alright, horrible swimmer here. i always seem to have high neck and head pain after swims. i presume this has something to do with ym body positioning and rotation. i try to keep my head still and rotate my body, probably unsuccessfully.
just took a semi-private class and got lots of feedbak about how to improve, but the coahes never said much to me about my head positioning.
anyone have any ideas for what this could be or what i can do to alleviate?
You are on the right track when you say you try to keep your head still and just rotate your body. Probably you are still looking up/forward too much. This may be because you want to see where you are going, or it may be the way you pull your head out of the water to breath (you shouldn’t pull it out, it should just rotate).
I have had a ton of neck & headache problems from swimming and found I really had to tuck my chin quite a bit to relax my neck. My previous head position was not wrong, but I personally have to have a more downward looking position than others.
I would suggest you keep going to the coach. Since you mention you are a “horrible” swimmer. It may just be that s/he is focusing on other parts of your stroke first. Ask him/her to specifically look at your head.
In the meantime, keeping looking directly at the bottom of the pool when not breathing. When you do breath turn your head equally from the chin to the forehead.