Myth #2: Aside from shaving, wearing a cap and a high tech suit or wetsuit, the only way to reduce drag is by streamlining off the start and turns.
Of the 3 fundamental laws that govern swimming technique, drag, motion and inertia, drag is by far the most important. Drag is the number one enemy of the swimmer...something we learned 250 world records after changing suit fabric from lycra to polyurethane. What most swimmers fail to realize is that there are three common mistakes made by far too many swimmers that add significant drag to their swim (more than the suits reduced) and they make them through every stroke cycle...over and over again. The first is head position. Most swimmers hold their head position way too high, looking forward. I call it defensive swimming, because after getting smacked in the head by someone veering over into your side of the lane, you will start to swim like Tarzan. Problem is lifting the head causes the hips to sink and the surface (wave) drag on your head to increase. Swimming through the water like a hammock, or if you have no legs, at an angle of 5 to 10 degrees from head to toe, creates a huge increase in drag.
If you have your head in alignment with your body, you should be looking down and you haven't a clue where you are going. So if you are swimming in open water, don't swim for 200 strokes out in the lake or ocean without looking up (briefly) and charting your course...or you may be swimming faster, but out to sea. Otherwise, lead the lane, go ten seconds behind, stay way to the right and pray a lot….but keep your head down.
Second is the underwater arm position. Keep your elbows high (also called early vertical forearm) as this position of the arm as you pull through the water reduces the frontal drag significantly over pulling with the arm deep with a dropped elbow. Holding this high elbow position, particularly during a breath or with good body rotation, is challenging and requires good extension (negative angle) of the shoulder. Finally, if you insist on kicking hard, do so with tight narrow kicks. The act of bending the knee too much to get that big forceful kick increases the drag way more than the benefit of the extra power.
Gary Sr.
Parents
Former Member
Yea, it's little hard making the pics I'm making show more finesse very quickly, since my 3D dummy isn't as flexible as the average swimmer. Exact head position can vary some. I'm working on making some better pics and videos, but those will take some time :)
Key things are usually, don't go outsode the tunnnel, and don't move your head so much taht the rest of your body falls out of the alignment.
As a contrast, here's an example of what not to do. In most swimmers, lifting the head up tends to lead into the rest of the body dropping. Mist people don't just lift their head, but lift part of their upper body, and forget to hold the horizontal posture. Everything falls out of the alignment.
On occasion I see a swimmer who can lift their head out of the water to sight things, without 'falling' out of balance. For most people it takes some practice to minimize falling out of streamline.
We usually recommend a number of drills where you kick without a kickboard, and with fins, to get good propulsion, and then practice changing head position in various ways, without breaking your kick and streamline. Kicking on sides, stomach and even back... Similar with learning how to breathe without lifting ones head too far out of the water.
Here's a scematic of what not to do:
Yea, it's little hard making the pics I'm making show more finesse very quickly, since my 3D dummy isn't as flexible as the average swimmer. Exact head position can vary some. I'm working on making some better pics and videos, but those will take some time :)
Key things are usually, don't go outsode the tunnnel, and don't move your head so much taht the rest of your body falls out of the alignment.
As a contrast, here's an example of what not to do. In most swimmers, lifting the head up tends to lead into the rest of the body dropping. Mist people don't just lift their head, but lift part of their upper body, and forget to hold the horizontal posture. Everything falls out of the alignment.
On occasion I see a swimmer who can lift their head out of the water to sight things, without 'falling' out of balance. For most people it takes some practice to minimize falling out of streamline.
We usually recommend a number of drills where you kick without a kickboard, and with fins, to get good propulsion, and then practice changing head position in various ways, without breaking your kick and streamline. Kicking on sides, stomach and even back... Similar with learning how to breathe without lifting ones head too far out of the water.
Here's a scematic of what not to do:
