My drill of choice for assessing and developing smart core awareness:
Good swimmers generally get this drill within the first 5 minutes in trying it. Those who are not as skilled, ie still learning the basics will rather need several weeks.
Looks like I'm not in the 5 minute club. But after 20-25, I started catching on and my body wasn't wiggling to-and-fro quite as much. But it felt like my hands/arms were playing a fairly significant role in initiating the flipping from side to side. Not sure if that's how it should feel when done correctly??
Another "core connection" that became clearer in the pool today: my left arm recovery is especially short and choppy and I've been working on extending out a bit more, but have found it difficult. Today I noticed that my core engagement is especially weak on that side. So I concentrated on engaging more fully during the left side recovery and that felt like it evened it out with my right side recovery. Again, it felt way over-exaggerated and "wrong" because it was so different from what I'm used to, but it seemed to work well. General lesson: even if you know what your body is supposed to be doing, it can't do it if it doesn't have the support from the core.
My drill of choice for assessing and developing smart core awareness:
Good swimmers generally get this drill within the first 5 minutes in trying it. Those who are not as skilled, ie still learning the basics will rather need several weeks.
Looks like I'm not in the 5 minute club. But after 20-25, I started catching on and my body wasn't wiggling to-and-fro quite as much. But it felt like my hands/arms were playing a fairly significant role in initiating the flipping from side to side. Not sure if that's how it should feel when done correctly??
Another "core connection" that became clearer in the pool today: my left arm recovery is especially short and choppy and I've been working on extending out a bit more, but have found it difficult. Today I noticed that my core engagement is especially weak on that side. So I concentrated on engaging more fully during the left side recovery and that felt like it evened it out with my right side recovery. Again, it felt way over-exaggerated and "wrong" because it was so different from what I'm used to, but it seemed to work well. General lesson: even if you know what your body is supposed to be doing, it can't do it if it doesn't have the support from the core.
