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
You are 100% correct about that. It is also interesting to see that in general the farther one can push off the wall before surfacing the faster that person swims. I don't mean dolphin kick off the wall, I mean push and hold.
Yes, I often see this too. Sometimes, I en up pulling people away from the hand entry and elbow position and 2 vs 6 beat kick finesse, and just have them practice a good long streamline off the wall, with a strong push, if they have the legs for it.
See how far they can cruise by just a push of the wall, and sucking it all in. Sometimes I do a little competition while they're learning a good streamline - see how far can you streamline off the wall, before you stop, without any kicking. Get them thinking about being efficiently tucked in during the streamline.
We do a lot of video analisys in our clinics, and it's not uncommon to see even fairly long time swimmers (10 years or so) with really unaware and inefficient streamlines.... and how it translates into the body position while they're swimming too.
You are 100% correct about that. It is also interesting to see that in general the farther one can push off the wall before surfacing the faster that person swims. I don't mean dolphin kick off the wall, I mean push and hold.
Yes, I often see this too. Sometimes, I en up pulling people away from the hand entry and elbow position and 2 vs 6 beat kick finesse, and just have them practice a good long streamline off the wall, with a strong push, if they have the legs for it.
See how far they can cruise by just a push of the wall, and sucking it all in. Sometimes I do a little competition while they're learning a good streamline - see how far can you streamline off the wall, before you stop, without any kicking. Get them thinking about being efficiently tucked in during the streamline.
We do a lot of video analisys in our clinics, and it's not uncommon to see even fairly long time swimmers (10 years or so) with really unaware and inefficient streamlines.... and how it translates into the body position while they're swimming too.
