Freestyle head position?

So if you shouldn't look up or down, how is your head positioned?

The "spear the water part"? Think of your hand as a spear, it should glide in, then fully extend.

here here!! or is it.. hear hear!...??? anyway.. I concur, thanks for the great post Valhallen!:D

Originally posted by Glenn I have been wondering of late about the "anchor the arm" notion and have never been able to understand what it meant. It's when you are pressing a lot of water, without your hand slipping significantly. It has been described as feeling like you have grabbed a handful of pudding. (The idea is that you get more propulsion when moving a large mass of water slowly, rather than a small mass of water quickly.) If you are still not sure how you can "anchor" on water, think about when you put your hand outside your car window (when you are in the passenger seat, not driving) while the car is moving. If you can catch air, you should be able to catch water.

Question for Valhallan: I have been wondering of late about the "anchor the arm" notion and have never been able to understand what it meant. However your explanation using the "grasping the rung of a ladder then pulling yourself past it" is something that finally makes sense to me! Thank you for that. You also mentioned the importance of a high elbow position, something I have been working on this week, and that "the leverage will be much better to allow the torso to connect to the stroke." Explain that last part again. What do you mean by allowing the torso to connect to the stroke? Does that mean with elbow up you get more of the latisimus dorsi muscle involved? Thanks for clearly explaining something I have been wondering about for a long time. Glenn:)

When I first started swimming age group (a million years ago) I would move my arms as fast as I could, which of course led to spinning and not really getting anywhere fast though it felt like I was giving it everything I had. One of the parents of a fellow swimmer started telling me to swim "over the barrel, over the barrel." This made sense to me and all of my swimming improved leaps and bounds. He said that to me every time before I raced for six years. I have never forgotten him or his great wisdom. Great post Valhallan. Thanks.

Glenn, You're very welcome . When the elbow is high in the water, your upper body strength can really come into play. The hand is just a guide to getting a good grip on the water. Many people swim with their hands as the primary focus and not so much their elbow position. Real power comes from the muscles way up in your arm which are connected to the shoulders and lats as you decribed. If you can imagine wrapping your arms over a water barrel as you move down the pool (or beer barrel)...the elbows will be high, allowing for more force to go into each stroke. Very simply...more leverage means more force can be applied. It's not like you have to *muscle* your way through the water however. It's very simple physics. The torso connection will ensure that power goes into the stroke. It's very important to roll on each stroke as well, otherwise this connection won't happen like it should. Think about wrapping your arms over barrels and throwing them under and past you at next practice. It works. Remember that it's just a matter of falling into each stroke with the whole body. Momentum coming from your torso is going to much greater than the simple swishing of hands.

Valhallan-great post. Thanks!

Thanks. My pleasure to share. The imagery can be helpful because almost every swimmer has a practice when the hands just don't have the right feel, like they slip through the water. If you were also able to imagine swimming as if you had a hand attached at the elbow joint, the sensation will be much different. The focus is on the arms and not the hands. A high elbow guarantees that you'll have a longer stroke which you can throw more power into. The barrel idea does exactly that. Aside from arm motion, kicking is also a key ingredient to all this. The rythm of the kick has a great deal to do with timing the body roll. The kick is not so much for added thrust, but for providing the leverage in getting the mid-section to roll on each arm cycle. The *roll* is essential to getting into a rythm where the body rides slightly on it's side to engage the powerful back and abdominal muscles. It really helps to have a mental diagram of a very simple concept instead of thinking too much and too hard. There's so much going on when you think about the synchronisity of all the motions involved in swimming.... Sensory overload can be overwhelming. Keeping it simple works.