To "S" or Not to "S", that is the question

Should you use the "S" pull technique or not?

A locker-room regular who was trained in an elite youth swimming program and is now getting back into swimming as an adult told me today that he understands the going theory on freestyle pulling is to pull straight through rather than using the old stand-by "S" pull. I had not heard this before. I've certainly noted the differences ("s" uses only a little more than half the stroke the sequence following the "s" motion and can lead to a faster stroke down to the hip ... after the "s", while the straight pull uses the full motion of the stroke*), but am not familiar with the research.

Anyone care to enlighten the group?

* These are my observations.

Pushing Swimming Pulls

No that title is not a typo - by swimming pull, I mean the pull in freestyle. (swimming pull - kinda cool name, huh?)

I wanted to talk about swimming pulls and pushes today because I am fighting myself to do them properly.

Done properly, the freestyle stroke begins as a pull down to approximately one's chin and following a transition point (the S) turns into a push back towards and to the thigh. Lots of people skip most of the push and bring their arm back up (to begin their reach again) prematurely (before completing the push). This simple error can eliminate as much as 1/2 of the stroke's power potential.

I'm fighting this myself. I naturally want to start my arm back toward the front as soon as I've reached my waist. If I concentrate on it, I can add an additional foot of thrust (push) to each stroke.

Unfortunately, it can be fatiguing if one is not accustomed to doing this additional work. I'm practicing when I go slow, with the hope that it will build the muscle for faster workouts later.