I was watching some film of elite swimmers, and one constant I see is that they all have part of their butt sticking out of the water in the freestyle. In fact, even the good young swimmers I see at my kids' meets do the same. In other words, they ride so high in the water. It's one thing to keep the hips up by pressing down with the chest, but it seems to be another thing to get your whole body to rise that high. I remember seeing a Youtube video where the guy stressed tilting the pelvis back. When I try to do this in the water, what I get is an arched back but I don't feel like my body is riding high enough. Should I be striving for this? Is there a perfect balance between pressing down with the chest and arching the back that I am missing? Does anyone have some ideas on how I can work toward this? My balance overall is reasonable but I definitely don't ride high.
Incidentally, watching Thorpe film he not only keeps the butt out of water but he swims with a slight tilt (which really confuses me as to how he does this).
I think this is just what happens naturally from swimming so darn fast. :)
I know from experience that when I use fins and really go for it, I can definitely tell that I'm riding much higher in the water.
I think it's more of a sign that you're going fast than something you can specifically strive for. I noticed the "riding high" feeling last night at the end of my workout. I had done lots of fist swimming, purposeful low stroke count swimming, and kicking. At the end when I threw in some 50s, I felt like my entire body was surfing a wave. If only I could keep that going for the entire workout!
3 things that seem to help achieve it (for me at least) are a tight core, a front-quadrant stroke, and a strong kick.
Absolutely right.Hull speed is part of the reason that sprinters tend to be tall.For average height one exceeds hull speed at about 30 sec/50 yd as I recall.Go faster than that and you will rise in the water.
So, how does height relate to hull speed?
velocity(in knots) approximately equals 1.34X the square root of the length at the waterline(in feet,and for a swimmer that would be the height, in feet.)
This is approximate,for real fluid dynamics calculations more complicated equations are used(too complicated for me,but I bet someone out there will elucidate.)
Yes, it is simply from swimming well above hull speed. Water is displaced forward and your butt and small of your back sits in a trough.
Absolutely right.Hull speed is part of the reason that sprinters tend to be tall.For average height one exceeds hull speed at about 30 sec/50 yd as I recall.Go faster than that and you will rise in the water.
