RE: must improve body position and swim posture!

ande — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 11:43:10 GMT

I'm a 44-year-old late-onset triathlete working to improve my stroke. I've done a lot of Total Immersion drills and the like, and I've seen improvement--I can do 100s in about 1:20-1:25 now, with, say, 15-20 secs rest between intervals. But I'm at a plateau and I've recently learned (by having others observe, and through underwater video) that my hips and legs hang much too low in the water. I suspect the cure lies in kick effectiveness and improved swim posture, but I'm wondering if anybody has good advice on how best to make those things happen. I've been doing the 6-1-6 drill a lot (kicking on one side for six kicks, taking a stroke, then the other side), but are there others? Dryland core exercises? Help! Learn how to do the quick flick kick it's a 2 beat kick where you do a small fast kick not much knee bend, like 5 or 10% very little thigh movement you kick just as your hands are about 1/5th into the catch as you pull with your right arm, you kick with your right foot as you pull with your left arm, you kick with your left foot most of the time your legs are close together, toes gently pointed the goal is to maintain proper body position, stay streamlined and conserve energy. that's what shinji does in this youtube Total Immersion Swimming Freestyle Demo by Shinji Takeuchi - YouTube also HEAD POSITION you want your head neutral, look at the bottom, point the top of your head where you want to go, lifting your head sinks your hips. Since you're a triathlete, most races are open water, you occasionally need to lift your head to sight your course, a friend of mine says he sprints the first 200 of open water races then settles in on a slightly faster person to draft. If you're drafting, hopefully your host is sighting more often than you hope this helps