs

Excellent advices

Cool. This looks very creative and analytical.

This video is so helpful! I dropped my time 5 seconds after watching

the level of technical analysis is on point here best dive video on youtube

Wow, I thought I had a pretty good start but after watching this I’m seeing so many new things to work on! This video is great, thanks so much!!

So helpful. Thank you!!

That's crazy analysis! thanks for the video

Wow just wow! Absolutely love it! Man miss swimming but wish this stuff was available earlier

Thanks for the video, super helpful 👍

Great video and excellent explanation. I look forward to more videos.

wow such a great video! Thank you soooo much!

Wow great video

Thank you from Russia, having shown to children this video and they understand👍

Bro i was doing this from the start and i thought it was wrong so there you go

Классное и полезное видео, Дерек!!

This is an amazing video. Thanks for the help!

Thanks Derek! Excellent video!

Thank you 👍👏

Nice video!!!

Awesome vid.

never watched a video this helpful thank you so much!

Wow this had really made my start much much better, I always used to uses Michaels start but now I’m losing time with dressel’s start. But I also think that Tandy has a really good start, not sure who’s is better. But thanks so so much ❤️

Thx for the video, amazing👌🏻

Damn dude, this was an excellent break down!! I learned a lot :D

Don't mind me, I'm just an animator using this video as reference. Great camera angles and breakdown 😁

Great, Amazing vidéo , thanks ! Fantastique,merveilleuse vidéo , avec des explications claires ,créatives, simples, originales, et ludiques. Un grand Merci

Good👍👍👍

Great video

great video. thank you

Best video I have seen in 2021!!!!

Thanks for your effort

Very Good! Great Job my Friend ! Many Thanks !

Great video and especially the slow motion and with the M.P. comparison.

Крутое видео 👍 Спасибо 🤘

God loves you guys!!!!!

Great Video!

Recently found the channel and already loving it

Great vid and analysis bro!!

Nice drills! Thanks.

Thx and good job for vidéo

AWESOME video, man! Great breakdown! If I may make a request, it would be awesome if you circled or highlighted the talked-about swimmer when showing a clip from a race. When a clip shows seven guys on the blocks, I don't know who I should be watching. Maybe that's just me! I definitely appreciate when you give cues like "wearing the blue cap". Thanks again for the outstanding tips!

Muchas gracias. Lo explicaste súper bien. Saludos cordiales desde Patagonia Argentina!!!

Cool video bro, good analisis, I like it congrats.

Excellent video indeed.

Nice

Nice video! I don’t know swimming but just wanted to learn what and how these amazing athletes do what they do.👏

nice

thanks

Super helpful video, thank you so much!

Me doy cuenta que trabajar la fuerza explosiva en piernas es importantísimo. Así como aprovechar el movimiento de brazos durante el vuelo. ¡Excelente video! Gracias

Details. True name of this video.

2:47 he doing a great start: Me watching the girl back there: 👁👄👁 wow thats impressive

very interesting in general...also interesting that - at least on one point - you say the exact opposite as The Race Club (lifting head to create momentum). As usual, "truth" is somewhere in between, so we - swimmers and coaches - will keep experimenting and working! thanks!

Good

my swim league starts soon and i will definitely use this.

Awesome video my man!

I’m definitely gonna use this start on my meet this Friday and cinco de Mayo weekend. Thank you so much!

Good vid

This is a really informative video, and gives a lot of helpful drills I've tried myself. However, I do think that there is only so much you can do technique-wise and in the weightroom to get a better start, as some of the limiting capacity will be your genetics and physiology. You see some guys with obvious deficiencies in their start technique, like Chad le Clos, yet are much more effective off the blocks than guys who incorporate the modern "flyover" technique with their arms like Bruno Fratus and Blake Pieroni. And in Bruno's case, his poor start hasn't been from a lack of trying-Brett Hawke has said they've worked so much on trying to get a decent dive, but just never got it down. And, sometimes less can be more. Look at Flo Manadou, probably the best guy to 15m in the 50 FR outside of CD, yet he does very little with his arms and doesn't have much exaggerated back leg motion-his start is almost akin to the simple "arms swing down then out" style that was popular up until around 2004 (Metella does something like this too, not sure if it's a French thing or what). Another example is Ervin, whose start got better has he did less (big key as to why he won gold in 2016).

Yes sir

one thing you might have missed is his massive leg kick. a very noticable thing in brad tandy's start is his kick, and i think that dressel also does a leg kick very well

good

vry gud ma friend

Neighbors: Jimmy what in the world is this guy doing, he's dancing on a table when it's snowing.

very good and very detailed video, but one thing i'm still having trouble with is actually getting into the pike position. are there any drills i can do to work on this?

Hi Derek, great video and love the drills cause I've been really struggling with my dive. I was wondering if there are any sort of drills or ways to practice that slight pike entry that Dressel does?

He just dissed the technique of a 23 times olympic gold medalist that quit a couple of years ago. That says alot about the development in the sport of swimming.

Dressel's arms were setup for immediate explosive pushing action. Phelps' arms setup was for initial pull and turn into pushing action when body is already moved forward. Phelps' method may be less explosive but resembles his longer stroke which may contributes to his entering momentum and fast UDK.

Hi - high school swimmer here that is fairly good at swim (state in 50 free, among other sprint events) but I have done a lot of work with physics and I really enjoy looking at tandy's (and dressel's) leg kick. It seems to me that it may actually be the key to their speed on entering the water, though it would also help with the body position. I really don't want to seem like i'm overexplaining something to you especially since you clearly know what you're talking about. I think the whole principle of the leg kick is the idea of storing force by moving it backwards and forwards. Imagine you're standing on a skateboard, and you have a 30 lb dumbell in your arm that is stuck out to your left. Now let's say you were to yank it to the right of your body, all the way from being all the way on your left to all the way on your right. What you would notice then is that you start moving left. What the key to this scenario (and the leg kick, to me) is that you've "taken" some of your speed and put it in the 30 lbs dumbell. However, when you stop the dumbell (your arm is fully extended to the right), you stop moving left. What's cool is that now you could "take" your speed back by moving the dumbell back to the right. I think the fundamental problem with starts is that you aren't on the block long enough - .5 of a second is not enough time or space to get to the maximum speed you could have as opposed to if the block was a meter longer and you could take another two steps forward. Therefore, you have to maximize the power you can get, and the most important component of that is the front leg, as it's on the block the longest. As best as I can explain it, I think that Tandy is using his arms and his leg (with the crazy overhead swing) as the dumbell from the skateboard scenario by throwing them upwards. By throwing his other 3 limbs up, he pushes his body down (like the dumbell moves the skateboard) into his front leg, allowing it to push better. Because human muscles produce less force with the speed they are working at (You can put way more power into a sled weighing 50 lbs than one that doesn't weigh anything), he's essentially slowing himself down on the blocks so that he can put more force into his body. It'd seem that it's kind of counterintuitive to slow down just for more force, but the cool thing is once his front leg leaves the blocks, he can now bring his hands forward and down, and move his legs together, and take the speed he had "stored" in them earlier back, and now he's faster. Just like yanking that dumbell back to the left! It's also part of why I think he goes with that full arm extension - from a rotational motion perspective, the fiurther a weight is from it's center of rotation, the more rotational inertia it has (holding a 10 lb weight at your chest is easy, holding it with your arms extended out from you is harder). While I think that Caeleb is a perfect in between of a lot of things, I think Tandy's put as much work as he can into mastering a start in which he is able to push for as long as possible. TL, DR; Tandy's start is fully based around "taking" the speed he has from his initial push off of the block with his arms and back leg, storing it in his limbs that he pushes up and back, and allowing his center of mass to stay close to the block so that his back leg can get that crucial extra .1 seconds of push in. Does any of that make sense? Am I talking out of my ass?

I was watching some clips about Matt Biondi, about 1984. Both feet on the front of the platform, shallow dive, and no glide. We have come a long way. I am surprised you didn't mention the heel kick. That seems to add almost as much to the start as the arm lift.

Instructions not clear, my suit came off

STILL A PHELPS FAN ALL THE WAY HES THE BEST

I think one way to improve the video is to highlight the swimmer you want us looking at, a little bit. I have to reach watch sections just to see what you are talking about. Great video, and great info!

@Derek Maas - I have a question. At the end, what is the best way to position the head while being on the block for a start ?

Great vid. Also, you may want to visually indicate the subject of your analysis when there are multiple people on-screen. Some viewers may not be familiar.

Michael Phelps is the best 💪💪💪

Do you recommend jumping for distance or length off the block? Also would you recommend an explosive leap or a slow and steady takeoff?

❤💪🏊‍♂❤

First clip is kind of hard to compare though, dressel had the "kick off slab" in the diving board while phelps doesn't, that could be the reason behind the difference in power/distance

I have always done this kind of start but my coaches always told me that this kind of start is slower. It seems like everyone does it the other way.

I’m kinda scared to do a regular dive off the side of the pool. How can I overcome this fear?

I already do that automatically even tho my coaches told me that the fly movement makes it slower

Who’s coach made them watch this vid

But my glasses left me

Perfect swimmer's body Hello my friend🏊‍♂️🏅

how to get a good backstroke.thanks

one other big thing you didnt address was how he also times the leg kick, which is important for establishing a stronger angle to dive into the water.