Goal: The body should stay equally balanced from front to back with the feet and head staying close to the surface
Self-Analysis: Video yourself for slow motion review later (from the side and the front views)
Sensory Drill: Swim with your head facing straight down in the water for 10-20 strokes (no breath); Raise your head up, face forward, and continue swimming for 10-20 stroke;
FEEL: As you raise your head you will feel how your hips and legs drop and cause more resistance; It is harder to swim if you don’t’ keep your hips and legs close to the surface at all times
Finds: Review your initial video to compare to our photos to identify your key problems
- Do your hips, legs, and feet drag more than 12 inches below the surface?
Comprehend: Understand that your lungs are buoyant and your hips and legs are dense. We naturally sink in the back. The only way to counteract this is to “T-press,” or to press the buoyant lungs down and to keep your head low to help counterbalance the hips and legs at the surface. In this section we will focus on “T-pressing” to keep the legs up. We will work on your breathing later.
Fixes: Drills and methods to fix your problems (swim 50-100 yards with each drill using a snorkel)
Drill 1:
Use 1FlexBand (with both feet in the center pocket) with buoy (between ankles). Swim with only a pull to train T-press and body balance. Also use a snorkel so you won’t compound your problems with any breathing issues.
Comprehend: The buoyancy on your feet will help you feel the reduced resistance from your legs floating.
Drill 2:
360 T-Press – kick-only drill with arms in streamline above. Kick 6 times then rotate ¼ to the side. Rotate from stomach, to side, to back, to opposite side. When kicking on your sides, drop your top arm to your thigh. Only breathe when on your back.
Comprehend: Build a more natural body balance by learning to naturally T-press on all sides.
Drill 3:
Swim with 1FlexBand (with both feet in the center pocket, no buoy) with pull-only
Comprehend: Trains you to develop the core stability to keep the feet up (without the lift from a buoy). Few swimmers will keep their feet fully at the surface when just starting out. If your feet at 10-12” from the surface with this drill, you are doing just fine for now. We need to improve the stroke to keep the feet higher up.
Repeat: Practice these drills regularly and re-video yourself in a month or less
Cardio Workout Examples:
Note: At this point in your training, we recommend you push your cardio with quality kick sets instead of ingraining your stroke problems at this stage.
Workout 1:
- 50 360 T-Press
- 25 on Back Kick streamline arms at even pace (active recovery)
- Less than :20 sec rest
- 25 on Back Kick streamline arms at race pace
- Repeat set as appropriate for your cardio program