I've been swimming for a year now and my dive still sucks.
So today at morning practice we did time trials. It's a new season and the coaches need to know where everybody stands.
My 50 free is at a 29.6, approximately the same time I had last November. Part of this I feel is owed to the fact that I had two weeks off Christmas (which I did NOT want, but I didn't really have a choice) and then the resultant Christmas food gorging made getting back into shape this last month of January a horror, I'm finally, just finally getting back on track. Oh and it doesn't help that I'm lending rides to and from practice to a person who's a rather bad influence. She constantly tempts me with having a good time rather than going to practice, like last week I succumbed and we went and saw Sherlock Holmes. She even paid for all of it! She's also been tempting me with a free hourlong back massage, saying it'll help me with swimming. And then when I do resist (which most times I do), she starts asking questions, "Are you feeling okay today, Nick?" "Sure you don't want to skip out? Cuz if you do that's alright but I'm totally ready to rock it today at practice..." Because she's trying to make me skimp out so she has a guilt-free "get-out-of-practice" card. She also calls our lane the "old and fat" lane, but I beg pardon, I am not old and I am not fat. But on the other hand, she pays me for the rides, so...
Anyway, I talked about my time with my coach, and he said a really big problem is my dive. Still, my dive! Apparently, I bend my legs up at the knees so when I hit the water it's like a massive brake. He says I need to lock my knees and point my ankles out, which I try to do, and yet I still I have this god-awful dive, for some reason. Interestingly enough, my trouble with diving started long before I began swimming competitively. When I was a little kid taking lessons at 7, I couldn't get the dive right. At age 12, I couldn't copycat my brothers' dives at a pool party. At age 15 in a PE class, I was one of those kids who had to practice their dives up on deck while everyone else was in the lanes laughing at our bunny-hops.
It makes sense that the dive is such a huge problem because the longer my distances get (100, 200...) I'm still seeing huge improvements in my time, as my body distances itself from the effects of a terrible dive.
Help? Wisdom? Resources?
One way to get the correct motion in your dive is to dive over something. Take a noodle to the deep end of the pool and put it about four feet out, then dive over the thing. Try to get yourself through the same hole in the water and don't hit the noodle with your legs. In other words, keep those legs straight!
In the old days (the 70s and 80s when I learned to start) you were told to go up higher. Now the dives seem to be angled down more so that you do not need to turn through as much of an angle. I think this allows you to keep your speed better than popping up high in the air.
After you get the basics of the dive down, learn to dolphin kick hard after the entry to get yourself up and into your stroke properly. This will let you keep your speed on the dive and really will help bring that 50 time down.
Best of luck...
One way to get the correct motion in your dive is to dive over something. Take a noodle to the deep end of the pool and put it about four feet out, then dive over the thing. Try to get yourself through the same hole in the water and don't hit the noodle with your legs. In other words, keep those legs straight!
In the old days (the 70s and 80s when I learned to start) you were told to go up higher. Now the dives seem to be angled down more so that you do not need to turn through as much of an angle. I think this allows you to keep your speed better than popping up high in the air.
After you get the basics of the dive down, learn to dolphin kick hard after the entry to get yourself up and into your stroke properly. This will let you keep your speed on the dive and really will help bring that 50 time down.
Best of luck...
