It's done by body rotation. If you dont rotate your body much, you are plowing through the water, presenting a very wide frontal area and creating a lot of drag. It's also hard as hell on your shoulders. When you rotate side to side more, you spend a lot of time with one shoulder out of the water, the other pointing right down, which presents a much slimmer profile to the water and creates less resistance.

The arching of your back thing is to get your legs higher in the water. It's not really arching of your back though, its flexing of your lower back, hip and hamstring muscles.

Here are two great videos to watch. The first is just great form. On the head on shots, look at how still his head is, and his frontal body rotation side to side. One shoulder is almost constantly out of the water. The second video really explains how to flex properly to get your legs planing high in the water. Enjoy!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3HhNlysFDs


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW5nE5FBPsQ

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Long Chile was a silly place.

You do not arch your back to get your legs up! You press your head & chest down. Go watch a video of Phelps & his head position, it is almost underwater. Do a one arm kicking drill if you need to be convinced of this.

I'm not sure if you meant to reply to me or the op, but I pretty clearly said that arching your back isn't the answer, and posted a very informative video showing how to properly raise your body position in the water.

Also, watching race videos of Phelps isn't particularly helpful, as his stroke is pretty unique, and emulating a world champ flying through the water at 100% race pace of a 200m race doesn't quite translate over to what most triathletes are trying to achieve.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

There are a few things u can try, some others have mentioned, what worked for me:

- head down
- pushing sternum down
- tense butt cheeks also push back of pelvic upwards (if you know what I mean)
- try and have your feet pointed, plantar flexion

I have a difficult time breathing when I press my chest/head down... I know it's impossible to make an informed guess without video, could a lack of rotation be the culprit?

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@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri

Tense butt cheeks was a bit of a breakthrough for me. I feel like I'm trying to hold a CD case between my butt cheeks. It really helps me keep my core tight and my kick narrow.

head down, you don't need to see what's in front of you. Nose. Down.

think about rotating shoulders FORWARD, not just side to side.

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It's very possible to bury your head too deeply in an attempt to get hips up. Good breathing position is when you can moderately rotate your head sideways to breathe (one goggle out of the water, as many a swim coach has said) without actually lifting it up and consequently dumping your hips downward.

Try swimming with a pull buoy between your ankles. Fat part facing down. Seriously. It will show you what your body position is supposed to be like.

For racing, until you solve the body position, get a wetsuit with 5mm neoprene in the legs. There are 2 well known wetsuits that are build like that, but for the life of me can't remember what they are. It's been discussed here before. Someone will chime in.

Those options will merely help. It will not solve the root problem. Swimming a lot more with an emphasis on correct body position will solve your problems.

PB low is a good drill to aid positional awareness.

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2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)

i find that if my legs are dragging, it's because my eyes are pointing forward. tuck your chin into your neck, and that'll help bring the rest of your body up towards the surface.

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Brooklyn Tri Dad
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I had a lot of difficulty with the pull-buoy-between-the-ankles drill. So much of my (admittedly limited) mental focus was on keeping the pull-buoy from popping out that everything else - position, stroke, breathing - was completely spastic. Bought a Finis Axis buoy.


pros: it stays on my ankles so i can think about swimming

cons: Kind of expensive and not good as a regular between-the-thighs PB

http://www.finisinc.com/Axis-Buoy

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run well, run happy
george

Sounds like that's true. roll your body like a log so that your belly button is shooting a laser beam into the side of the pool. That's the mental image anyway, that will allow you to get your breath and also have a neutral head position looking down below you as you swim.

However, back to the original thing, I find that what is going on when you breathe is by far the bigger contributor to jacked up body position. Keep your head flat and low when you breathe, don't lift. Keep one eye in and one eye out when you breathe.

Thanks for this thread - dropped a good 3-5 seconds consistently across 10 100s at masters last night. Was able to work on it during build drills beforehand. Maybe due to other factors as well - but definitely helped. Bump to the top for others.

My experience is that, as you get faster, you will want less shoulder rotation in the downward direction, and more in the forward direction as you said. Dipping that shoulder just causes it to drag in the water -- along with your entire upper arm.

So rotating side to side really isn't an efficient way to swim fast.

I agree. I would add that adult onset swimmers with poor shoulder flexibility may not want to try to "reach" or "rotate" forward too much or they may end up also turning their upper bodies to the opposite direction and snaking and crossing the midline with the hands.

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Two wheels good. Four wheels bad.

Swim like this. You'll note both goggles out of the water (OOTW), plus his head is more or less OOTW also. While this is a just a snapshot, I think you can also see that his butt is riding high in the water, and I would hope that you can tell that you can tell that this guy is pulling for all he's worth. PULL AS HARD AS POSSIBLE and your body will naturally ride high in the water. Sure, throwing a little kicking in there will help but it is your PULL that is most important.

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

you're seriously telling the op to swim like Nathan Adrian does in the 50 free on his breakout stroke???

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

That is not Nathan Adrian. I'm not saying who it is but it's not any famous swimmer but rather a D3 swimmer winning the 1650 at his conference champs.

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

it still isn't what you want to emulate. Really good swimmers do a lot of things well, but every swimmer, regardless of level, does certain things poorly. Lifting your entire head out of the water is poor technique.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

x2

You also want to look at the technique of fast swimmers who are not freaks of nature who are swimming in events that are at least somewhat similar in distance to your target race distance, so usually 800m and 1500m specialists.

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My main point in posting this is that this whole thing about "pushing down with your chest and head" does not necessarily translate very well to real world fast swimming. The guy went 15:22 for the 1650, which is about 55.9 per 100 yd, so he's obv doing a lot of things right. Perhaps he would be faster with a better head position but he's doing OK as he is:)

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

couple of things to remember though.

a) triathletes aren't generally trying to swim as fast as absolutely possible. They are generally trying to swim reasonably quickly without wasting energy. Big difference.

b) triathletes aren't spending 20-25 hours per week in the water. If a typical triathlete tries to pull as hard as they can for an entire 1500, 1900, or 3800m swim, the results will normally be predictably disastrous. In my tri days, I generally tried to do as close to absolutely nothing on the swim as I could. Generally still got me out of the water near the front, but I never ever worked the swim as hard as I could.

c) a lot of things don't "necessarily" translate to swimming fast.... but.... they do translate to "usually" swimming better. We aren't in a position, over the internet, to really discern those nuances, so all we can really do is say what "usually" works well. Swimming with your head out of the water isn't one of those things.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

Can someone explain why it is OK for Ian Thorpe to look forward, but not the rest of us? This is a genuine question..


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b1Fiw9uekM