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.
On both the dive and turn, the most streamlined position one can attain is with the two elbows nearly touching and the shoulders and hyperextended in the direction of motion (I call this hyperstreamline). This can only occur behind the head and requires the chin nearly on the chest. This does not make the head stick out, as you suggest, and can be proven on countless underwater videos. Michael Phelps looks like a unicorn coming off the walls, with arms behind his head and elbows almost touching. Two arms turn into one. The hyperextension of the shoulder joint tightens the entire body and sucks in the abdomen, again reducing drag.
Sadly, it is difficult if not impossible for many of us masters swimmers, including me, to achieve this position...but we can try...and that helps.
I can achieve that position and kicked that way for many years. But much experimentation convinced me that it is just a little slower. The arms are more streamlined, yes, but more water hits the top of the head (it is easier to feel when using fins and going very fast), so I can only conclude -- based mostly on results (ie, times) -- that the overall package is less hydrodynamic.
On both the dive and turn, the most streamlined position one can attain is with the two elbows nearly touching and the shoulders and hyperextended in the direction of motion (I call this hyperstreamline). This can only occur behind the head and requires the chin nearly on the chest. This does not make the head stick out, as you suggest, and can be proven on countless underwater videos. Michael Phelps looks like a unicorn coming off the walls, with arms behind his head and elbows almost touching. Two arms turn into one. The hyperextension of the shoulder joint tightens the entire body and sucks in the abdomen, again reducing drag.
Sadly, it is difficult if not impossible for many of us masters swimmers, including me, to achieve this position...but we can try...and that helps.
I can achieve that position and kicked that way for many years. But much experimentation convinced me that it is just a little slower. The arms are more streamlined, yes, but more water hits the top of the head (it is easier to feel when using fins and going very fast), so I can only conclude -- based mostly on results (ie, times) -- that the overall package is less hydrodynamic.
