Triathletes Improve Swimming - Its All In Their Heads

By Scott Alexander


Almost all of the triathletes that struggle with swimming share several widespread flaws with their stroke which includes very poor kicking, weak breathing, an undesirable catch and very bad body position.

Body position is critical to swimming mainly because it directly can affect how much drag you have got on the water. While you are driving down the highway next time, put your hand out the window. Place it flat or parallel to the ground. Next, turn your hand 90 degrees so it's vertical and your thumb is directed at the sky. Feel the big difference the pressure of the wind is having on your hand. The smallest amount of pressure is on your hand when it has got the smallest amount of surface area exposed to the oncoming blowing wind.

Swimming will be the exact same. The greater your profile or the more area you have exposed to the oncoming water, the more drag you will have. This is exactly where the idea of streamlined body placement originates from. You would like to make your whole body go through the smallest hole in the water possible to reduce drag. This is usually a good deal easier in theory.

There are various things that may cause an undesirable body position, however the most commonly encountered and severe is your head. Head placement has a immediate impact on exactly where a person's hips will be. Standing up with your hands on your waist, move your head down until your chin is on your chest. Next move your head back again as much as you can. You'll be able to experience how your hips may want to shift in the exact opposite way as your head. Therefore when your head is all the way up, your hips will be down.

In swimming, a fantastic body placement would have your hips on the top of the water in order that they follow through the exact same opening in the water that was created by your head. When you raise your head upwards, your hips will sink and significantly raise the drag you've got in the water.

Learning perfect head placement is not an immediate fix. It will require some time and effort but the benefits are going to be worthwhile. The way to work on this should be to just simply kick in the #11 position. The #11 position is essentially having your hands over your head like a number #11 or maybe a touchdown signal in football. Laying with their face down in the water without any kick board, simply initiate kicking. Do not use your arms. Let your arms set on the surface of the water. You head should be low enough in the water that your ears will be even with or maybe a little below your arms. If you do this you'll want to be able to feel your hips float up to the surface. Should you have an incredibly inadequate kick, you can do this using fins but simply kick slowly. This is a slow drill about discovering your balanced body position in the water.

It is recommended that you kick about 200 yards or meters in the #11 position each practice for a couple of months to cultivate proper habits. In many cases coaches will only kick in training this way due to the fact utilizing a kickboard encourages kicking with your head up and thus undesirable body position.

So to greatly improve your swimming rapidly, figure out how to get your head into the right position.




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