Another Reason You Might Sit Low In The Water - Breathing To The Sky
Sherborne Dorset Clinic, July 2nd
West Lothian Video Analysis
Swim/Tri Camps Alicante
Prague Junior Swim Club
Dublin Video Analysis
Hong Kong Squads & Video Analysis
NYC / SC Video Analysis
Dubai December Video Analysis Workshops
If you are not from a swimming background you might have a low body position in the water with the legs sinking deep behind you:
This creates a huge amount of drag, so much in fact that working on lifting your body position higher should be your number one priority to improve your swimming.
For comparison, here is how high double Olympic Gold Medallist Rebecca Adlington's sits in the water:
Most people with low legs are aware it's a problem for them but if you are not sure, you can tell from how much easier you feel swimming with a pull-buoy or in a wetsuit. It's not uncommon for someone with low legs to be 5, 10 or even 20 seconds faster per 100m using a large pull-buoy or wetsuit!
If you suffer from sinky legs, you might never get as high in the water as Rebecca but so large is the drag created that even small improvements will make your swimming significantly easier and faster.
Swim Smooth!
This creates a huge amount of drag, so much in fact that working on lifting your body position higher should be your number one priority to improve your swimming.
For comparison, here is how high double Olympic Gold Medallist Rebecca Adlington's sits in the water:
Most people with low legs are aware it's a problem for them but if you are not sure, you can tell from how much easier you feel swimming with a pull-buoy or in a wetsuit. It's not uncommon for someone with low legs to be 5, 10 or even 20 seconds faster per 100m using a large pull-buoy or wetsuit!
If you suffer from sinky legs, you might never get as high in the water as Rebecca but so large is the drag created that even small improvements will make your swimming significantly easier and faster.
Another Reason You Might Sit Low In The Water
There are many causes of a low body position in the water such as poor kicking technique, holding your breath and tight hip flexors. In fact for most swimmers with low legs there's more than one factor at play which is why it can be hard to fix (see our full fault-fixer process in the Guru in the links below).
Here's one cause you might not have thought of - looking up to the sky to breathe:
For swimmers who do this, often their body position isn't too bad when not breathing, however as they rotate too far and crane the neck to look upwards, their body sinks low in the water:
By working on breathing across the pool (using the bow wave) rather than to the sky...
...you will find breathing much easier and significantly improve your body position at the same time - see the links below.
Swim Smooth!
(Thanks to Coach Shauqie completing his SS certification training in Kuala Lumpur for this extract from his video analysis!)
|
|
|
|