ENTRY (the catch) • Hold both paddles and pull the bench halfway up the incline. • Straddle the bench and lie face down on the padded bench with the top of your chest even with the front edge of the bench. • Extend your arms forward, just as you do in the water. • Start the pull with both arms, keeping your hands, wrists, and forearms rigid and elbows high. Scull outward.
MID-STROKE • Start to scull inward toward and under the monorail, accelerating as you do this phase. • Be sure to keep elbows high.
FINISH • Accelerate so that your hips move swiftly past your hands. • Complete the stroke with a strong finish by extending your arms as your hands brush your hips.
RECOVERY • Keep your arms in the finish position until you feel the seat carriage start to roll back down the monorail. Hold for 1 second. • Slowly let yourself and the padded bench glide back down the monorail, taking care to avoid acceleration or jerky motion. Try to simulate the recovery motion used in butterfly recovery as you slowly lower your body along the monorail. Use a cadence to do complete strokes, such as forward on "1" count, recover on "1-2-3"count. This allows your muscles to benefit from eccentric (or negative) contractions, as well as the concentric (forward or positive) phase of the stroke.
TIPS • Using webbing straps will provide greater resistance than using the pulley cable system. If this exercise seems to hard, try it with the pulley cable system. To increase resistance for this exercise, increase the incline, use webbing straps instead of the PCS, or add power cords or weights.
CAUTION: The recovery phase of this stroke can be difficult. We recommend that you start conservatively and gradually increase the repetitions and resistance levels.
NOTE: Do not use the freestyle extension loop for this exercise. Hook the middle pulley on the PCS directly to the U-bolt on the underside of the seat carriage.
