Any of our readers who are members of the ASCA, which is probably many of you, may have read Matt Wunderlin of the Waunakee Orcas team in Wisconsin tell his story about the new start he developed in the most recent issue of the ASCA’s American Swimming Magazine. For those who haven’t, I’ll give a brief overview of the start here. It has been referred to as a few different things: the side-grab start, the side-grab two-footed start, the modified Hoof’s start, and of course the Orca start, after Coach Wunderlin’s team that has helped him to develop the start.

Basically, the start is a two-footed start, but instead of holding the front of the block, swimmers will actually grab the side of the blocks. Then, with bent knees, they will lift their heels off of the ground, lean their center of gravity forward, and basically hang from their finger-tips. Coach Wunderlin describes it as much the same way a mountain climber would hang from a ledge.

Coach Wunderlin and I have been talking for the past week about the advantages and disadvantages of the start, and some of the observations we’ve both made in trials with our swimmers. First, is a full video of the start, then I will discuss the perceived advantages.

The long debate between track starts and two-footed starts has been power versus reaction. The two-footed start generates more power, but the track-start generates a better reaction time. The theory behind the Orca start is that it allows the power of the two-footed start but because the center of gravity (roughly around your hips) is so far forward on the block, you don’t lose the reaction time. Many swimmers have been adapting a sling-shot start to try and mimic the power of the two-footed start, but still being able to use the track start formation. The problem with this sling-shot start, is that your hips begin 18-24 inches behind the starting line. In the Orca start, your hips begin almost right at the starting line, and you still get great power.

So that’s the theory behind the start. Sounds great, right? Well, it’s not perfect. First of all. There’s an obvious stability issue. Many swimmers do not feel entirely comfortable holding themselves in that position so far over the water. But with practice, they will become better at this, and it will be more natural for them.

Notice how comfortable the swimmers in the video seem to be with the start. Here’s a detailed look at each swimmer’s starting position, first with Jake, then with Josh.

The two keys are that the further back a swimmer holds the block the further forward they will be able to lean their center of gravity. Also, the swimmer MUST get their heels off of the ground, and bend their knees to maximize the kinetic energy, before exploding off of the block.

Now the real question is does the start work. Coach Wunderlin, in his trials, found on average a .3 second advantage to the 8-yard mark. I found a fairly similar advantage, but I noticed a trichotomy with my swimmers. I gave my swimmers 2 practice tries each before timing them to 8 yards. I then compared it to their times for track-starts and regular two-footed grab starts.  Despite the fact that they had only tried this start twice, I had only a small handful of swimmers who were slower with this start (about .1 seconds), some that were a tiny bit faster (.1-.2 seconds), and a group that dropped a huge amout of time (.7-.9 seconds).  The group I ran it with is jr. high aged, so roughly 12-14, and at that age, obviously kids have much different body sizes. The division came from the builds of the swimmers. My heavier-set swimmers tended to be right at, or a tiny bit slower, with the orca start than with the track start. My rail-thin swimmers, especially those without a lot of leg strength, tended to fall in the group that dropped a lot of time. My more athletically built swimmers were in between, but generally did drop some time. After I brouth this up with Coach Wunderlin, he seemed to remember a similar split in his swimmers.

Obviously, since we’re about to head into championship season, it’s not something that we can spend a whole lot of time playing with and perfecting, but it’s definitely something I’m going to spend some time on at the beginning of next season. If the results are that good after only 2 practices, I can only imagine what would happen with more trials.

But Coach Wunderlin and I fully admit that our trials were fairly unscientific, although the numbers seem to indicate a strong trend. Later this week, I will have a conversation with Coach Wunderlins about more details of the start, concerns I have about it, and any progress he’s made since penning the article.

Try it with your swimmers! Let us know what results you get, any adjustments you might try, and any questions you might have, by posting in the comments or following the link below to the forums!

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