The State of Swimming in Mark Spitz's Era

When Mark Spitz captured seven gold medals at the 1972 Munich Olympics, he didn't just set a record that would stand for 36 years—he set a benchmark for technical excellence that defined an entire generation of competitive swimming. Spitz's butterfly and freestyle strokes were considered revolutionary for their time, relying on raw power, exceptional lung capacity, and a relatively simple arm pull that emphasized strength over efficiency. Swimmers of that era trained with less sophisticated equipment, minimal video feedback, and a coaching philosophy that often prioritized volume over biomechanical precision.

Compared to today's standards, Spitz's technique reveals a flatter body position, a lower elbow recovery in freestyle, and a less pronounced undulation in butterfly. His hand entry angles, kick timing, and breathing mechanics—while world-class in their day—would be considered suboptimal by modern coaching standards. The sport has since undergone a quiet revolution, driven by biomechanics research, underwater video analysis, computational fluid dynamics, and an unrelenting pursuit of efficiency. This article examines how butterfly and freestyle techniques have evolved from Spitz's era to the present, highlighting the key innovations that have allowed swimmers to shave seconds off world records and redefine the boundaries of human performance.

The Butterfly Stroke: From Power to Precision

Spitz swam the 100 m butterfly in 54.27 s at Munich—a world record at the time that showcased his extraordinary strength and endurance. Today's best, like Caeleb Dressel and Kristóf Milák, swim the same event in under 49.5 s, representing an improvement of nearly five seconds. This gap cannot be explained by training volume alone; it reflects a fundamental rethinking of how the stroke is executed, from the initial catch through the recovery and into the underwater phase.

The butterfly has undergone more dramatic technical changes than any other stroke since the 1970s, largely because its unique demands—simultaneous arm recovery, undulating body movement, and coordinated kicking—left more room for optimization. Swimmers who once relied on brute strength now combine power with precise timing and streamlined body positions that minimize drag while maximizing propulsion.

Body Undulation and Rhythm

In Spitz's butterfly, the body remained relatively flat through the water, with a pronounced up-and-down kick that often created excess frontal drag and disrupted forward momentum. The undulation was primarily driven by the legs rather than the core, leading to a less efficient transfer of energy through the stroke cycle. Modern butterfly relies on a continuous wave-like undulation that originates from the chest and travels through the hips to the feet, creating a fluid, serpentine motion that reduces resistance and enhances propulsion.

This dolphin kick is now carefully timed to complement the arm stroke: one kick during the entry and a second, stronger kick during the pull phase. Swimmers like Michael Phelps took this rhythm to an extreme, using a flexible torso and powerful ankles to generate propulsion even during arm recovery. The modern butterflyer's body position is more dynamic—rising higher on each breath, dipping deeper on the pull—creating a wave that travels through the entire body rather than just the legs. This wave reduces the energy lost to vertical motion and converts more of the swimmer's effort into horizontal speed.

Coaches today emphasize the importance of maintaining a consistent undulation pattern across all phases of the race, including turns and finishes. Video analysis has shown that even slight disruptions in rhythm—such as a delayed kick or a misaligned head position—can cost significant time over a 200 m race. As a result, drill work now focuses heavily on reinforcing the wave pattern through exercises like single-arm butterfly, butterfly with a snorkel, and undulation drills performed on land and in the water.

Arm Recovery and Pull

Spitz's arm recovery was high but still relatively straight, with hands skimming the water and elbows bending only slightly. This recovery, while effective for its time, created additional drag and required more energy to maintain. Today, the recovery is more relaxed, with the arms swinging low and wide to conserve energy and maintain forward momentum. The hands now exit the water cleanly near the hips, swing forward with minimal resistance, and re-enter the water with a controlled, streamlined motion that avoids pushing water forward.

The pull phase has changed even more dramatically. Instead of a simple straight-arm pull, swimmers now use a keyhole-shaped pull that begins with arms extended forward, then sweeps outward, downward, and inward before finishing with a powerful push past the hips. This pattern maximizes propulsive surface area and engages the latissimus dorsi more effectively, generating greater force with each stroke. The catch phase—the moment when the hands first grip the water—has become a focal point of modern butterfly coaching. Swimmers now learn to anchor their hands early, using a high-elbow position to create a solid platform from which to pull.

Recent Olympic gold medalists have also adopted slightly earlier breathing timing, turning the head forward rather than to the side to minimize disruption to body alignment. This technique reduces the tendency for the hips to drop during the breath, which was a common issue in Spitz's era. The combination of a more efficient pull and a more streamlined breathing motion has allowed modern butterflyers to maintain higher stroke rates without sacrificing distance per stroke.

Breathing and Kicking Innovations

  • Breathing frequency: Spitz typically breathed every two strokes, maintaining a consistent pattern throughout the race. Modern butterflyers often breathe every other stroke in the 100 m, but in the 200 m, many use a pattern that alternates breathing on the left and right to maintain balance and prevent asymmetrical fatigue. Some swimmers, like Kristóf Milák, have experimented with breathing every three strokes in training to develop better bilateral awareness, though most still prefer a two-stroke pattern in competition.
  • Kicking mechanics: The number of kicks per stroke cycle has settled into two kicks—one up and one down—but the depth and angle of these kicks have been fine-tuned through years of biomechanical research. The first kick, which occurs during arm entry, is typically smaller and serves to stabilize the body position. The second kick, which occurs during the pull phase, is more powerful and provides the primary propulsive force from the legs. Underwater dolphin kicks off the wall now account for a significant portion of race speed, a technique virtually nonexistent in Spitz's era.
  • Underwater phase: FINA rules now allow up to 15 m of underwater kicking after starts and turns, a development that has transformed race strategy. Swimmers like Kristóf Milák have turned this into a weapon, using fast, streamlined dolphin kicks to build separation from opponents. The underwater phase is now considered so critical that many swimmers spend 30–40% of their training time on dolphin kick drills and underwater speed work.
  • Kick frequency variability: Modern butterflyers often vary their kick frequency within a race, using a faster kick off the walls and a slightly slower, more relaxed kick during the middle of the pool. This variability allows them to conserve energy while maintaining speed, a strategy that was rarely employed in Spitz's era.

The Underwater Dolphin Kick Revolution

Perhaps no single innovation has changed butterfly racing more than the development of the underwater dolphin kick as a competitive weapon. In Spitz's day, swimmers typically surfaced immediately after the start and turn, treating the underwater phase as a transition rather than an opportunity. Today, elite swimmers use a powerful, compact dolphin kick that generates speeds equal to or greater than their surface swimming pace.

The technique requires exceptional core strength, ankle flexibility, and timing. Modern swimmers train with specialized equipment—monofins, resistance cords, and underwater video systems—to optimize their kick amplitude, frequency, and body position. The most effective underwater kickers maintain a tight streamline with hands clasped and arms extended, using a rapid, shallow kick that minimizes drag while maximizing propulsion. This phase of the race has become so influential that world-class butterflyers now select their race strategies based on their underwater kick strength, often choosing to extend the underwater phase even when fatigued.

Freestyle: The Front Crawl's Metamorphosis

Mark Spitz's freestyle was a model of efficiency in 1972: a moderately high elbow, a six-beat kick, and a breathing pattern that favored the right side. His stroke was smooth and rhythmic, but it lacked the biomechanical sophistication that modern swimmers take for granted. The modern front crawl has evolved into a highly individualistic stroke where every element—arm cycle, kick tempo, body roll, breathing side, and head position—is tailored to the swimmer's physiology and race distance.

The freestyle has always been the most versatile stroke, but the degree of specialization now seen at the elite level is unprecedented. Sprinters and distance swimmers use fundamentally different stroke mechanics, and even within the same distance category, individual swimmers often adopt unique variations that suit their body type and strengths. This individualization is a direct result of improved coaching tools and a deeper understanding of hydrodynamics.

The High-Elbow Catch and Pull

The single biggest change in freestyle since Spitz's day is the early vertical forearm (EVF), also known as the high-elbow catch. Instead of pulling with a straight arm—which creates a large frontal surface area and reduces grip on the water—modern swimmers bend their elbow early in the pull, keeping the forearm vertical and the hand pitched slightly downward. This reduces drag and allows the swimmer to grip more water earlier in the stroke cycle, creating a solid anchor from which to pull the body forward.

The pull then progresses through a sweeping motion—outward, backward, inward—before exiting near the hip. This sculling action maximizes the surface area of the forearm and hand, engaging the latissimus dorsi, pectorals, and rotator cuff muscles in a coordinated sequence. Swimmers like Ian Thorpe and Caeleb Dressel have refined this technique to near-perfection, achieving extraordinary propulsion with each stroke while maintaining a relaxed, efficient recovery.

The EVF technique requires significant shoulder mobility and strength, as well as precise timing. Swimmers who fail to establish an early catch often compensate with a straighter arm pull that generates less force and creates more drag. Coaches now use a variety of drills—including fist drills, catch-up drills, and sculling exercises—to help swimmers develop the feel and strength needed for an effective high-elbow catch. The emphasis on EVF has been one of the most transformative changes in swimming coaching over the past three decades.

Arm Recovery: High Elbow vs. Straight Arm

Spitz used a high-elbow recovery, but the elbow was often lower than the wrist, creating some drag and reducing the efficiency of the recovery phase. Today, the standard recovery for distance swimmers is a "high-elbow, relaxed-hand" motion where the elbow leads the arm forward, with the hand trailing below the elbow. This recovery minimizes the moment of inertia and reduces the energy required to bring the arm forward, allowing the swimmer to maintain a higher stroke rate with less fatigue.

However, some sprint freestylers—notably Caeleb Dressel—use a straight-arm recovery that rotates the arm forward like a windmill. This technique, though seemingly less efficient from a biomechanical standpoint, reduces the time the arm spends above water and increases stroke rate. The choice between high-elbow and straight-arm recovery is now recognized as distance-dependent: distance swimmers favor high-elbow for conservation and long-term efficiency, while sprinters often prefer straight-arm for speed and quick turnover.

Some swimmers even switch between recovery styles within a single race, using a straight-arm recovery during the start and turns to maximize speed and transitioning to a high-elbow recovery during the middle of the race to conserve energy. This level of tactical flexibility was unheard of in Spitz's era and reflects the sophistication of modern race planning.

Kicking: From Six-Beat to Variability

Spitz's standard six-beat kick—six kicks per stroke cycle—is still common among modern swimmers, but the approach to kicking has become far more nuanced. Elite swimmers now switch between two-beat, four-beat, and six-beat kicks depending on the phase of the race, their energy levels, and their individual physiology. In distance events, a two-beat kick saves energy and allows the swimmer to focus on arm propulsion; at the finish, a six-beat kick adds a burst of speed and increases body roll.

The kick itself has changed fundamentally. The flutter kick now originates from the hip, not the knee, with ankles relaxed and toes pointed to produce a smooth, propulsive wave. The modern kick is smaller and faster than its predecessor, with less knee bend and a greater emphasis on ankle flexibility. This change reduces drag and improves efficiency, allowing swimmers to maintain a higher kick frequency without sacrificing body position.

Underwater kicking after turns has become a critical differentiator in freestyle events. Swimmers like Katie Ledecky use a powerful, compact kick that rivals their surface speed, allowing them to build leads off every wall. The underwater phase in freestyle now often extends to the full 15 m allowed by FINA rules, and swimmers spend significant training time developing their underwater kick strength and technique.

Breathing and Body Roll

Spitz breathed every two strokes on his right side, a pattern that created asymmetry in his body roll and stroke mechanics. Today, bilateral breathing—breathing every three strokes on alternating sides—is taught early in a swimmer's development to prevent asymmetric body roll and to help swimmers see opponents on both sides. Even swimmers who choose to breathe primarily to one side now emphasize a minimal head lift, turning the head just enough to clear the mouth while keeping one goggle in the water to maintain spatial awareness.

Body roll, once thought simply a by-product of arm movement, is now intentionally managed and optimized. Research has shown that a 40- to 50-degree roll reduces frontal drag by allowing the shoulder to rise out of the water during the recovery and by creating a more streamlined body profile. The roll also allows the latissimus dorsi to contribute more power to the pull, engaging the back muscles rather than relying solely on the shoulders and arms.

The breathing window in modern freestyle is remarkably short—often less than 0.3 seconds—making timing a separate skill that is practiced through specific drills. Swimmers learn to coordinate their head turn with their body roll, ensuring that the breath does not disrupt the stroke rhythm or cause the hips to drop. This precision breathing allows modern freestylers to maintain a more consistent body position and stroke rate across all phases of the race.

Technological and Training Advances That Reshaped Technique

Technique evolution does not happen in a vacuum. Since Spitz's era, several external factors—including advances in video technology, swimsuit materials, pool design, and sports science—have accelerated changes in stroke mechanics and race strategy.

Underwater Video and Biomechanics

The introduction of high-speed underwater cameras in the 1980s allowed coaches to see previously invisible flaws: hand entry angles, wrist orientation, hip stability, and kick timing. Researchers like Ernie Maglischo and Bill Boomer used these tools to develop the "new science of swimming," replacing anecdotal coaching with data-driven corrections. The ability to record and analyze strokes frame by frame revolutionized how coaches identify and correct technical errors.

The swimming flume—a water treadmill that allows swimmers to stay in place while being filmed from every angle—gave athletes the ability to experiment with technique in real time. Swimmers could adjust their catch angle, kick depth, or breathing timing and immediately see the effect on their body position and speed. This rapid feedback loop led to refinements that would have taken months or years to develop through traditional coaching methods. Today, virtually every elite swimmer works with a video analysis system, and many teams employ dedicated biomechanists who specialize in stroke optimization.

Swimsuit Technology and Regulations

The 2008–2009 super-suit era—when polyurethane suits like the LZR Racer became available—dramatically reduced drag and increased buoyancy, allowing swimmers to focus more on propulsion than on body position. World records fell by seconds, and the competitive landscape shifted overnight. However, after FINA banned non-textile suits in 2010, technique re-emerged as the primary differentiator between elite swimmers. The ban forced swimmers to rely on core stability, streamlined entries, and efficient pulls—exactly the skills that separate modern elites from those of the past.

Today's textile suits are still highly engineered, but they no longer compensate for poor technique. Swimmers must maintain excellent body position and stroke mechanics to achieve top speeds. The post-super-suit era has, in many ways, been a golden age for technical swimming, as athletes and coaches have focused on optimizing every aspect of the stroke to compensate for the loss of suit-assisted buoyancy and drag reduction.

Pool Design and Starting Blocks

Olympic pools are now deeper (2 m vs. 1.2 m in Spitz's day), reducing wave reflection and allowing smoother turns and more stable swimming conditions. The deeper water creates a calmer surface, reducing the turbulence that can disrupt stroke rhythm and increase drag. Lane lines have also improved, with wave-absorbing designs that minimize water movement between lanes.

Starting blocks have evolved from simple raised platforms to wedge-shaped, adjustable blocks with built-in backplate tracks. Modern swimmers can launch with greater force and a flatter trajectory, entering the water through a smaller hole and reducing drag at the start. The improved starting blocks have increased the importance of the underwater phase, rewarding swimmers who refine their dolphin kick technique and streamline positions. The start is now considered such a critical component of race performance that many swimmers spend up to 20% of their training time on start practice alone.

Strength Training and Sports Science

Resistance training has moved from general weightlifting to sport-specific exercises targeting the lats, shoulders, core, and rotator cuff. Dry-land training now includes biomechanically similar movements—such as straight-arm pulldowns, medicine ball throws, and resistance band work—to reinforce the high-elbow catch and pull mechanics used in the water. These exercises are designed to build strength in the exact ranges of motion used during swimming, improving both power and endurance.

Periodization, altitude training, GPS-tracked swim meters, and wearable technology have turned technique refinement into a continuous, data-driven process. Elite swimmers often spend 30–40% of their pool time on drills specifically designed to correct flaws identified by video analysis. Sports scientists now work alongside coaches to monitor fatigue, optimize recovery, and individualize training programs based on each swimmer's unique physiology and stroke mechanics.

Comparative Analysis: Then and Now

The differences between Spitz's technique and modern swimming are not merely incremental—they represent a paradigm shift in how the sport is understood and practiced. Spitz's stroke rate in the 100 m freestyle was approximately 50 strokes per minute, while modern sprinters like Caeleb Dressel average 55–60 strokes per minute with longer distance per stroke. This combination of higher stroke rate and greater propulsion per stroke is the defining characteristic of modern swimming.

In butterfly, Spitz's average speed over 100 m was about 1.84 m/s, while modern swimmers achieve speeds of 2.02 m/s or higher—a 10% improvement that reflects both technical refinement and advances in training and equipment. The margin of improvement is even more pronounced in the 200 m events, where pacing strategies and underwater phases have had a greater impact.

The evolution is also visible in the physical characteristics of elite swimmers. Spitz stood 1.85 m tall and weighed 80 kg, with a balanced, athletic build. Modern butterflyers like Milák are taller (1.90 m) and leaner, with longer arms and greater ankle flexibility. The ideal body type for competitive swimming has shifted toward longer limbs, larger hands and feet, and greater joint flexibility—traits that maximize propulsive surface area and reduce drag.

The Future of Stroke Technique

The evolution of butterfly and freestyle techniques is far from complete. Several trends are likely to shape the next decade of technical development:

  • Increased individualization: As coaches gather more data on individual swimmers' physiology, stroke mechanics will become even more tailored. What works for one swimmer may not work for another, and the era of standardized technique is ending.
  • Artificial intelligence and machine learning: AI-powered video analysis systems can now identify subtle flaws in stroke mechanics that human coaches might miss. These systems are being integrated into training programs at the elite level and will likely become more accessible to age-group swimmers.
  • Improved underwater technology: Advances in wearable sensors and real-time feedback systems will allow swimmers to monitor their technique during practice and make adjustments on the fly. This technology could accelerate the learning curve for young swimmers and reduce the time needed to correct technical errors.
  • Greater emphasis on recovery and injury prevention: As training volumes and intensities continue to increase, the ability to recover quickly and avoid overuse injuries will become a competitive advantage. Technique optimization that reduces stress on the shoulders, knees, and lower back will be prioritized.
  • Rule changes and equipment regulations: FINA continues to refine its rules on swimsuit materials, starting blocks, and pool specifications. Future changes could further shift the balance between power-based swimming and technique-based swimming, influencing how coaches and athletes approach stroke development.

Conclusion: The Unfinished Evolution

From Mark Spitz's seven golds to Michael Phelps's eight in 2008, and from Caeleb Dressel's explosive sprinting to Katie Ledecky's distance dominance, butterfly and freestyle techniques have matured into highly specialized, individually optimized movements. The evolution is not over—trends toward increased stroke rate in sprint butterfly and toward more pronounced body roll in distance freestyle continue to emerge. Swimmers today are not just faster; they are smarter, using every biomechanical insight and technological tool to eliminate waste and maximize efficiency.

Spitz's legacy is not the records he set, but the foundation he built for a sport that never stops refining its strokes. The swimmers of the next generation will stand on the shoulders of those who came before, using tools and techniques that Spitz could not have imagined. For anyone looking to understand where swimming is heading, the answer lies in the details: the angle of a wrist, the timing of a kick, the depth of a catch, and the relentless pursuit of a more perfect wave through the water.

For further reading on technique evolution, see Swimming World's profile of Mark Spitz, USA Swimming's technical resources, and a review of biomechanics in competitive swimming. Additional insights can be found in SwimCloud's analysis of modern stroke mechanics.