I'm my experience when adult men have the water break on the forehead their legs sink like you. Meaning the need to lift more when they breathe causing more sinking.
My 2c is to keep your head and neck neutral and rotate a little more when breathing. A little over rotation is more efficient than lifting. If you aren't getting enough air you can turn your head earlier in the pull and use the body roll to rotate your head.

Saw this today and thought of this post, about a minute in

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Strava

Agree with this.

I am a swimming coach (mostly Youth)...we always start with having the swimmers stand up straight in the pool and look straight ahead. That's the "go to" beginning head position. Some wind up a little higher ...some a little lower. But the "neutral" position is a great go to...and one that I always return to when focusing on technique myself in training.

The only way that a higher head position noticeably sinks your legs is if you push down on the water with your arms to do so. If you correctly just use your neck/back muscles to keep your head up, the effect on your legs would be marginal at most (like lowering your entire body by less than an inch?). I'll claim that raising your head in this manner will *raise* your feet, not sink them.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

I'll just add as a non-swim expert, that while I def subscribe to the head-down position for pool swimming, I've found that I definitely have to be comfortable as well with swimming with my head with that forward-tilt position where the water is more on your forehead as well, to be prepared for most efficient sighting in OWS with a wetsuit. It takes a more head rotation to sight when your head is straight down - seems trivial but it isn't, and when you're wearing a wetsuit, you have a lot more opportunity to keep your head higher since the wetsuit really keeps your legs up. It really does make sighting faster and more efficient in that position, at least for me, so I do practice it in the pool as well regularly. (For me the head forward position doesn't seem to penalize me speedwise, but it's less comfortable and natural without the wetsuit.)