Tried to swim with ankle bands today, but I can't because my feet sink to the bottom. I need at least a slight kick, a pullbuoy, a wetsuit ot salt water to keep my legs up. I do not have natural buoyancy: my legs sink when I try to lay flat in the water.
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Re: @Stalling in the water (article on the home page) [longtrousers]
[ In reply to ]
everybody sinks in the water with bound ankles. but that's a different topic than stalling in the water.
binding ankles does 2 things:
1. it corrects a body posture problem. it helps you NOT to sink from the waist down.
2. it exposes a stroke problem in the opposite plane: if your body wriggles like a snake with bound ankles (side to side) then you are bending at the waist when you breathe. THAT is what causes you to stall in the water. THAT is why you can't perform the 1-arm drill i gave you in week-1 of the guppy challenge.
look at guscrown's videos of himself. now there is a guy who sinks from the waist down. what would i do with him?
the very first drill i'd do is have him lay face down in the water, immobile, and see how long he can do that while keeping himself - legs and all - on the surface. teach him to posture himself so that he can lay on the surface. impossible to do at first. gets better, easier, with time. you can't swim with banded legs until you can perform this (unless you float your legs with a buoy or an inflated innertube).
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
binding ankles does 2 things:
1. it corrects a body posture problem. it helps you NOT to sink from the waist down.
2. it exposes a stroke problem in the opposite plane: if your body wriggles like a snake with bound ankles (side to side) then you are bending at the waist when you breathe. THAT is what causes you to stall in the water. THAT is why you can't perform the 1-arm drill i gave you in week-1 of the guppy challenge.
look at guscrown's videos of himself. now there is a guy who sinks from the waist down. what would i do with him?
the very first drill i'd do is have him lay face down in the water, immobile, and see how long he can do that while keeping himself - legs and all - on the surface. teach him to posture himself so that he can lay on the surface. impossible to do at first. gets better, easier, with time. you can't swim with banded legs until you can perform this (unless you float your legs with a buoy or an inflated innertube).
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
Re: @Stalling in the water (article on the home page) [Slowman]
[ In reply to ]
Slowman wrote:
everybody sinks in the water with bound ankles. the very first drill i'd do is have him lay face down in the water, immobile, and see how long he can do that while keeping himself - legs and all - on the surface. teach him to posture himself so that he can lay on the surface. impossible to do at first. gets better, easier, with time. you can't swim with banded legs until you can perform this (unless you float your legs with a buoy or an inflated innertube).
So, if everyone sinks in the water with bound ankles, but you can swim with banded ankles if you can hold yourself on the surface of the water, how do you get around this contradiction?
----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"
Re: @Stalling in the water (article on the home page) [longtrousers]
[ In reply to ]
Long trousers,
I've experienced the same as you and echo Slowmans advice as you get started.
Here's a video that may help show you what is happening, it helped my brain "trust the band".
http://www.feelforthewater.com/...-easy-but-great.html
Happy Training!
I've experienced the same as you and echo Slowmans advice as you get started.
Here's a video that may help show you what is happening, it helped my brain "trust the band".
http://www.feelforthewater.com/...-easy-but-great.html
Happy Training!
Re: @Stalling in the water (article on the home page) [klehner]
[ In reply to ]
"if everyone sinks in the water with bound ankles, but you can swim with banded ankles if you can hold yourself on the surface of the water, how do you get around this contradiction?"
everyone sinks with bound ankles AT FIRST. nobody new to this has an innate ability to float their lower bodies, that is, if they are adult-onset swimmers. that's what i mean, or meant.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
everyone sinks with bound ankles AT FIRST. nobody new to this has an innate ability to float their lower bodies, that is, if they are adult-onset swimmers. that's what i mean, or meant.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
Re: @Stalling in the water (article on the home page) [Slowman]
[ In reply to ]
Slowman wrote:
the very first drill i'd do is have him lay face down in the water, immobile, and see how long he can do that while keeping himself - legs and all - on the surface. teach him to posture himself so that he can lay on the surface. impossible to do at first. gets better, easier, with time. you can't swim with banded legs until you can perform this (unless you float your legs with a buoy or an inflated innertube).I do not know if I can ever do this, I think I've got quite muscular "running legs" which gives the body an asymmetrical buoyancy.
Anyway, I always do some one-armed laps which seem to go ok and I understand it is good to swim a bit with a pullbuoy such that the feet stay together to avoid this hiptwist you were writing about. Thanks for the advice.
Re: @Stalling in the water (article on the home page) [longtrousers]
[ In reply to ]
"I think I've got quite muscular "running legs" which gives the body an asymmetrical buoyancy."
yes, you can do this. this has very little to nothing to do with morphology. if you let yourself think you have a morphology that precludes you from swimming with proper body position you'll always have an "out" and you'll stop short of making the progress available to you.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
yes, you can do this. this has very little to nothing to do with morphology. if you let yourself think you have a morphology that precludes you from swimming with proper body position you'll always have an "out" and you'll stop short of making the progress available to you.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
Re: @Stalling in the water (article on the home page) [LuckyLo]
[ In reply to ]
LuckyLo wrote:
Long trousers, I've experienced the same as you and echo Slowmans advice as you get started.
Here's a video that may help show you what is happening, it helped my brain "trust the band".
http://www.feelforthewater.com/...-easy-but-great.html
Happy Training!
+1 a good video is worth a thousand words.
Re: @Stalling in the water (article on the home page) [Billyk24]
[ In reply to ]
my preference, really, is this. at least for guppies. and, you can make this with an old bicycle tube. figure out the length you want. make knots that allow only a foot to pass through by stretching the innertube. its a great tool.
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
Dan Empfield
aka Slowman
Re: @Stalling in the water (article on the home page) [longtrousers]
[ In reply to ]
longtrousers wrote:
Slowman wrote:
the very first drill i'd do is have him lay face down in the water, immobile, and see how long he can do that while keeping himself - legs and all - on the surface. teach him to posture himself so that he can lay on the surface. impossible to do at first. gets better, easier, with time. you can't swim with banded legs until you can perform this (unless you float your legs with a buoy or an inflated innertube).
I do not know if I can ever do this, I think I've got quite muscular "running legs" which gives the body an asymmetrical buoyancy.
Anyway, I always do some one-armed laps which seem to go ok and I understand it is good to swim a bit with a pullbuoy such that the feet stay together to avoid this hiptwist you were writing about. Thanks for the advice.
If there is one point that irritates me no end, it is the incorrect assumption that male adult-onset swimmers with sinking legs can not improve due to their perceived leanness and muscularity. It logically implies that accomplished male swimmers must be fat in order to achieve their prowess in the water.
I have provided a photo, courtesy of ESPN The Magazine, an image to refute your assertion that muscular legs preclude being able to swim well. I leave it to you to study the above individual for further instruction ;-)
DFL > DNF > DNS
Re: @Stalling in the water (article on the home page) [Slowman]
[ In reply to ]
Slowman wrote:
everybody sinks in the water with bound ankles. but that's a different topic than stalling in the water. binding ankles does 2 things:
1. it corrects a body posture problem. it helps you NOT to sink from the waist down.
2. it exposes a stroke problem in the opposite plane: if your body wriggles like a snake with bound ankles (side to side) then you are bending at the waist when you breathe. THAT is what causes you to stall in the water. THAT is why you can't perform the 1-arm drill i gave you in week-1 of the guppy challenge.
look at guscrown's videos of himself. now there is a guy who sinks from the waist down. what would i do with him?
the very first drill i'd do is have him lay face down in the water, immobile, and see how long he can do that while keeping himself - legs and all - on the surface. teach him to posture himself so that he can lay on the surface. impossible to do at first. gets better, easier, with time. you can't swim with banded legs until you can perform this (unless you float your legs with a buoy or an inflated innertube).
I know that guy from the video. I've tried to do what you mention, and it is very hard. I can lay flat, but I have to have a very slight kick to keep my legs from sinking. I will work on it next time I'm in the pool.
Re: @Stalling in the water (article on the home page) [SallyShortyPnts]
[ In reply to ]
It's not a buoyancy issue. Even very lean legs still have enough fat to be at least neutrally buoyant. It's a matter of core strength, body position and balance. They sink because a full lung of air has much greater buoyancy. But your shoulders, head and arms are also similarly less buoyant You have to utilize you core and upper body position to force your legs up in relation to your torso.
I guarantee you that Frodeno, Gomez and Potts have incredibly lean and muscular legs, but all 3 I'm sure can easily swim with bands.
That being said, I too struggle with a band or crossing my legs with a pull buoy. It's a matter of retraining body position and how your engaging your core. I haven't figured it out yet, but I suspect when I do, my economy will make a nice bump and I'll swim 3-4"/100SCM faster. Which would be huge as it would bridge me to the back of the front amateur packs and get my swimming pace fully in line with my run and bike. When I compare my swim bke and run, my economy swimming is still lagging.
Maybe this picture illustrates it well. Even though there is some rotational forces here assisting him, his legs are not staying up on their own.
http://media.gettyimages.com/...d512011640?s=640x640
TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com
I guarantee you that Frodeno, Gomez and Potts have incredibly lean and muscular legs, but all 3 I'm sure can easily swim with bands.
That being said, I too struggle with a band or crossing my legs with a pull buoy. It's a matter of retraining body position and how your engaging your core. I haven't figured it out yet, but I suspect when I do, my economy will make a nice bump and I'll swim 3-4"/100SCM faster. Which would be huge as it would bridge me to the back of the front amateur packs and get my swimming pace fully in line with my run and bike. When I compare my swim bke and run, my economy swimming is still lagging.
Maybe this picture illustrates it well. Even though there is some rotational forces here assisting him, his legs are not staying up on their own.
http://media.gettyimages.com/...d512011640?s=640x640
TrainingBible Coaching
http://www.trainingbible.com
Re: @Stalling in the water (article on the home page) [guscrown]
[ In reply to ]
guscrown wrote:
Slowman wrote:
everybody sinks in the water with bound ankles. but that's a different topic than stalling in the water. binding ankles does 2 things:
1. it corrects a body posture problem. it helps you NOT to sink from the waist down.
2. it exposes a stroke problem in the opposite plane: if your body wriggles like a snake with bound ankles (side to side) then you are bending at the waist when you breathe. THAT is what causes you to stall in the water. THAT is why you can't perform the 1-arm drill i gave you in week-1 of the guppy challenge.
look at guscrown's videos of himself. now there is a guy who sinks from the waist down. what would i do with him?
the very first drill i'd do is have him lay face down in the water, immobile, and see how long he can do that while keeping himself - legs and all - on the surface. teach him to posture himself so that he can lay on the surface. impossible to do at first. gets better, easier, with time. you can't swim with banded legs until you can perform this (unless you float your legs with a buoy or an inflated innertube).
I know that guy from the video. I've tried to do what you mention, and it is very hard. I can lay flat, but I have to have a very slight kick to keep my legs from sinking. I will work on it next time I'm in the pool.
Lie face-down on the ground (not at the bottom of the pool) in the superman position (arms forward). Keeping your legs straight, raise your feet a couple of inches. Feel the muscles you used to do that (back, butt, hamstrings). Those are the muscles that you use to achieve a high leg position. Use those muscles in the pool. Repeat thousands of times. It's not the kicking, it's the constant engagement of those particular muscles that does it. It takes very little strength in the water to do this; what it does take is a fair amount of endurance that you'll quickly build. It also requires that your hip flexors are not tight.
You don't need no steenkin' bands.
----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"
Re: @Stalling in the water (article on the home page) [klehner]
[ In reply to ]
klehner wrote:
guscrown wrote:
Slowman wrote:
everybody sinks in the water with bound ankles. but that's a different topic than stalling in the water. binding ankles does 2 things:
1. it corrects a body posture problem. it helps you NOT to sink from the waist down.
2. it exposes a stroke problem in the opposite plane: if your body wriggles like a snake with bound ankles (side to side) then you are bending at the waist when you breathe. THAT is what causes you to stall in the water. THAT is why you can't perform the 1-arm drill i gave you in week-1 of the guppy challenge.
look at guscrown's videos of himself. now there is a guy who sinks from the waist down. what would i do with him?
the very first drill i'd do is have him lay face down in the water, immobile, and see how long he can do that while keeping himself - legs and all - on the surface. teach him to posture himself so that he can lay on the surface. impossible to do at first. gets better, easier, with time. you can't swim with banded legs until you can perform this (unless you float your legs with a buoy or an inflated innertube).
I know that guy from the video. I've tried to do what you mention, and it is very hard. I can lay flat, but I have to have a very slight kick to keep my legs from sinking. I will work on it next time I'm in the pool.
Lie face-down on the ground (not at the bottom of the pool) in the superman position (arms forward). Keeping your legs straight, raise your feet a couple of inches. Feel the muscles you used to do that (back, butt, hamstrings). Those are the muscles that you use to achieve a high leg position. Use those muscles in the pool. Repeat thousands of times. It's not the kicking, it's the constant engagement of those particular muscles that does it. It takes very little strength in the water to do this; what it does take is a fair amount of endurance that you'll quickly build. It also requires that your hip flexors are not tight.
You don't need no steenkin' bands.
The original topic of this thread (avoidance of hiptwist when breathing by doing an exercise with ankle bands) has shifted a bit to "how to keep your legs up", but this also has to do with stalling.
Anyway, thanks for the suggestion and I'll try to add this exercise next time I do gymnastics.
Edit: I just tried the exercise: quite strenuous, but I just had a beer and a pizza :-)
I guess you try to hold this postion for let's say 30 seconds and it becomes better over time?
Last edited by:
longtrousers: Dec 11, 16 10:49
Re: @Stalling in the water (article on the home page) [longtrousers]
[ In reply to ]
longtrousers wrote:
klehner wrote:
guscrown wrote:
Slowman wrote:
everybody sinks in the water with bound ankles. but that's a different topic than stalling in the water. binding ankles does 2 things:
1. it corrects a body posture problem. it helps you NOT to sink from the waist down.
2. it exposes a stroke problem in the opposite plane: if your body wriggles like a snake with bound ankles (side to side) then you are bending at the waist when you breathe. THAT is what causes you to stall in the water. THAT is why you can't perform the 1-arm drill i gave you in week-1 of the guppy challenge.
look at guscrown's videos of himself. now there is a guy who sinks from the waist down. what would i do with him?
the very first drill i'd do is have him lay face down in the water, immobile, and see how long he can do that while keeping himself - legs and all - on the surface. teach him to posture himself so that he can lay on the surface. impossible to do at first. gets better, easier, with time. you can't swim with banded legs until you can perform this (unless you float your legs with a buoy or an inflated innertube).
I know that guy from the video. I've tried to do what you mention, and it is very hard. I can lay flat, but I have to have a very slight kick to keep my legs from sinking. I will work on it next time I'm in the pool.
Lie face-down on the ground (not at the bottom of the pool) in the superman position (arms forward). Keeping your legs straight, raise your feet a couple of inches. Feel the muscles you used to do that (back, butt, hamstrings). Those are the muscles that you use to achieve a high leg position. Use those muscles in the pool. Repeat thousands of times. It's not the kicking, it's the constant engagement of those particular muscles that does it. It takes very little strength in the water to do this; what it does take is a fair amount of endurance that you'll quickly build. It also requires that your hip flexors are not tight.
You don't need no steenkin' bands.
The original topic of this thread (avoidance of hiptwist when breathing by doing an exercise with ankle bands) has shifted a bit to "how to keep your legs up", but this also has to do with stalling.
Anyway, thanks for the suggestion and I'll try to add this exercise next time I do gymnastics.
Edit: I just tried the exercise: quite strenuous, but I just had a beer and a pizza :-)
I guess you try to hold this postion for let's say 30 seconds and it becomes better over time?
What Ken asked you to do is perfect. On land when only "air" is supporting your quads it is a lot more work to hold up the palm of your feet pointing up to the ceiling with lower back/butt/hanstrings/calf plantar flex. In water you have to use the same muscles, but since water is denser, it helps holding up your legs provided that you are engaging the posterior chain
Re: @Stalling in the water (article on the home page) [longtrousers]
[ In reply to ]
longtrousers wrote:
klehner wrote:
guscrown wrote:
Slowman wrote:
everybody sinks in the water with bound ankles. but that's a different topic than stalling in the water. binding ankles does 2 things:
1. it corrects a body posture problem. it helps you NOT to sink from the waist down.
2. it exposes a stroke problem in the opposite plane: if your body wriggles like a snake with bound ankles (side to side) then you are bending at the waist when you breathe. THAT is what causes you to stall in the water. THAT is why you can't perform the 1-arm drill i gave you in week-1 of the guppy challenge.
look at guscrown's videos of himself. now there is a guy who sinks from the waist down. what would i do with him?
the very first drill i'd do is have him lay face down in the water, immobile, and see how long he can do that while keeping himself - legs and all - on the surface. teach him to posture himself so that he can lay on the surface. impossible to do at first. gets better, easier, with time. you can't swim with banded legs until you can perform this (unless you float your legs with a buoy or an inflated innertube).
I know that guy from the video. I've tried to do what you mention, and it is very hard. I can lay flat, but I have to have a very slight kick to keep my legs from sinking. I will work on it next time I'm in the pool.
Lie face-down on the ground (not at the bottom of the pool) in the superman position (arms forward). Keeping your legs straight, raise your feet a couple of inches. Feel the muscles you used to do that (back, butt, hamstrings). Those are the muscles that you use to achieve a high leg position. Use those muscles in the pool. Repeat thousands of times. It's not the kicking, it's the constant engagement of those particular muscles that does it. It takes very little strength in the water to do this; what it does take is a fair amount of endurance that you'll quickly build. It also requires that your hip flexors are not tight.
You don't need no steenkin' bands.
The original topic of this thread (avoidance of hiptwist when breathing by doing an exercise with ankle bands) has shifted a bit to "how to keep your legs up", but this also has to do with stalling.
Anyway, thanks for the suggestion and I'll try to add this exercise next time I do gymnastics.
Edit: I just tried the exercise: quite strenuous, but I just had a beer and a pizza :-)
I guess you try to hold this postion for let's say 30 seconds and it becomes better over time?
The difference is that on the ground you are lifting your legs past horizontal, and you have no buoyancy. It's a position that you can eventually hold (in the water) forever, because the force required is really, really low.
----------------------------------
"Go yell at an M&M"
Re: @Stalling in the water (article on the home page) [SallyShortyPnts]
[ In reply to ]
SallyShortyPnts wrote:
longtrousers wrote:
Slowman wrote:
the very first drill i'd do is have him lay face down in the water, immobile, and see how long he can do that while keeping himself - legs and all - on the surface. teach him to posture himself so that he can lay on the surface. impossible to do at first. gets better, easier, with time. you can't swim with banded legs until you can perform this (unless you float your legs with a buoy or an inflated innertube).
I do not know if I can ever do this, I think I've got quite muscular "running legs" which gives the body an asymmetrical buoyancy.
Anyway, I always do some one-armed laps which seem to go ok and I understand it is good to swim a bit with a pullbuoy such that the feet stay together to avoid this hiptwist you were writing about. Thanks for the advice.
If there is one point that irritates me no end, it is the incorrect assumption that male adult-onset swimmers with sinking legs can not improve due to their perceived leanness and muscularity. It logically implies that accomplished male swimmers must be fat in order to achieve their prowess in the water.
I have provided a photo, courtesy of ESPN The Magazine, an image to refute your assertion that muscular legs preclude being able to swim well. I leave it to you to study the above individual for further instruction ;-)
Ditto, ditto, ditto. From some runners' talk, you'd think all top swimmers were a bunch of fatties, whereas in reality most are pretty lean. Great photo, have never seen that one before!!!
"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."
Re: @Stalling in the water (article on the home page) [klehner]
[ In reply to ]
klehner wrote:
longtrousers wrote:
klehner wrote:
guscrown wrote:
Slowman wrote:
everybody sinks in the water with bound ankles. but that's a different topic than stalling in the water. binding ankles does 2 things:
1. it corrects a body posture problem. it helps you NOT to sink from the waist down.
2. it exposes a stroke problem in the opposite plane: if your body wriggles like a snake with bound ankles (side to side) then you are bending at the waist when you breathe. THAT is what causes you to stall in the water. THAT is why you can't perform the 1-arm drill i gave you in week-1 of the guppy challenge.
look at guscrown's videos of himself. now there is a guy who sinks from the waist down. what would i do with him?
the very first drill i'd do is have him lay face down in the water, immobile, and see how long he can do that while keeping himself - legs and all - on the surface. teach him to posture himself so that he can lay on the surface. impossible to do at first. gets better, easier, with time. you can't swim with banded legs until you can perform this (unless you float your legs with a buoy or an inflated innertube).
I know that guy from the video. I've tried to do what you mention, and it is very hard. I can lay flat, but I have to have a very slight kick to keep my legs from sinking. I will work on it next time I'm in the pool.
Lie face-down on the ground (not at the bottom of the pool) in the superman position (arms forward). Keeping your legs straight, raise your feet a couple of inches. Feel the muscles you used to do that (back, butt, hamstrings). Those are the muscles that you use to achieve a high leg position. Use those muscles in the pool. Repeat thousands of times. It's not the kicking, it's the constant engagement of those particular muscles that does it. It takes very little strength in the water to do this; what it does take is a fair amount of endurance that you'll quickly build. It also requires that your hip flexors are not tight.
You don't need no steenkin' bands.
The original topic of this thread (avoidance of hiptwist when breathing by doing an exercise with ankle bands) has shifted a bit to "how to keep your legs up", but this also has to do with stalling.
Anyway, thanks for the suggestion and I'll try to add this exercise next time I do gymnastics.
Edit: I just tried the exercise: quite strenuous, but I just had a beer and a pizza :-)
I guess you try to hold this postion for let's say 30 seconds and it becomes better over time?
The difference is that on the ground you are lifting your legs past horizontal, and you have no buoyancy. It's a position that you can eventually hold (in the water) forever, because the force required is really, really low.
Small update: I took up your suggestions and since then I try to think of the superman position while swimming. During crawl as such, but also especially during crawl with the pullbuoy, because I'm comfortable then and I can try to tension my butt to bring up my legs, the same way I would do it lying on the ground. I've got the feeling my swimming has improved already a bit.
We have next to the lap pool a very warm pool with a steel "island" and sometimes I lay myself on it to do the superman position and than directly do that in the water remembering which muscles to use. It seems indeed that sometimes I manage to keep my feet up, which I always thought is impossible without kicking.
So thanks for the suggestions, I continue the road from being a poor simmer to a mediocre swimmer.
Last edited by:
longtrousers: Apr 6, 17 1:58
Slowman wrote:
my preference, really, is this. at least for guppies. and, you can make this with an old bicycle tube. figure out the length you want. make knots that allow only a foot to pass through by stretching the innertube. its a great tool.Proud member of FISHTWITCH: doing a bit more than fish exercise now.