Login required to started new threads

Login required to post replies

Swim Gurus / Back To The Pool Drills - Floating/Balance
Quote | Reply
Hi Folks

As pools and lakes open back up here in the UK I'm looking to get back to swimming but also this gives me a chance to make some big changes to the way I swim. Per lock down (lockdown 3) I was about a 1:37/per 100 over 1900m.

I have listened to a lot of podcast and swimming videos that talk about balance in the water and floating. This is something I have never thought about before and as really only considered my stroke/extension of my stroke the key thing.

Doing some brief googling I struggled to find drills that cater for Balance and Floating (without be a complete beginner) and wondering if anyone could help with some drills for these things. Also be good if some one could talk about the importance of both Floating/Balance in the water to make sure I have solid knowledge of it, and why it promotes good swim technique.

Cheers
James
Quote Reply
Re: Swim Gurus / Back To The Pool Drills - Floating/Balance [Jwwilkins] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
Jwwilkins wrote:
Hi Folks

As pools and lakes open back up here in the UK I'm looking to get back to swimming but also this gives me a chance to make some big changes to the way I swim. Per lock down (lockdown 3) I was about a 1:37/per 100 over 1900m.

I have listened to a lot of podcast and swimming videos that talk about balance in the water and floating. This is something I have never thought about before and as really only considered my stroke/extension of my stroke the key thing.

Doing some brief googling I struggled to find drills that cater for Balance and Floating (without be a complete beginner) and wondering if anyone could help with some drills for these things. Also be good if some one could talk about the importance of both Floating/Balance in the water to make sure I have solid knowledge of it, and why it promotes good swim technique.

Cheers
James

By floating do you mean having a neutral body position? Do you drop your hips/legs? People that don't have great body position really struggle when they swim slow. Try swimming 100m at 1.50 pace and see how it feels. What can happen is people that have poor body position, their hips and legs drop creating massive drag which slows them right down, so to compensate for this they swim fast, their legs rise slightly achieving a better body position. But this doesn't fix the problem and obviously when they slow down, everything goes to shit.

So my point is, learn to swim efficiently slowly.
Quote Reply
Re: Swim Gurus / Back To The Pool Drills - Floating/Balance [zedzded] [ In reply to ]
Quote | Reply
zedzded wrote:
Jwwilkins wrote:
Hi Folks

As pools and lakes open back up here in the UK I'm looking to get back to swimming but also this gives me a chance to make some big changes to the way I swim. Per lock down (lockdown 3) I was about a 1:37/per 100 over 1900m.

I have listened to a lot of podcast and swimming videos that talk about balance in the water and floating. This is something I have never thought about before and as really only considered my stroke/extension of my stroke the key thing.

Doing some brief googling I struggled to find drills that cater for Balance and Floating (without be a complete beginner) and wondering if anyone could help with some drills for these things. Also be good if some one could talk about the importance of both Floating/Balance in the water to make sure I have solid knowledge of it, and why it promotes good swim technique.

Cheers
James

By floating do you mean having a neutral body position? Do you drop your hips/legs? People that don't have great body position really struggle when they swim slow. Try swimming 100m at 1.50 pace and see how it feels. What can happen is people that have poor body position, their hips and legs drop creating massive drag which slows them right down, so to compensate for this they swim fast, their legs rise slightly achieving a better body position. But this doesn't fix the problem and obviously when they slow down, everything goes to shit.

So my point is, learn to swim efficiently slowly.

I like this one. Actually do the same thing myself. Matt Biondi used to make sure that at meet warmups he was the slowest guy in the pool. And then he’d win gold medals....

Also, I don’t think DPS is a particularly good indicator of how fast you are swimming, but another drill to do is to work on taking the minimum number of strokes per length (ignoring speed, and don’t cheat by kicking a ton, just a normal 2 beat kick) . This will force you to maintain good streamline if you want to get across the pool in 12 strokes.

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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