We were goofing around after practice the other day and decided to see who could swim the farthest underwater. We both went well over 50 meters (the underwater turn was a killer). I opted for dolphin kicking a ways and then switched to the underwater breastroke. I’m not sure which technique is better for distance as opposed to speed. Anyone out there ever make a full 100m underwater? Oh yeah, this can be dangerous because a lot of people pass out. So if you make an attempt, be sure someone is on deck watching you. Perhaps some of you dorks could even put on your competitions suits and monofins and see if it improves your performance. You guys kill me with all your equipment.
No. If you keep your head streamlined within your arms and place your kick-off feet between rump and knees in the horizontal plane, you jet out horizontally.
Right, but you have to get your feet over your head before this. This is the part that is slow underwater. It's much faster on the surface because when you sommersault your legs are out of the water. If you try that underwater it really puts on the brakes.
Whenever I do underwater no-breathers for distance I do more of a spin turn. This seems faster to me.
I meant when he refered to Standford coaching--the torpedoing underwater for the turn.
Yeah, I know what you were talking about. I thought this entire thread was about underwater no breathers, but now that I reread aqualung's posts it seems he's talking about regular flipturns.
That's a good idea. I'm assuming you still do a flip turn, just deeper underwater.
Flip turns would be bad if you're trying to hold your breath because unless you are excellent at equalizing the pressure in your nose, most people need to blow out through their noses while flipping to prevent water getting up there. It's best to just touch and turn. No way is it as fast at doing an open turn at the surface of the water.
Well, I'm a breaststroker, so open turns is all I do. I only do front crawl in practice as a warm up and to make sure I don't do so much breaststroke that I wear myself out.
That's right. You're the "natural". Looking forward to hearing how you do at your upcoming (first ever) meet!
Redford was only an actor...
Regardless of how you do, don't get either discouraged or overly encouraged. You have great enthusiasm for swimming and that's something you should try to cultivate into a lifetime of enjoyment.
Anyway, sorry for hijacking the thread!
Back to our regularly scheduled programing: Don't try to find out how far you can go underwater. It's bad stuff!
My first summer out of high school - 1976 - I swam 100 meters underwater. Two lengths of the 50M pool at Lackland AFB in San Antonio. I used to practice underwater swimming for fun by warming up with a 25, then resting a bit, and repeating with a longer distance each time. I would find that my efficiency underwater and my capacity seemed to increase with each repetition.
No way I would consider trying it again. I do 25s with fins fairly regularly and think with some practice I might reach 50 yards. But that would be the absolute limit.
Turns underwater are way more difficult.
I don't believe that it is more difficult. My long axis turns are already and always underwater. Maybe my feet come out a bit? On final approach in free, I torpedo under and into the wall. Same thing with back. That's current Stanford coaching--don't look at the cross-hairs, look at where the wall meets the floor. If you look up at all, you kill your own momentum. I find that I get an extra yard or two of momentum off the wall and that I use a whole lot less energy on the turn. My turns were quite horrible before this...
For one thing your body wants to bob up to the surface, for another water is 1000 times denser than air, so reversing your direction takes a lot of energy.
No. If you keep your head streamlined within your arms and place your kick-off feet between rump and knees in the horizontal plane, you jet out horizontally. If your head is tilted up or down (or if you arch your back), then you'll bob up or crash downwards. If you drop one foot, you'll roll.
I'm assuming you still do a flip turn, just deeper underwater.
I don't know. I've never tried swimming underwater and then turning. I'm still working on my underwater dolphin kick. If I do that dolphin kick, I can't do that breastroke arm movement, which I believe would slow me down underwater. And if I do the breastroke arm movement underwater, wouldn't I want to do a short-axis turn (backwards somersault)? The short-axis turn isn't normally underwater like the long-axis turn.
