Starts

I tried to find this topic unsuccessfully, forgive me if it has already been discussed. I recently finally started working on my dive starts, literally from a standpoint of never having done them before. I learned a lot watching my kids' coaches and videos, though. I have been diving into about 6 feet of water and find myself ending up about 5 inches from the bottom before dolphin kicking my way forward and up. When I watch videos of starts in the olympics, etc. these guys are diving into 13 feet of water or more, and seem to dive at least 5 feet (see this link of Phelps, around 45 second mark: YouTube - Michael Phelps freestyle multi angle camera ). In summer league, though, I see the older kids are diving into 5 feet with no problems. Do you guys start different ways depending on the water depth? Are your Masters meets in deep water usually? Am I going too deep when I dive, not so much from a safety standpoint but from a speed aspect? Last question, I remember my son's coach once telling the team to make the under water phase of their relay dives very brief. I couldn't tell if he was making a general statement on starts, or was that specific to relays. Any comments greatly appreciated.
Parents
  • The think the olympic pools are around 7 ft, not 13 ft. Dives are trick and take practice to get right. I am shallowest on free, a bit deeper on fly and ***. For sprint free, alot of swimmers get right up to the surface, so they dive only a few feet down. In fact, you will see alot of pikes to help keep the dive shallow. What works for elite swimmers, may not work for masters. Phelps will go down 4-5 feet on his turns to get under the turbulence!!! Break out the stopwatch and time your 12.5's to see what combination of depth/SDK/breakout is faster. Yeah, good idea. Now, I just need to figure out how to dive more shallow without doing a belly flop.
Reply
  • The think the olympic pools are around 7 ft, not 13 ft. Dives are trick and take practice to get right. I am shallowest on free, a bit deeper on fly and ***. For sprint free, alot of swimmers get right up to the surface, so they dive only a few feet down. In fact, you will see alot of pikes to help keep the dive shallow. What works for elite swimmers, may not work for masters. Phelps will go down 4-5 feet on his turns to get under the turbulence!!! Break out the stopwatch and time your 12.5's to see what combination of depth/SDK/breakout is faster. Yeah, good idea. Now, I just need to figure out how to dive more shallow without doing a belly flop.
Children
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