At first I thought I liked the backstroke, but now I'm all confused about the stroke.
I started doing the stroke "not thinking about it", but now that I'm _trying_ do it right, I can't do it anymore. =)
The recovery phase is fine -- obviously, it's relatively easy. My hand is in front of me and I'm not doing anything too crazy with it.
It's the push/pull. I find it awkward to do much of anything behind my back, perhaps because of low flexibility.
During recovery, my arm stays in the vertical plane, close to my head. But once it enters the water, it tends to veer out of that plane and to the side because I can't put my arm behind my back with my palms facing my feet very easily.
Since my stroke goes out to the side a bit, it steers me off course and destabilizes me.
While writing this, I'm practicing my stroke in the air, and I just noticed that rolling into the stroke makes a HUGE difference for me.
My instructor didn't tell me to do that... I'm beginning to wonder how good she is... she's a good swimmer... effortless in the water... but she doesn't verbalize very much.
Ahh, rolling, maybe I answered my own question. My shoulders REALLY hurt when I don't roll, but when I do, it feels great. That definitely helps.
Okay, I have one more: I don't wear goggles when I swim and I find that even when I minimize the splash, I still get water in my eyes during backstroke. Should I just swim with my eyes closed, will I get used to it, or what?
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Former Member
"be sure to kick with your arms over your head, hands clapsed together."
Thanks -- that's a great tip.
Like you, I've been drilling my kick on my back without the strokes a lot... but my instructor insists that I do it with my arms at my sides, which I've always found unnatural.
I will DEFINITELY try it with my arms forward and clasped, as it makes a lot of sense and I think it'll feel better.
Part of me wants to swim, swim, swim and get good at freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke and part of me wants to practice my kicking day and night until its perfect before I continue with the strokes.
I find that when I get my body position and my kick/ankles just right, I can glide with ease without strokes... and when I get it wrong, no amount of strokes can save me. Therefore it seems to make sense to keep working on my kick, even if I do feel a bit dumb only adding in strokes once in a while.
Incidentally I've never been taught breaststroke but I tried it today and I realized that I can "just do it". It's a completely natural stroke for me. Now of course I can't do it WELL, but it seems to be a great beginner stroke. The kick comes naturally to me.
I don't put my head under when I do it... I just use it for short-distance maneuvering in the pool since backstroke is awkward for that purpose and I'm not much good on front crawl yet.
Treading water is still totally impossible. I was in the deep end for a good twenty minutes experimenting with sculling, scissor kicks, bicycle kicks, egg beater kicks, and furious uncontrolled kicking. I had a life "belt" on, so it was hard to tell, but I didn't feel like I got any lift from ANY of those things.
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Former Member
"be sure to kick with your arms over your head, hands clapsed together."
Thanks -- that's a great tip.
Like you, I've been drilling my kick on my back without the strokes a lot... but my instructor insists that I do it with my arms at my sides, which I've always found unnatural.
I will DEFINITELY try it with my arms forward and clasped, as it makes a lot of sense and I think it'll feel better.
Part of me wants to swim, swim, swim and get good at freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke and part of me wants to practice my kicking day and night until its perfect before I continue with the strokes.
I find that when I get my body position and my kick/ankles just right, I can glide with ease without strokes... and when I get it wrong, no amount of strokes can save me. Therefore it seems to make sense to keep working on my kick, even if I do feel a bit dumb only adding in strokes once in a while.
Incidentally I've never been taught breaststroke but I tried it today and I realized that I can "just do it". It's a completely natural stroke for me. Now of course I can't do it WELL, but it seems to be a great beginner stroke. The kick comes naturally to me.
I don't put my head under when I do it... I just use it for short-distance maneuvering in the pool since backstroke is awkward for that purpose and I'm not much good on front crawl yet.
Treading water is still totally impossible. I was in the deep end for a good twenty minutes experimenting with sculling, scissor kicks, bicycle kicks, egg beater kicks, and furious uncontrolled kicking. I had a life "belt" on, so it was hard to tell, but I didn't feel like I got any lift from ANY of those things.
