For all the backstrokers out there, how many of you swim with the thought of keeping your face at or even slightly below the surface of the water?
For me, I was reminded today that I need to focus on keeping my face just below the surface of the water. The body rotation allows the water to break on every stroke for a breath.
When I try to keep my face at the water surface, I find that I do a chicken neck move. This causes me to raise my head higher and higher out of the water, dropping my hips and legs.
The only remedy that seems to work in my case is keeping my face slightly below the water surface.
Has anyone else done this or swim this way all the time?
I have been really focusing on having a relaxed head position in the water, keeping it in line with the spine as others here have stated.
At the meet last weekend, I talked with one of the guys that ran the start/turn clinic - he reminded me to also feel like my shoulders are slightly "pushing" down in the water, and that my hips are slightly "pushing" up, engaging my core.
Thinking about these things, along with the head position, have helped me to drop my times by 2-3 seconds per 50 in practice and also feel like I am swimming higher in the water. Combine that with a stronger kick and faster recovery turnover (nothing crazy, just not letting my hands be too slow from hip to head) and I feel a lot better cruising through the water.
You should develop a strong kick and a strong core in order to keep your body line parallel with the water in the backstroke.You need to keep your core stable while rotating along the axis of your body. In terms of the head position, the chin needs to be tucked slightly towards the chest so that the head will ride higher in the water.
A good video clip on Swimspire demonstrates the proper backstroke:
www.youtube.com/watch
And as you'll see in this video, Ryosuke Irie's head is almost completely out of the water, with strong shoulder rotation and without dropping the hips : www.youtube.com/watch
Hope this helps!
I always get a bit of wash in each stroke cycle and just kind of lived with it. Maintaining a good body position for me is something I have to really stay on top of. Keeping the double rounded/hammock shaped back profile just doesn't seem to want to become instinctive so that's essentially all I think about with my backstroke. Keep my shape and get after it, really the face wash is more of a sign that I'm keeping myself oriented properly:/
When I swam age group, I had major problems with keeping my face out of the water--when my head is in the neutral position in backstroke, my face is practically submerged with the wash of water coming over my head. Just something funky about how I float in the water, I guess, since the rest of my body position was fine. My coach then had me really try to tuck my chin in towards my chest, which helped a lot.
Fast forward to today, and that's still how I swim. My chin isn't touching my chest, but I swim with a definite chin tuck (I tuck it forward enough that I can easily see my kick). Still get the water washing over my face, but it's not bad at all, and doesn't hinder my breathing in the slightest.
