I hit a point of frustration today in my swim training. It’s (probably) partly related to volume (I’ve been swimming more than I have in the past) as I was also getting fatigued this morning. However, the bull-buoy training I have been doing is the main issue. I started using the buoy because my legs were sinking too much, creating drag. I thought using the buoy would help me to better “feel” the proper position my body should be in. It has also helped me tremendously in working on my stroke mechanics. I alternate between using it (100 or 200 yds) then don’t use it for the next 100 or 200 yds.
Today, about halfway through my session, I realized that I don’t think this is working. My legs are still dropping too much. I sometimes use my kick to try to keep my legs as high as possible, and I have read here on ST that is not a good practice. I have tried three different head positions, looking straight down, looking slightly forward, and looking all the way forward. The slightly forward position is best for me regarding body position, I swim the quickest laps in that position. I was also completely submerging my head when I started (TI training), but now I am not doing that anymore, as it seemed so slow.
Lately I have spent much time at SwimSmooth, and feel that I have come a very long way from when I started in September 2011. A coach that acts as lifeguard at my pool even told me today that I looked good, but I did not really feel good about the swssion. I still can rarely swim a 100yd faster than 1:45.
Some other factors: I’m 5-11 and 200 lbs, and in the process of dropping weight. I am swimming 3-5 times a week, typically 1,800 yds. I have started working in some sprint work (25’s with short rests). My kicking is weak, when I do kick drills, I barely move. I wanted to start using paddles, but am hesitant because I feel I must correct my body position before I get into more advanced training. I feel like my upper body is my strong point, core is second, and hips and legs last in terms of fitness in the water. I am considering getting a GoPro videocamera or something waterproof to take some video to get more serious about this.
Any thoughts or training tips would be helpful, thanks in advance.
The key to good body position shouldn’t rely on whee your head it. It should rely on good core muscle use.
I’d try getting out the kickboard- on your stomach, fingertips over the front of the board, the side of your face almost by not quite resting on the board. Feel what you’ve got to do with your torso in order to get your hips up without having to have it be too tense. This is an exaggerated version of what your torso should be doing for full stroke.
At 5’11" and 200 lbs you should be able to float pretty well. Most places I see say to think about keeping your hips up, not really your legs. If you are floating on your stomach and you push your head down a little then your hips will come up a little.
Most folks just get a handy video camera, typically from a phone, and upload a video to youtube.
My kicking is weak, when I do kick drills, Ibarely move. I sometimes use my kick to try to keep my legs as high as possible, and I have read here on ST that is not a good practice.
This ^ is an important factor. You want your kick to be efficient, an easy 2-beat should be enough to keep your feet where they should be. The kick does matter, I know very few people who can keep their legs up near the surface with bands and no pull buoy,
You also say your core is pretty good, but it may not be well adapted for swimming.
Best thing is to post a video. What you think you are doing is probably far different from what you are actually doing.
Using a pull buoy is good for feeling position, but can be a crutch. Try using a swim band around your ankles; while you’ll hate it at first, and just sink, it actually teaches you to keep your hips raised. After awhile, you’ll just hate it, and not sink as much.
Kicking is a very important part of getting a feel for the water… you need to connect your kick (and your hip motion) to your strokes. Its as much an issue of timing and synchronization as it is actual propulsion. Your hip motion is incredibly important, and eventually, when you learn how to hold your hips, you’ll be able to swim efficiently even with a sub-2-beat kick.
Try doing sculling drills: these really teach you about your body position in the water.
Swimming is incredibly frustrating for many people, but it sounds like you’re willing to put the time and effort in… keep trying things! I’m not affiliated, but try the Finding Freestyle program; it sounds like you’re willing to spend money to fix your swimming, and its a cheap program (especially compared to TI) that has worked for me (as somebody who used to swim club trying to get back to the days of yore).
Something that I did that really took my swimming to the next level was did 800 meters of kicking (NO FINS) every other swim workout…All focusing on body position…You will find out in a hurry where your problem is
1st 25 - kick on my stomach (streamline, superman position)
2nd 25 - Right hand lead (kick on my side…actually more at a 45 degree angle to simulate my swim position)
3rd 25 - Left hand
4th 25 - swim with 2 beat kick, just using legs to rotate back and forth (work on timing) and breath every 5 strokes…
30 secs rest
Repeat 8x’s (8x100) (maybe take a longer rest if you are really weak…
This is very boring, but challenging for newbies and you will find that you probably can barely finish the workout for the first 2 weeks…
I posted about this last week, but I (and many others) have had great success with FindingFreestyle. It has several drills that force you to focus on your position in the water.
This is very boring, but challenging for newbies and you will find that you probably can barely finish the workout for the first 2 weeks… and follow tips from above as well
Wow, this is great feedback, thanks all for replying. I did try the kicking on the side drill a couple times this week, but it kicked my butt. I am going to take your suggestions to the pool tomorrow and this coming month and really work them out. I also have some ideas about rigging my iPhone to get some video from above the water, and I really think I am going to invest in a GoPro videocamera to get some quality underwater video as well. Thanks again.
I’m right there with you with sinking legs. I’ve tried lots of stuff. The thing that clicked with me was the following:
Think of your shoulders/armpits down to your belly button as a “T” shape. You want to press this T down such that you almost feel like you are swimming down hill. You should be able to feel a very different sensation as your legs will come up - if you lift your head or let your “T” shape up too much your legs will likely sink. If your core is weak you may panic a bit at the feeling that you are “going under” and be tempted to lift your head. Keep working on the side kick drills and a kick flutter (vs. thrashing the water and burning up loads of oxygen with your legs). Focus less on stroke and catch right now - you want to get a good sense of balance in the water and that swimming down hill feeling.
Naturally there are tons of opinions, drills, etc. you can/should be doing. But personally, I just found that this one thing (downhill swimming) concept helped me the most in the beginning and allowed me to move on to other techniques/things that needed improvement (and there were lots of them…ankle flexibility, my catch, etc.). Before that I would tire very easily even with a pull buoy because my legs would still drag and my stroke was inefficient. I was swimming up hill so to speak. Swim down hill and things get easier.
I’m far from an expert in swimming, but I have noticed the following, as I’ve had similar experience to you-
The pull buoy itself does NOT train you to have good body position. In fact, the more you use it, the lazier you get about keeping the technique to keep the legs up without the buoy. You might compensate by pulling faster with the buoy, which is fair, but take that buoy away after you’ve been using it nonstop for like a week, and I guarantee you’ll be struggling at least a little when you’re readapting to buoy-free swimming.
What you need is an ‘anti-buoy’ that makes it harder to keep the legs afloat, so you can really optimize all the little things (and there are many) to keep the legs up. Fortunately, such a device exists.
It’s the dreaded “ankle-lock band”. As simple as tying a segment of bike inner tube around your ankles. Do not use a buoy to help you keep the legs up, even in the beginning - the pull buoy completely destroys the point of using the band.
I guarantee that even if you struggle with this band all session long, take it off, and you’ll be really feeling great on the body position front as you gradually incorporate the little tricks to keep legs up into your regular stroke. It’s hard as heck, but it sounds exactly like what you need. I’m still working on it myself, but it’s definitely helping despite my continued struggles with the band.
Something that I did that really took my swimming to the next level was did 800 meters of kicking (NO FINS) every other swim workout…All focusing on body position…You will find out in a hurry where your problem is
I’ll back this up. I made some of my best gains in the pool following a few weeks where I was hitting 800-1500 kick sets 2-3 times a week.
Something that I did that really took my swimming to the next level was did 800 meters of kicking (NO FINS) every other swim workout…All focusing on body position…You will find out in a hurry where your problem is
I’ll back this up. I made some of my best gains in the pool following a few weeks where I was hitting 800-1500 kick sets 2-3 times a week.
I’m curious - how does this help you with body position? It seems like it’s actually easiest to maintain leg-up position in the water when doing a kick, but you generally don’t want to be wasting forward kick propulsion for keeping your legs upright. (I’ve never had a problem staying flat in the water doing kick drills.)
Some other factors: I’m 5-11 and 200 lbs, and in the process of dropping weight. I am swimming 3-5 times a week, typically 1,800 yds.
You’ve got plenty of good advice, I agree with basically all so I’ll just highlight this. 1800 yds at half pull/half swim is NOT enough. Sounds like you need around an 800 yd wu/k/drill session and at least 1500 main set of ALL swim. You can then follow that with more kick/pull stuff if you’ve got time.
Something that I did that really took my swimming to the next level was did 800 meters of kicking (NO FINS) every other swim workout…All focusing on body position…You will find out in a hurry where your problem is
I’ll back this up. I made some of my best gains in the pool following a few weeks where I was hitting 800-1500 kick sets 2-3 times a week.
I’m curious - how does this help you with body position? It seems like it’s actually easiest to maintain leg-up position in the water when doing a kick, but you generally don’t want to be wasting forward kick propulsion for keeping your legs upright. (I’ve never had a problem staying flat in the water doing kick drills.)
Well, I didn’t go into that much detail with the why…but could of explained the how/what a little better and the why will become self evident…It is actually quite hard to swim on your side at a 45 degree angle…don’t stack hips completely, and then roll for air for an entire workout…really trying to stay long and maitain body postion while trying to rotate smoothly back and forth to air…Just kicking on your stomach on the first 25 is actually pretty easy (to your point above)…but gives you a feel of having your hips up and levrerage (in the form of surface area on the water)…the key is to try an maintain that stong kick as you rotate to 45 degrees…(just enough to pop your shoulder out of the water)…more core stability here…ie swim muscles…also if you rotate too far where you complete stack your hips you will feel the loss of leverage and power during the kick (now you can over rotate and push your shoulders down to keep your hips up…but that is the TI method which actually ends up having you burying your head too much)…a lot of people actualy over rotate (side to side) instead of the cork screw driving your hips foward…Then the last 25 gives your legs a little break as you swim freestyle with a two beat kick mostly focusing on the timeing of your kick to rotate you through (drive) the water…
I said breath every 5, so you can ingrain the perfect stroke…newbies who try to breath more (especially every 2 strokes) develop really bad habits…Once you have the feel (muscle memory) of a relatively perfect stroke with respect to body position and alignment…and you build your core/legs and overall strength…the breathing is easy…
Last when doing the kicking…focus on being strong/long kicking from your hips…not so much laying down a super hard kick set…try to build good swimming strength that is body postion specific…not just kick to kick…try this for a couple weeks and you will notice a dramatic difference…
For a newbie I don’t suggest trying to swim a set after this because those muscles that are weak to begin with will be even more fatigued…so get out after 800 and then do you normal workout on you next swim day…(so I would say a minimum of 4 days swimming)…
