Okay this question is directed to anyone who knows more about and who is a better swimmer than me (which will be anyone who reads this). I am starting to use a leg band for a portion of all my swim workouts. Rather than just use the band, can someone give some insight on how I achieve proper body position (i.e. how to stop my legs and feet from sinking). I’m really trying to push down with my chest, but it seems my legs still sink. Anyone else have this issue?
Read through this thread, lots of good advice:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?do=post_view_flat;post=692995;page=1;sb=post_latest_reply;so=ASC;mh=25;
.
Barry,
I wouldn’t recommend the use of bands unless you are a pretty strong swimmer that has a correct body position. One contraption I have had success with is wrapping the band around a 1/2 kickboard. The kickboard will keep your legs from sinking and force you to rotate better. If you don’t rotate you will feel your legs move back and forth. We used bands without buoys in collegiate swimming but it was more like vertical swimming and is a killer on the shoulders.
I hope this helps.
Bob Stocks
I seem to remember Dev getting this idea from Dr. Tommy and while I certainly respect Dr. Tommy’s insight on swimming (he did beat me out of the water by a couple of minutes in LP) I think band pull is the wrong drill if improving body position is your goal.
In my experience, it works well for people with sound body position and technique. It’s a great drill for stroke rate and length…not a great one for body position, especially if you are an ineffiecient swimmer to begin with. All you’re going to do is reinforce poor propulsion techniques as you flail around dragging your toes on the pool bottom.
If you’re problem is poor body position, I’d tend to do more drills that emphasize rolling from side to side (Think cigarette boat rather than barge) or kicking drills w/ no board.
Just my opinion, Ian
Damn I was 1 minute late!!!
Good call though, I like the kickboard idea.
Use a pull buoy. Start with it near your knees and focus on rotation and balance. As you become better move the bouy up some until it is in the normal position. I feel it is important to bi laterally breathe, do it alone so you stay focused and do a straight set of at least 600m preferably longer.
Talk about some quick answers!! Wow!!
Bob
i would not agree with others… the band is very good to teach you to maintain a good body position. This is coming from a non swimmer guy. it teach me to press hard with my chest and also to put my head down. it also teach you that if your catch isnt good…you will sink…you need to get the turn over up and eliminate the glide on your side…
for now, focus on puting your head really down…all the way to be able to see your feet…this way, your feet will slowly come up and as you improve at it, your head will come back to a more natural position.
it might be good for you, it might not… but me and dr tommy are using the band only and never use a pull body or kick board… seems like it work for us racing!!!
JohnnyO with all due respect neither you nor Dr. Tommy are “non-swimmer guys” (1st pack MPRO in Kona says so)so comparing yourselves to poor swimmers doesn’t jive:)
In my experience with beginner swimmers, this just compounds problems. If you’re going to do a drill, focus on one part of the stroke at a time. Sure the band forces you to pick up your turnover in order to keep floating…works great for people who already have decent technique and swimming strength. Very frustrating and counter productive for those who don’t.
The glide that you’re trying to eliminate is, in my opinion, very important in reinforcing proper body position and rotation for beginning swimmers.
when i said non swimmer…i mean that i never swim of my life…i started as a triathlete and was swimming over 2 minutes by 100m/short course. I was 18 years old. swimming never been something natural for me. The band really helped me out to get better and progress…
as for the bands, it s true that to swim with a band make you swim flat and on your stomach…so you need to do drills also for rotation to complimente…
for me, the band give me the concept of pressing on my chest to get my ASS out of the water when i swim…that was something that help me out a lot to swim more relax and faster in racing.
i been teach that gliding is bad…it s a moment where you dont propulse yourself and dont gain speed…but i m not expert…it s just what i have learn and what i teach to someone that would ask me.
so that would explain why your turnover rate is 2x faster than mine.
I just asked about my head position to the masters coach this week. From watching the TI DVD, and the changing my head position, I see I have a real bad habit to eliminate. I tend to arch my head up some, for what ever reason. On top of giving me a sore neck, it seems to make high elbows tough. When I force my head down, I seem to be able to have my stroke work more smoothly. But, boy is it hard, the eyes what to look up some. :o(
Dave
I read i believe in Gordo’s book or old forum that until your under 60min for an Ironman swim pool TOYS are not needed to get better, more swimming is. Not sure if that applies to you as i do not know your swim times.
t~
I tend to agree with Jonnyo…this is the one single “drill” that got me to Kona. Basically I took 4 min off my Ironman swim split and that was the difference between going to Hawaii and sitting home hitting reload. Of course, I had to bike and run, but having a faster swim really set me up in a good position on cleaner road (no congestion) with a positive mindset.
For the time limited triathlete crammign in swims with no personal coach on deck it is great feedback as to where your body is and if you can’t get good body position you’ll be swallowing half the pool when you go to breath. To me it is like powercranks for swimming in that that you’ll immediately know if your body position sucks (just like powercranks immediately tell you if you are not recovering in synch…)…anyway, I like tools/drills that give you immediate feedback on deficiencies in technique
Jonnyo, you’ll be proud to know that I came back from the pool and out of 2500m I did 1200m of band pull (I know this is extreme) of which 1000m was continuous! Now, I don’t know if I just have more upper body strength relative to my size, but my arms are no more cooked than if I do regular swimming. I just take more strokes per length.
As a side note to Jonnyo, do you take more strokes per length without band (arguably you should since there is no propulsion from the legs)?
Konaexpress, I’ve seen you swim and no one on this thread has. Your body position in the swim is the opposite of your bike position. Your bike position is awesome, your swim position is pretty bad and you have lots of strength that is being used to simply stir up the Pacific Ocean (I guess that is what causes the slow times in Kona…Konaexpress stirring up the entire ocean…). You’ll benefit from this drill, but as Itzeasy said, you also have to do drills that include body rotation or you will start to swim relatively flat, and for that, one arm with breathing on the side opposite the arm being used for propulsion.
Dev
Trust me, the band is not a swim toy. I’ll take advice from Dr.Tommy on this long before Gordo…and I highly respect Mr. Byrn 
Great notes above, thanks for the info…
t~
hey what about me dev??? would you take my advice over tom’s??? i need to point out that for the first time of my life, i out swam tom by 15 secondes!!! This is huge!!! I own him now!!! maybe if he gets a break from his super busy job, he can comments on that!!!
Just to keep the debate going…
There is no question that band pull will make you aware that your legs are sinking…for those of us who have a good feel for the ways in which we move ourselves through the water it’s easy to correct this (fnish your strokes, increase stroke rate, balance)
For those who don’t have this “feel” I’ve seen them struggle and propel themselves through the water by any means necessary to move forward…not pretty and definately not conducive to faster swimming…only sloppier swimming with possibly a little gain in brute strength.
Don’t get me wrong, I love band sets, do them all the time as do the swimmers I coach. I really think you need the background to really gain from it though (a background which you, johnnyo, and myself all have that konaexpress may not)
And Dev with all that band pull you’re doing, maybe make Epicman a little more epic and do the swim with band, no wetsuit!!!
I read i believe in Gordo’s book or old forum that until your under 60min for an Ironman swim pool TOYS are not needed to get better, more swimming is. Not sure if that applies to you as i do not know your swim times.
Very false, a very simplistic opinion, don’t believe everything you read. I’m a former swim coach working with swimmers that I sent to college on full rides and swimmers that would never break 60min even if they trained for ony the swim for one year. Toys have a proper place in a properly designed training program.
In my experience and observations over the past 10+ yrs triathletes tend to use toys way to often when more swimming would be better, real swimmers tend to use toys to accomplish specific things and less often.
Ultimately more swimming is going to get you faster, but you can use toys here and there… The avg triathlete probably puts in about 10-12k per week swimming. I had high schools kids putting that in on Monday, then again Tuesday, and 1.5x that on saturdays.
Thank you all very much for your feedback. Seems as though the jury is split on whether bands are a good swim tool or not. My best IM swim was this year at LP with a time of 1.03 and change. After all my IM swims I feel very fresh, so I am not using alot of energy. Hopefully Coach Rick is reading this and will give me a variety of bands, one arm drill and other drills to assist in body rotation. And the idea of doing the Epicman swim w/o wetsuits and with bands really sucks…