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.
Matt and Gary: thanks. I wonder if you have noticed the backstroker Egerszegi's style. This picture shows her head is tilted with chin down. Some of her video clips also show clearly her head was not flat like other swimmers. It looked like she's surfing on the water quite easily (like a boat)? :rolleyes:
I couldn't get the pic link to work, but it isn't hard to find videos of her on YouTube. I also tend to tilt my head (tuck my chin) a bit when I swim. I don't think it HELPS one to float, but the neck is not a rigid rod, either: tucking the chin slightly does not automatically cause a drop in hips. It still isn't something I would teach, but if the person's hips are clearly up (as Egerszegi's were) and the tuck isn't too pronounced then I wouldn't worry too much about it.
here's a 'tunnel' with the three different streamlines here. The difference between fiorst and second is not that great. Which makes specific swimmer have bigger or smaller drag cross section can depend on more then just the head position, but the rest of the body position and structure.
Nice figures, thanks for posting. You would know better than I with your background, but I don't know if cross-sectional area tells the entire story. The change in flow path with the head sticking out more (first figure) seems more abrupt than in the second figure, so I would tend to think the first is not as streamlined as the second. In the 2nd figure, less water is hitting the top of the head because the hands/arms "part" the water so that it flows around the head.
This matches my experience with fins: one time in a 50m pool I did a series of high-speed no-breath "shooters" with fins (typically about 23 sec or so) while adjusting my head position slightly. With my head more forward and arms tighter, I could really feel the water hitting the top of my head. Not so when my head was tucked between my arms. Later on when (without fins) I would take time measurements, I was a little faster with my head between my arms.
Still figures also don't tell the whole story, of course, but the upper part of the body (chest-up) should be pretty rigid and stationary. Movement should be begin below the chest, lead by the hips.
When the head sticks out it acts like a brake. To use the colorful analogies that Gary likes, it is like the difference between kicking with a kickboard held vertically, against the oncoming water, and the kickboard aligned with the body. It's a no-brainer... :)
Matt and Gary: thanks. I wonder if you have noticed the backstroker Egerszegi's style. This picture shows her head is tilted with chin down. Some of her video clips also show clearly her head was not flat like other swimmers. It looked like she's surfing on the water quite easily (like a boat)? :rolleyes:
I couldn't get the pic link to work, but it isn't hard to find videos of her on YouTube. I also tend to tilt my head (tuck my chin) a bit when I swim. I don't think it HELPS one to float, but the neck is not a rigid rod, either: tucking the chin slightly does not automatically cause a drop in hips. It still isn't something I would teach, but if the person's hips are clearly up (as Egerszegi's were) and the tuck isn't too pronounced then I wouldn't worry too much about it.
here's a 'tunnel' with the three different streamlines here. The difference between fiorst and second is not that great. Which makes specific swimmer have bigger or smaller drag cross section can depend on more then just the head position, but the rest of the body position and structure.
Nice figures, thanks for posting. You would know better than I with your background, but I don't know if cross-sectional area tells the entire story. The change in flow path with the head sticking out more (first figure) seems more abrupt than in the second figure, so I would tend to think the first is not as streamlined as the second. In the 2nd figure, less water is hitting the top of the head because the hands/arms "part" the water so that it flows around the head.
This matches my experience with fins: one time in a 50m pool I did a series of high-speed no-breath "shooters" with fins (typically about 23 sec or so) while adjusting my head position slightly. With my head more forward and arms tighter, I could really feel the water hitting the top of my head. Not so when my head was tucked between my arms. Later on when (without fins) I would take time measurements, I was a little faster with my head between my arms.
Still figures also don't tell the whole story, of course, but the upper part of the body (chest-up) should be pretty rigid and stationary. Movement should be begin below the chest, lead by the hips.
When the head sticks out it acts like a brake. To use the colorful analogies that Gary likes, it is like the difference between kicking with a kickboard held vertically, against the oncoming water, and the kickboard aligned with the body. It's a no-brainer... :)
