Is this serious?

Makes sense. USA swimming recommends to "simply release the weight of your head entirely to the water". Your head weighs around 10 lbs, so 1/2 lbs is only 5% of that, so it may have been more of a proprioceptive trick to help relax and release the natural weight of your head.

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Two wheels good. Four wheels bad.

This is fucking awesome! love these quick and quirky ideas that pay dividends.

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"WHEW...I really regret that workout!"..............Noone

Wait a minute. You mean to tell me head position effects your ability to balance/breathe/stroke optimally? Damn. This could be huge! Thank goodness a triathlete finally figured this out! I have been putting a PB under my chin with ankle weights.

I think you may be missing the subtle point. Yes of course the head of top swimmers is usually rock steady in terms of rotation/axis. And we know the head tends to lead the entire body - this is a sport coaching staple - take your pick - golf, skiing, gymnastics, diving etc..

But to my knowledge there is no way to see or amplify what your own head is doing and make corrections, feel what is supposed to be "right"

By adding external weight, you get some feedback, almost a target point that you can feel when you swim. It also lowers the front of course.

Set #2 This morning,donned the lead head again and was doing 50's w/10 sec rest. About a doz in I ditched the weight. I was instantly faster. I was free. But I kinda missed having that hand on my noggin' keeping things in check.

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I like this idea.

I played competitive golf at a very high level growing up and we did all kinds of stuff to enhance our awareness of how/where our body was moving. However, different people responded differently to different drills/teaching aids so.... ymmv. I could see this being very effective for some and useless for others.

Wow, I wonder if Bob Bowman knows about this??? Phelps and Lochte could prob go even faster with their heads weighted:)

And, the pull buoy under the chin is so uncomfy, glad I can get rid of that!!!

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I 'weighting' on a version of this via Finman. 'Leadman' as some guy custom fabricates a 5 lb. helmet cap to get him downhill, but knocks out half a dozen swimmers in the process.

We may need new rules requiring all entrants to have their heads examined before the race. Oh wait, tri people need this anyway...:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I would not listen too much in the sarcastic comments of a few swimmers here. The point is, you try something pretty funny and it did make you aware of a concept and important aspect. So for you, it was a positive experiement, it pay off.

swimmers dont like when there traditional/conventional are challenge or changed. As for me, i only care about results and there is many ways to developed a swimmers. Go on you for trying something different!

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Jonathan Caron / Professional Coach / ironman champions / age group world champions
Jonnyo Coaching
Instargram

Agree. If you take the weight out and you swim faster than you swam before you put it in . . . job well done, what else is there?

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Ironman Certified Coach

Currently accepting limited number of new athletes

Well there is a little more. With the weight, I didn't feel slower. Only when I started with the clock -I had to get on the double to make intervals, which surprised me. Because I thought that being more level in the water would cancel being lower. However with good form I was able to hold on.

So in a way it mimics a chute or drag shorts but in non-invasive and form correcting way. It could potentially make you a stronger swimmer by inducing drag and stroke correction feedback at the same time.


PB - raise rear
Bands- L
Kickboard - raise front
xxxxxx - lower front

So you can see of all the things we do as swimmers on a daily basis, xxxx is missing in that mix.

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Training Tweets: https://twitter.com/Jagersport_com
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Me thinks I like this jonnyo fellow!!

Think about it though, your whole body is connected in the pool. XXX isn't improving your swim performance by lowering the front, rather, it improved your performance by raising your rear. Awareness of head position & pressing the frontal area of your head & chest towards the bottom of the pool isn't a new concept at all, dig a Total Immersion book out of the trash if you want confirmation of that. The difference is, a good swimmer doesn't need weight in their cap to accomplish this. Bands are attempting to accomplish the exact same thing by exaggerating the drop of the legs, you are forced to press down with your head/chest to bring them up.

YEah! A triathlete agreeing with how important proper head position is! Check out this swimisode: http://www.theraceclub.com/...style-head-position/ Maybe with drills and practice, and low head position is achieved, a weight is not needed ?

You know I think that if you are all lungs, lean and long legs, you need to have close to perfect technique/head position. Other swimmers can get away with more, that is why there is a variance in "head effects". Certainly a less critical with a wetsuit.

Now there is a bit of a problem with getting a "pocket" to breathe if you are a slow swimmer. But Gary answered this question in the comments - get the mouth back (in addition to having chin tilted up, top of head into the water) to create a nice pocket.

I was at Vancouver aquatic this morning, using the weight again. This set it felt really good, and I was able to do the above and work on everything - including a nice kick because that seems easier too when weighted at the front.

The head is so important for maintaining constant motion, from kick support and in-between the most effective phases of the pull. In other words, your speed is much more constant if the head stays low & in, body stays level and kick remains propulsive for pretty much the entire duration of the stroke cycle.

It's a keeper training tool for me.

Here's what I have tried/used:
Kickboard
Pull bouy
Fins (all sizes)
Bands
Snorkel
Fulcrums :P
Tic Toc :P
Paddles
Finis FS Paddles
Centerline board*
Stall Force Measurement*
Water wings :)

* =devices I built
:P = useless
:) = just kidding

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If you are pulling properly, your speed should stay constant regardless of whether you are swimming full stroke or pulling with the buoy and no kick. Concentrate on a long pull with each arm; if you are pulling all the way through and brushing your thumb against your thigh at the end of your pull, then you should be able to feel the water flow down your thigh, over your knee, and even on the top of your shin at the end of each pull.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Update for the swim fans - the crew over at swim smooth were talking swim posture, something I needed to work on in any case.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5V5PYspkknE

I was thinking the idea of the head weight is to keep the head compact, steady and in-line. Therefore why not make a chin block instead that you can tuck under chin, compress down on and hold your head in-line in proper swim posture?

I took some EVA and formed the block, sort of looks like a mini PB. Put a keeper strap on it. I expected it to be difficult to swim with my head rigid in place like that.

But no, it was actually easier to execute, to breathe (bi-lateral too) in the pocket and keep speed hammering down the lane. The bonus was the flip turn - I have never had better flip turns in my life. Unexpected result there.

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Ummm, the link you posted is to Richard Quick when he was coaching at Stanford (1988-2005). The video features Shelley Ripple when she was just finishing her career there, i.e. circa 2002. I feel fairly confident in saying that Quick, who passed away in June 2009, was never part of the "Swim Smooth crew". AFAIK, Quick has never advocated head weights or chin blocks but maybe you are just ahead of your time and the swimming world will latch on to your devices in the future:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

SharkFM, thank you for letting us know what is working for you. Sounds like it can be tried without a big investment.

Don't know about the swim establishment. It's completely unlike the bike establishment. In the bike establishment, they glory in trying new things. In the swim establishment, they run each other down - Swim Smooth vs. Total Immersion - and think everything that needs to be known and done is already known and done. If you are not an Olympian or a coach of an Olympian, your opinion is lower than whale dung in their eyes.

Their organizations are also technology resistant because it makes slower swimmers faster or it's not fair to swimmers without sponsors. And how will they ever encourage sponsors and sport growth without allowing technological implementations...

Swimmers are different, spend much of their time with their heads under water, and are the least socially adept of the three triathlon disciplines IMO (at least in terms of sarcasm). Perhaps there is much less of a difference between a fish and a true swimmer mentally than most of us realize. hahaha

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

What the hell are you talking about?

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

IT - what you have posted generally agrees with my observations. My daughter was in a club with an old school coach. "We do it this way because it works". But I have come to respect that aspect about swimming. There is a process, you jump on the train and at the end of it you are a pretty decent swimmer. A ,AA or AAA. If you are really good you ascend to Nats or Oly trials.

When I started swimming, I knew what the kids had to do to get to where they are. My thinking was, could I short circuit that a bit? Yeah the answer is NO. And even worse, truth was I was barely hanging in there. I always like to understand things as much as possible in any case, and I was not getting answers.

Obviously Adult swimmers in general have more issues vs kids, in a swim program. Physical issues, mental issues and those of schedule. Here is where "the sport of swimming" could improve imo. I'm looking for understanding, & technical reasons why. The sport is very invisible too, in that - internal to the human body, and executed in a 3-D space that you can only see really the top surface.

OK on to today's practice. Our club is fortunately quite progressive. I swam practice in the outside lane & used the chin block for the full slate. It was like a gas pedal. Compress on the block and go faster. Bilateral breathing is a dream. Flip turns - best ever. Multi-stroke awesome, breast, fly - both require that tight head position. We were just about to rip into 100M fly repeats and the fire bells rang. Practice done, out the back exit doors.

I said to the coach (my best practice ever) "Hey did you see I was using this chin block?" She says yes. "So what do you think?"....She goes " I don't comment on such nonsense"

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Jason, there is a big difference socially between swimmers and runners for example.

In a running race, the standard reply from the winners in regards to the people finishing hours behind them is "Good for them. I really admire how they keep going for four hours or more as I would find that very hard to do".

In a swim race, the standard thinking seems to be "When are they going to learn to swim?" There usually is some sort of derision aimed at those way behind them.

Runners don't say "When are they going to learn run" because the people probably are as close to running as best as they can given their situations and limitations.

Swimmers however feel free to criticize someone for body position, head position, catch, pull, kick etc. and thinking that the water is too cold even if that swimmer has come along way and might not get much better.

Perhaps because swimmers can't talk during their races and runners can do we see such a wide discrepancy in perspectives.

Enter technology. What would it hurt to allow poor swimmers to use wetsuits or a buoy or paddles (some race directors do let them use a snorkel in triathlons) during races. I know I wouldn't even come close to FOP with any of these yet if it made a swim more doable and enjoyable why not. For me, I would like to have a wetsuit (like clothing with gloves with booties) that I could wear whenever I felt like it for my body temperature set point which is different than yours. In running or cycling, we can both dress to how we want out body temperature to be. Why not in swimming? And if that wetsuit skin is faster, so be it - there are aero bikes and lighter shoes. And if that wetsuit skin is thicker than what is currently legal, so be it. By dialing in the water temperature to an advanced swimmers body temperature and not allowing slower swimmers to get comfortable in what is cold water to them, creates another advantage for the advanced swimmer to sneer at the AOS.

Even if we had all the advantages that our money could buy, good swimmers would still beat us and we would admire them all the more. Especially if they didn't look down on us.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

In agreement Shark. See post in reply to Jason. Swimmers have a hard time understanding AOS and our desires to innovate as a way of knowing ourselves better while learning. What's there to lose and we find it kind of fun and interesting which can be hard to do around a pool sometimes.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.