Been trying all the usual
- engage glutes
- head down amongst other tips, but can’t get hips higher to surface of water. (Even with snorkel use).
What other tips can I try?
Been trying all the usual
- engage glutes
- head down amongst other tips, but can’t get hips higher to surface of water. (Even with snorkel use).
What other tips can I try?
arch the lower part of your back like you want to stick your ass out
For real?
For real?
yep. try it. little talked about technique swimmers do. tighten your lower back so it lifts your butt. lengthens your “board”.
Thank you will try that…
Two other tips. Think of your core as about where the top band of your swim suit is or bikini bottom if you’re female. Also try floating on your back hands above your head and just doing a very soft kick feet barely breaking the water. Then flop over on your stomach and see if that activates anything for you.
I don’t think of arching my back / but but that’s a good description. I think more like stretching and lengthen the oblique muscles and to the sides of my belly button
If you wear a snorkel play around sculling with your hands trying to sit in a nice flat and high position. Good luck
This is really hard to verbalise but once you get the feeling down you’ll be sweet. Swimming is very feeling / inner body mind connection
Hard to say without a video. I have the same problem, thought my kick was the cause, but recently I’ve been told that my kick is pretty good and my catch is punching my upper body upward and therefore my hips downward.
I’m a pretty lousy swimmer but I can see flaws in others that reflect my current/past mistakes.
A big one for intermediate swimmers other than poor head position or breathing (probably not breathing as you are snorkling and still have issue) is a poor set up and catch which flows onto the rest.
- putting hand into water in some weird way and thinking you are spearing the water then extending out but your extension is too high so hand is too high in the water so ends up fingers are above elbow and sloping up (causes a stop motion) - should be enter extend arm hand imho 15-20cm below surface, not just under surface woith dropped elbow and stop hand facing up which also lifts the front and thus drops the legs
- crossing over rather than swimming on train tracks and stuffing up the rotation so kick then spays out to the side to correct and stalls the legs and lower body
- start of the catch letting elbow drop so then the forearm and hand is pushing more down than back in the set up phase of the catch, which lifts the front of your body and pushing down your legs (since your body is a lever); correction is correct set up not muscling the start of the catch and getting into a high or highesh elbow position then pulling back not down this is a big one
- pulling too far so your hand is ending up too far down your thigh and not recovering fast enough, meaning you have 1 hand way behind your shoulders during the recovery and that’s counterbalanced by the other hand out in front, so your weight is behind your shoulders when it should be in the front quadrant ideally, from what I understand the start of the lead hand starts the catch when your other hand is going in front of your shoulder; if your timing is out and you have 1 hand way back out of the water the lever will tilt down and legs hips drop
- doing an ultra slow or pausing somehow during the recovery for no real reason especially if hand behind shoulder resulting in lever pushing legs down
- kick technique bending at knees or other general lack of technique i.e. what I do everyday
- not stabilised core flopping around
Ask me I did all of these wrong many many times, I am expert in doing s**t wrong
[Hard to say without a video. I have the same problem, thought my kick was the cause, but recently I’ve been told that my kick is pretty good and my catch is pushing my upper body upward and therefore my hips downward.
of the ppl I swim with who claim “I have low heavy hips” dragging feet etc etc almost off of them it is either rotation/kick/odd pause catch or the pushing down at the early part of the catch that seems to be the problem, much more than a lousy kick or so called unique physiology where their legs are somehow made of unobtainium
one easy fix is using ankle bands to stop most of the kick, this forces a higher stroke rate per m, stops the odd pauses in the stroke and better body position, otherwise feet are dragging along the bottom of the pool. Been there, done that.
Every single lousy swim technique mistake…I can consult on those. Smacktalk like a pro too. Good swimming? Not so much.
Been trying all the usual
- engage glutes
- head down amongst other tips, but can’t get hips higher to surface of water. (Even with snorkel use).
What other tips can I try?On the top end keep your neck straight and look at the black line. On the bottom end use your kick consistently. That is, all the time. As others have said if you have trouble kicking you need to swim more often and add kick sets.
I think a lot while I swim, mostly about non-swimming stuff, but have never actively thought about engaging my core. If that works for you, go for it.
Edit to add: Kick sets with fins (preferably the short variety so that your feet are moving up and down at race speed) is a lot more satisfying for slow kickers and helps with the ankle flexion required for decent kicking.
I think your kick needs work mostly likely - got a knee bend in it?
Head cues: imagine a paddle on the top of your head (paddle is perpendicular to water surface). Push the paddle forward. When you turn head to breathe, imaginary paddle doesn’t slip off head. You could actually try this w paddle, idk if it would work.
I also think of a string thru my spine and someone at surface level reeling it in.
I think about “nose downâ€.
Lmk if that helps, but mostly I hypothesize bent knee kicking being your issue
Been trying all the usual
- engage glutes
- head down amongst other tips, but can’t get hips higher to surface of water. (Even with snorkel use).
What other tips can I try?
Lie on the pool deck on your stomach with arms extended overhead. Lift legs off deck keeping them straight. Feel which muscles are engaged to do that (hint: lower back muscles (erector spinae?), glutes, and hamstrings).
Use those muscles in the water.
(note: “head down” will only serve to lower your legs. That’s physics)
Been trying all the usual
- engage glutes
- head down amongst other tips, but can’t get hips higher to surface of water. (Even with snorkel use).
What other tips can I try?
Lie on the pool deck on your stomach with arms extended overhead. Lift legs off deck keeping them straight. Feel which muscles are engaged to do that (hint: lower back muscles (erector spinae?), glutes, and hamstrings).
Use those muscles in the water.
This.
Plus, improving other parts of your technique (body, pull, recovery, etc) will improve your speed, which will also get your whole body riding higher in the water
That could be Strange denizen of the pool - lay on the pool deck get in the water, lay on the deck get back in the water, for 30 minutes
.
one easy fix is using ankle bands to stop most of the kick, this forces a higher stroke rate per m, stops the odd pauses in the stroke and better body position, otherwise feet are dragging along the bottom of the pool. Been there, done that.
Been doing ankle band sets today as part of Wahoo SYSTM swim workout. God damn, that’s not fun.
one easy fix is using ankle bands to stop most of the kick, this forces a higher stroke rate per m, stops the odd pauses in the stroke and better body position, otherwise feet are dragging along the bottom of the pool. Been there, done that.
Been doing ankle band sets today as part of Wahoo SYSTM swim workout. God damn, that’s not fun.
It does get better with the bands… Hang in there. But yeah… Suuuuucks
All of the suggestions above will not help you a lot. Because they all presume it’s some body muscles which keep the legs up. You must respond on another question. What brings them down.
Just lay in the water horizontally, face down (hold your breath). Make a slight footkick. You’ll see your legs come at the water surface. So what brings your legs down?
Do the same experiment and start crawling with your arms, look down and see your legs sink. That’s it! The wrong arm movement. (If you push your hands down in front of you, automatically your legs sink.)
Appreciate the input here!
All of the suggestions above will not help you a lot. Because they all presume it’s some body muscles which keep the legs up. You must respond on another question. What brings them down.
Just lay in the water horizontally, face down (hold your breath). Make a slight footkick. You’ll see your legs come at the water surface. So what brings your legs down?
Do the same experiment and start crawling with your arms, look down and see your legs sink. That’s it! The wrong arm movement. (If you push your hands down in front of you, automatically your legs sink.)
^^^I’ve noticed this when I do certain drills.
My suggestions from a fellow hip sinker. These suggestions both rely on tools to help you realize the feeling and then reproduce it without the tools.
Fins and kickboard. Kick easy and about halfway down the lane, lift your hips up, then drop them, then lift them. When you get this, repeat without the fins. For me, this helped me feel the control of my core/hips/glutes that everyone talks about. The fins and kickboard float everything else so isolating the hips was easier.Swim with a pull buoy. Swim normally EXCEPT don’t just relax in the core and let the buoy do all the lifting work. Like above in 1, experiment with your core and glutes to raise your hips even higher than the buoy. The buoy makes it easier.
When I swim normally after doing the above, I can at least feel control in my hips/core/glutes. Doing the above also helped create some fitness and muscle memory in these areas. The more I do this, the more natural and automatic it’s becoming.
I was swimming the other day with my wife (who is a fishy) and told her I finally got the “glute squeeze” feeling everyone talks about. She said, “You squeeze your glutes when you swim?” I said, “Yeah, apparently that’s a thing. Don’t you?” She said, “I don’t know.”
So she swam a 50 and said, “Holy crap, I do.”
To me, I think this is the point. Once we get it, we’ll get. And, because we’re in the water, these core and glute movements only need to be very subtle to have a big impact.
My last piece of advice (again coming from personal experience) is don’t do anything with banded legs. In my experience, that just frustrated the hell out me. My body turned into an “L” in the water after 10 yards. You are far away from being able to swim with a band. The tools I suggest above are the opposite of the band. They help you learn/feel the position where the band isolates the weakness. Sometimes this approach works in learning. In this case, it won’t.
I can now swim a 50 pretty comfortably with a band.
Full disclosure regarding this advice: I still suck at swimming and you can probably beat me so I am in no way qualified to give advice to anyone. I’m just sharing what’s worked for me.