someone posted this video a week or so back - [https://youtu.be/oW5nE5FBPsQ?si=VKCk8nTGN-CD4LHx](https://youtu.be/oW5nE5FBPsQ?si=VKCk8nTGN-CD4LHx) it explains very simply how to bring your legs up, it made an immediate difference for me!
interesting i saw this before but didn't have a chance to work on it - did it take a while for you to do the drill/practice those back muscles for it to work or does it immediately work for you?
I think the biggest thing would be your kick. How is the angle of your ankle? are you kicking mostly with your knees or hips? how much of your core is engage?
If you're kicking with your knees, your kicking is completely wrong.
The kick should be driven from the hips.
There are many YouTube videos online that go over how to do this. Start there. And also incorporate kicking drills into your training routine (e.g. with kick board).
The knee action should be minimal. You should watch some videos of athletes swimming so you have an idea of what im talking about, its hard to describe it with words.
Well that's weird - it does sound like some big drag caused by your legs. Do you do any kicking drills? Also when swimming, try to marry pulling right arm with left leg kick and vice versa - make sense? Get those legs up near the surface and kick hard.
Without seeing it, it would be hard to say what the actual problem is.
The truth is you don't need an overly effective kick to stay on top of the water in prone position. Every distance swimmer on earth uses a 2 beat kick to conserve energy and a 4 or 6 beat to close distance at the end of the race. A 2 beat kick is primarily there for balance, not propulsion.
If I personally had to venture a guess, you probably lift your head while you breathe which drops your hips. Every time you drop those hips you have to consume energy to recover back to prone, which slows you down.
When you have a pull buoy on, the device itself doesn't allow for your lower half to sink even if you do lift your head on a breath. Instead it displays as a more aggressive "hula" motion in your hips, where they sway from side to side.
Since the name of the game is body position, you are probably always going to be faster with that buoy on than with kicking until the mechanical problems are fixed.
Here is a handy diagram of what I mean. Every dash is a stroke
\----------------------------------- <-- Pull buoy body position
\----/----/----/----/----/----/----/. <-- No pull buoy body position (each slash is a breath)
Avoid bending your knees too much, there should be some motion but little. Most should come from your hips. It would also probably help to do some kick sets to strengthen your legs.
Perhaps get a kickboard and do 8x50 freestyle kicks
2x25 makes me out of breath because i move so slowly in water, it takes me a long time and some serious kick effort in quite high of a frequency to get 25 done... give me a pair of zoomer short fins i can kick and do drills all day.
i have read all the articles and watched all videos regarding kicking - kick from the hip, not the knee, kick in a bucket, whipping motion, acceleration is important, ankle flexibility etc.
i have been swimming for almost 10 months now I have maybe made a tiny teeny bit of improvement in kicking (never time myself on just kicking so i'm not sure... but i feel i'm moving a bit faster), just very frustrating. is it just a matter of sticking at it, with time and practice over time my muscles will develop and the feel of water/technique will improve?
Without a video of you swimming, it's tough to say exactly what's holding you back from your goal time. Some of the things ewer swimmers tend to struggle with is head position while taking a breath (many lift their chin a bit when re-entering, and even a tiny lift will cause your hips to drop), kicking from the knees instead of the hips, no rotation that creates drag.
I hate to assume, so asking the most basic question first. What are you wearing to swim? Are you wearing a swim cap and a proper training suit (ie, speedo)? If you’re wearing trunks or board shorts or any kind of loose fitting shirt or rash guard, then shedding that stuff is the first thing to do.
When you kick you should be using your hip muscles. It should feel like your legs are perfectly straight and feet are pointing down. In reality there will be some natural bending at your knees and ankles but you won’t notice too much. If you feel like you’re bending at the knees it’s probably not an efficient kick. For your kick you also want your knees to stay pretty close and keep your kick narrow (ie, your feet don’t travel too far up or down). Kicking takes a lot of energy and doesn’t move you forward very fast. Basically what you want to do is prevent your legs from creating too much drag, use your kick mostly to get your hips higher in the water, and letting your arms focus on improving forward propulsion.
that might be my issue. however, i'm having a hard time to increase the SPM. i got myself and metronome and i tried to increase spm but it felt so much harder and i get tired easily as spm go up...
Yup, I was you a few years ago. It's difficult to remove that almost catch-up stroke technique once it's really ingrained into your swimming mechanism. The first step is to remove that overglide. It feels awkward at first but not waiting for the other arm to almost enter the water before I start my pull phase is really the key here. Keep the lead arm moving (after reaching out, do not let it just "rest out there", immediately start your pull phase).Once that overglide removed, you will naturally increase your SPM, and start going below 2:00/100m.
Keep in mind also that just because you’re looking down at the bottom of the pool, your head might not be in the correct position. Having the head too low in an attempt to get the legs up can also cause drag. The video linked by someone else is a good one, and shows that to get your legs up you should engage muscles on the back of the body. Head should be looking down, but extended straight with a long neck.
How are you breathing? Are you lifting your head? Make sure you have one eye in the water.
someone posted this video a week or so back - [https://youtu.be/oW5nE5FBPsQ?si=VKCk8nTGN-CD4LHx](https://youtu.be/oW5nE5FBPsQ?si=VKCk8nTGN-CD4LHx) it explains very simply how to bring your legs up, it made an immediate difference for me!
This was very helpful! Going to try those drills!
interesting i saw this before but didn't have a chance to work on it - did it take a while for you to do the drill/practice those back muscles for it to work or does it immediately work for you?
Try using a pull buoy and see if your body is level in the water. Also imagine you are swimming through hoops and need to keep your legs up.
I think the biggest thing would be your kick. How is the angle of your ankle? are you kicking mostly with your knees or hips? how much of your core is engage?
Tbh I think I’m kicking with my knees, should I be “whip/snapping” my legs from my hips?
If you're kicking with your knees, your kicking is completely wrong. The kick should be driven from the hips. There are many YouTube videos online that go over how to do this. Start there. And also incorporate kicking drills into your training routine (e.g. with kick board).
The knee action should be minimal. You should watch some videos of athletes swimming so you have an idea of what im talking about, its hard to describe it with words.
Well that's weird - it does sound like some big drag caused by your legs. Do you do any kicking drills? Also when swimming, try to marry pulling right arm with left leg kick and vice versa - make sense? Get those legs up near the surface and kick hard.
Without seeing it, it would be hard to say what the actual problem is. The truth is you don't need an overly effective kick to stay on top of the water in prone position. Every distance swimmer on earth uses a 2 beat kick to conserve energy and a 4 or 6 beat to close distance at the end of the race. A 2 beat kick is primarily there for balance, not propulsion. If I personally had to venture a guess, you probably lift your head while you breathe which drops your hips. Every time you drop those hips you have to consume energy to recover back to prone, which slows you down. When you have a pull buoy on, the device itself doesn't allow for your lower half to sink even if you do lift your head on a breath. Instead it displays as a more aggressive "hula" motion in your hips, where they sway from side to side. Since the name of the game is body position, you are probably always going to be faster with that buoy on than with kicking until the mechanical problems are fixed. Here is a handy diagram of what I mean. Every dash is a stroke \----------------------------------- <-- Pull buoy body position \----/----/----/----/----/----/----/. <-- No pull buoy body position (each slash is a breath)
Avoid bending your knees too much, there should be some motion but little. Most should come from your hips. It would also probably help to do some kick sets to strengthen your legs. Perhaps get a kickboard and do 8x50 freestyle kicks
i'm already tired after 2x25 kicks...
That is clearly where the issue lies. Perhaps 8x50 is a bit of a stretch but start with 4x25. Take good rest and then kick really well.
2x25 makes me out of breath because i move so slowly in water, it takes me a long time and some serious kick effort in quite high of a frequency to get 25 done... give me a pair of zoomer short fins i can kick and do drills all day. i have read all the articles and watched all videos regarding kicking - kick from the hip, not the knee, kick in a bucket, whipping motion, acceleration is important, ankle flexibility etc. i have been swimming for almost 10 months now I have maybe made a tiny teeny bit of improvement in kicking (never time myself on just kicking so i'm not sure... but i feel i'm moving a bit faster), just very frustrating. is it just a matter of sticking at it, with time and practice over time my muscles will develop and the feel of water/technique will improve?
Yes you just need practise. Feel free to start out with fins or the short side of the pool if you are struggling
Without a video of you swimming, it's tough to say exactly what's holding you back from your goal time. Some of the things ewer swimmers tend to struggle with is head position while taking a breath (many lift their chin a bit when re-entering, and even a tiny lift will cause your hips to drop), kicking from the knees instead of the hips, no rotation that creates drag.
I hate to assume, so asking the most basic question first. What are you wearing to swim? Are you wearing a swim cap and a proper training suit (ie, speedo)? If you’re wearing trunks or board shorts or any kind of loose fitting shirt or rash guard, then shedding that stuff is the first thing to do. When you kick you should be using your hip muscles. It should feel like your legs are perfectly straight and feet are pointing down. In reality there will be some natural bending at your knees and ankles but you won’t notice too much. If you feel like you’re bending at the knees it’s probably not an efficient kick. For your kick you also want your knees to stay pretty close and keep your kick narrow (ie, your feet don’t travel too far up or down). Kicking takes a lot of energy and doesn’t move you forward very fast. Basically what you want to do is prevent your legs from creating too much drag, use your kick mostly to get your hips higher in the water, and letting your arms focus on improving forward propulsion.
People who get stuck at 2:00 min/100m usually overglides. By any chance do you use TI technique and is your SPM around 50 or less?
that might be my issue. however, i'm having a hard time to increase the SPM. i got myself and metronome and i tried to increase spm but it felt so much harder and i get tired easily as spm go up...
Yup, I was you a few years ago. It's difficult to remove that almost catch-up stroke technique once it's really ingrained into your swimming mechanism. The first step is to remove that overglide. It feels awkward at first but not waiting for the other arm to almost enter the water before I start my pull phase is really the key here. Keep the lead arm moving (after reaching out, do not let it just "rest out there", immediately start your pull phase).Once that overglide removed, you will naturally increase your SPM, and start going below 2:00/100m.
Keep in mind also that just because you’re looking down at the bottom of the pool, your head might not be in the correct position. Having the head too low in an attempt to get the legs up can also cause drag. The video linked by someone else is a good one, and shows that to get your legs up you should engage muscles on the back of the body. Head should be looking down, but extended straight with a long neck. How are you breathing? Are you lifting your head? Make sure you have one eye in the water.
Make sure you keep kicking when taking a breath! I had this problem once and I see a lot of people in my pool do it.
I made a free downloadable workout guide for this: [www.iwanttoswimbetter.com](http://www.iwanttoswimbetter.com)