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.
There's a lot of leeway there though, one could still lift the head and be within the "tunnel". Would this kind of lifted head position, but still in the tunnel lead to increased drag as Gary desribes? I guess that's the real question I have. Typically my head position falls within this tunnel, but it's not flat as he describes.
In theory one should be able to look forward by jutting your jaw without raising your head up(see how Phelps breathes in fly.) In practice everyone I see in free who tries ends up breaking streamline.
I also see this as a frequent stroke flaw in the BR breakout.People want to raise their head as they start the kick and it brings them to a stop.
... Not sure if you are talking about freestyle exclusively, but in backstroke, if there is a small angle between head and water surface, wouldn't it be closer to a boat shape (which is desirable), as the boat is curved up on its ends like a banana -- like ◡ (side view: head◡feet)?
In backstroke, the head also needs to be flat, looking straight up. Again, a smaller body tube is desirable, and if the head is lifted even a tiny bit, the hips are going to tend downward creating drag across your back.
I tell my swimmers that your face is supposed to get wet in backstroke!
Great discussions!
I might set up my camera facing the ground flat, and stand under it (similar to the 3rd pic above) to get the feel of what a streamlind head position is like. You can always look straight down, but the head can also streatch fwd and aft out of streamline at the suggested angle (looking down).
Here, i tried illustrating what Gary is talking about. Sounds a lot like what we teach at our clinics.
In oversimplified terms (I usually work with beginners) I tell them, keep your head (for pool swimming, not including the open water sighting) and kick within the tunnel that your shoulders make as you rotate through the water.
Gary, if I got something wrong, please correct me, and I'll redo the pics :)
Here are a few pics:
Great discussion.
I'm curious about whether the head should be parallel to the water surface or raised slightly with a small angle from water. Not sure if you are talking about freestyle exclusively, but in backstroke, if there is a small angle between head and water surface, wouldn't it be closer to a boat shape (which is desirable), as the boat is curved up on its ends like a banana -- like ◡ (side view: head◡feet)?
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:
Ok, a question... if a swimmer is on the side, and the elbow high, it looks a bit like the attached pic.
We often get asked by people if they should push the elbow up even more. Seems like doing it too much may lead to injury... too much repetetive motion in a strained position.... but, I think it can vary on individual flexibility too.
There's a lot of leeway there though, one could still lift the head and be within the "tunnel". Would this kind of lifted head position, but still in the tunnel lead to increased drag as Gary desribes? I guess that's the real question I have. Typically my head position falls within this tunnel, but it's not flat as he describes.
Gary might have more insight into this....
For me, when it gets to minor items, it is hard to say if it's hurting you without actually seeing it. In most swimmers we see that lifting the head causes the rest of the body alignment to go haywire. You may be one of those extremely body aware swimmers who are capable of doing this, wihout causing the inefficient posture.
I would add that keeping the head inline with the body is just as important (maybe more important) during the streamline. The tendency when on your front is to lift the head up, just like in swimming. .
Yes, no "Superman Streamline" as we call it, with the head up. I usually tell the beginners to squeeze their ears between their biceps, and help hold the goggles on their head ;)... as corrective advice to start with. It tends to make them aware of the head position.
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.
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.
