Analysis

The vertical green line in the middle of the graph indicates the athlete's position on the video. The real-time velocity data at every point in the swimming cycle is represented by a "Velocity Curve" (continuous white line below the athlete).

The 10-year-old water polo player was tested pulling using a pull buoy, sprint head-down freestyle and sprinting with his head-up.  

Based on the data represented by the Velocity Curve, the SwiMetrics analysis and recommendations are as follows:

Head Position
1. His head is elevated too much as he looks forward while swimming.
SwiMetrics Recommendation: Extend his neck and re-orient his head by looking straight down.

2. His head is moving together with his stroke.
SwiMetrics Recommendation: Stabilize his head by 'disconnecting' his head movement from his stroke. He should swim with his head connected strongly to his spine.

Body Position
1. His body moves slightly laterally with every stroke.
SwiMetrics Recommendation: Keep his spine extended and rotate his core around his spine to avoid lateral movements.

2. His shoulders are driving his stroke which results in additional body movements.
SwiMetrics Recommendation: Drive his entire stroke from his hips and his shoulders will automatically rotate with his hips. He also needs to focus on hips rotation.

3. There are some lateral movement in his hips.
SwiMetrics Recommendation: Focus more on hip rotation. One drill to improve this his stroke is to do pulling drills by holding a pull buoy between his ankles.

Arm Stroke
1. He should establish a high-elbow position after his hand enters the water. SwiMetrics Recommendation: Swim more with hand paddles in order to develop a feeling of an early catch with high elbows.

2. After establishing a high-elbow position, he should use his core muscles to pull his arms through his stroke.
SwiMetrics Recommendation: Do land exercises on physioballs (or other unstable platforms) in order to strengthen his core muscles. He should also swim against resistance (e.g., surgical tubing) to develop a connection between his arm/hand and his lower abdominal muscles.

3. He should pull his arm/hand with more acceleration through the stroke.
SwiMetrics Recommendation: Do swimming drills to minimize the number of strokes per lap in order to increase his distance per stroke.

Kicking
1. His kicking amplitude is too large. He is kicking from his knees.
SwiMetrics Recommendation: Try to kick using his lower abdominal muscles and restrict his kicking amplitude by using a Thera-Band loop.

Head-up Swimming for Water Polo
1. His head moves too much from side to side with each stroke.
SwiMetrics Recommendation: Keep a stronger neck in order to stabilize lateral head movements.

2. His stroke is too long.
SwiMetrics Recommendation: Begin his stroke with a high-elbow catch and point his fingertips down.

3. His kicking has too large amplitude.
SwiMetrics Recommendation: Strengthen his kick using different exercises, such as kicking with tennis shoes in the water, doing freestyle kick in a vertical position and kicking using thera-band loop.