The other day when I read the thread of FREESTYLE STROKE I found many technique terms of swimming, like catch water, anchor your hand, etc. Or shall I say a lot of swimming physics or principles?
Could someone recommend some onlie free articles about this swimming physics? I am a new swimmer.
Thanks a lot.
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Former Member
As a guy who's always had trouble with swimming at a competitive level, i've looked into the physics alot.
Through trial and error over the years i've found that your natural bouyancy makes the biggest difference to how fast you are going to be able to swim.
Consider this, two boats, one's water line sits 20cm under the water, the others sits at 50cm. Obviously, the one sitting at 20cm is going to be using less power to move through the water.
A good test is to go to the deep end of the pool, put your hands by your side and try stand vertically. If you have a positive bouyancy, and thus alot of swimming potential, you should settle with at least part of your head above the water. If you are like me, and have a negative bouyancy, you will end up falling to the bottom like a rock. (In fact i'm so bad I can take a semi deep breath, lay horizontally with my arms wide open and still sink to the bottom).
Someone told me that Ian Thorpe's coach gets swimmers to do this and tell them straight away whether they should swim or not.
If your body naturally wants to sink in the water, its very hard to hold an effective technique because of the compensation required to keep yourself afloat.
I'm normally a 20-21min 1500m (1.20-1.23 pace) swimmer in the pool. Put on a wetsuit and add extra bouyancy and i'm 17-18min swimmer (1.08-1.12's).
The sad thing is for the people like me out there, is unless you want to be a triathlete (thus wear wetsuits all the time!), is that there's not much you can do about it (except put lots of fat on, which floats), no matter how fit you get, and how much you change your technique and balance, you'll always be at a major disadvantage to those who can skim across the water.
As a guy who's always had trouble with swimming at a competitive level, i've looked into the physics alot.
Through trial and error over the years i've found that your natural bouyancy makes the biggest difference to how fast you are going to be able to swim.
Consider this, two boats, one's water line sits 20cm under the water, the others sits at 50cm. Obviously, the one sitting at 20cm is going to be using less power to move through the water.
A good test is to go to the deep end of the pool, put your hands by your side and try stand vertically. If you have a positive bouyancy, and thus alot of swimming potential, you should settle with at least part of your head above the water. If you are like me, and have a negative bouyancy, you will end up falling to the bottom like a rock. (In fact i'm so bad I can take a semi deep breath, lay horizontally with my arms wide open and still sink to the bottom).
Someone told me that Ian Thorpe's coach gets swimmers to do this and tell them straight away whether they should swim or not.
If your body naturally wants to sink in the water, its very hard to hold an effective technique because of the compensation required to keep yourself afloat.
I'm normally a 20-21min 1500m (1.20-1.23 pace) swimmer in the pool. Put on a wetsuit and add extra bouyancy and i'm 17-18min swimmer (1.08-1.12's).
The sad thing is for the people like me out there, is unless you want to be a triathlete (thus wear wetsuits all the time!), is that there's not much you can do about it (except put lots of fat on, which floats), no matter how fit you get, and how much you change your technique and balance, you'll always be at a major disadvantage to those who can skim across the water.
