My daughter is doing an Open Water event this Saturday She's 11 and doing 2000m. She swam a 1500m this past weekend and we tried to pin down her technique for sighting her course. I felt she was picking her head up way too much, like every breath, every three strokes. It looked to me like she was struggling although she finished strong, and she was mixing in two or three *** strokes every 10 frestyle strokes, even though her practices can include a 3000m freestyle which are hard but that she completes with out break. My advice to her was to keep her head down for 10-20 strokes and then to sight, either with a *** stroke pull or lifting her head, that lifting her head to often kept her hips dragging. I was wondering what others think ? I don't think she'll get much instruction from her coach, this is kind of a side/ fun event to her season but my daughter is really into Open Water and takes it seriously.
Thanks
Parents
Former Member
I was never into sighting eg: lifting the head, If the course is laid out with bouys you just have to roll the shouder with a little lift of the head and continue swimming crawl. If the waves are large that may be a different story. I usually let the others in the race do the sighting and stayed close to these guys. If you can keep an eye on something very far away and very high, like a smoke stack or buildig you will generally swim fairly straight and not lift your head. When swimming accross Lake Ontario at night I sighted on the Hamilton Beach bridge lights about 30 miles away and this let me know I was heading in the right direction.
I was never into sighting eg: lifting the head, If the course is laid out with bouys you just have to roll the shouder with a little lift of the head and continue swimming crawl. If the waves are large that may be a different story. I usually let the others in the race do the sighting and stayed close to these guys. If you can keep an eye on something very far away and very high, like a smoke stack or buildig you will generally swim fairly straight and not lift your head. When swimming accross Lake Ontario at night I sighted on the Hamilton Beach bridge lights about 30 miles away and this let me know I was heading in the right direction.
