In my previous article I gave you a broad outline of the keys to Total Immersion swimming;
And, I promised that I would teach you to do the following so that you could swim as effortlessly as possible:
So today, I’ll talk about the importance of streamlining your body. If you have aerobars on your bike and ride all crunched up to make yourself as aerodynamic as possible, why wouldn’t you want to be as “hydrodynamic” as possible in water, a much denser medium? You got it, streamline your body. Make yourself as long and lean as possible in the water. Think about the difference between a sailboat and a tugboat. Which gets through the water easier? Quieter? Which would you want to be? And just to prove my point, get a kick board and push it through the water flat side down. Now turn it up on it s side and push it through the water. See my point? So, you want to make yourself as sleek as you possibly can. Swim on one side or the other, not flat in the water. We don’t swim flat on our back for backstroke either. For freestyle, you don’t want your body to be perpendicular to the water, but you do want your shoulder to come up as far as 10 o’clock on the left and 2 o’clock on the right, if 9 o’clock and 3 o’clock are flat and 12 o’clock is perpendicular. You’ll find that that position gives you a lot more power, too; more about that in a later article. Pull in your abs, tuck in your bottom, straighten your legs, reach underwater as far as you can before you take the next stroke. And don’t begin the next stroke until you see the recovering hand enter the water. That way, you’ve got that leading hand and arm keeping you streamlined and cutting through the water for you. You should always have a hand and arm stretched out in front of you. Better to have your hand and arm separating the molecules of water for you (like a sailboat) than your head and shoulders (like a tugboat). And look down at the bottom of the pool unless you’re rolling your head up to breathe. That’s very important because it lessens drag by keeping your feet, and therefore your body, up near the surface of the water instead of dragging through the water at a slope. Keep everything except the stroking arm in an imaginary cylinder around your body that’s only as wide as your shoulders. I guarantee that if you practice being streamlined in the water, you’ll begin to move faster and more effortlessly. You can do anything! Beth Barnes Total Immersion Senior Coach USA Triathlon Level I Certified Coach bbarnes@mail.ucf.edu |
| NOVEMBER 2009 |
| TEAM USA LINKS |
| FCAE FLORIDA - SWIMMING |
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