Surprised by a swim speed increase with 'head-forward' position

I suspect that when you keep your face down, you're doing something wrong -- like lifting your head too high when you breathe.

But that's just a gut feeling since I haven't watched a video.

I experienced the same thing and discovered, as the previous poster mentioned, that there was something wrong with my body position in the "face down" position.

I suspect that I was hunching my back to get my head down, effectively lifting my torso.  Like the seesaw, I'm guessing my legs went down.

When I switch to the eyes forward position I feel like I'm pushing more with my chest so my whole torso pushes down, causing my legs to float up.  It's a minute difference but it seems to work for me.

I don't have video, so all I can do is conjecture at why it's faster, and of course that goes with a big grain of salt.  

My theory, at least from what it feels like - with the 'head forward' position, I'm creating less drag with my skull. With head-down, my entire head is underwater - I may be overdoing it as posted above, and thus head-forward corrects this. Some of it could also be due to the less movement of the head from deep position to breath, so that would make sense as well.

For all you 'speedy' swimmers, is this part of why all the elite swimmers use this head position? I haven't seen a single video of an elite (or even non-elite fast) swimmer using the head-down position for freestyle - they all look forward-down but not face-down.

It's not bad to be looking somewhat forward/down - but the chin should stay tucked in when you're breathing and only turn your head enough to breathe in the trough your momentum is creating.

"Bury your head deep in the water" is only Gospel according to some.

The SwimSmooth gurus believe head position is individual, and everyone should play around with it to "fine tune" their stroke.

Go here and scroll down to #3: http://www.swimsmooth.com/contentious.html

Sounds like this is what you have done. Congratulations!

This is what I used to do, but in looking at the elite swimmers, they don't seem to do this. I haven't seen any of them actually tuck their chin to near their chest. They all actually seem to be looking fairly forward, and there is no real tuck under their chin. (I used this chin-tuck method, which got my head very low in the water - but  which apparently slows me down.)

Interesting.  My initial take on this is that the head up position is improving the breathing part of the stroke.  Whereas the head down position promotes too much and uneven body roll in the breathing cycle. 

I have always beleived in the head down position, but that maybe an artifact from my college swimming days, where during a 50 or 100 yard race, I would breathe only once or twice a lap.  Keeping your head down keeps the water flowing easily over your head and promotes better balance, but it requires more rotation to breathe. 

You have given me a lot to think about,  I think a trip to the pool to do some experimentation is in order.

This. The chin-tuck may have worked for you for a while as a means to an end, but it's not supposed to be the end.

The idea is to have your head fairly in line with your spine, but the spine has some natural curvatures, so you'll see variation in the head angle as well--but overall the head is in line with the spine.

This. The chin-tuck may have worked for you for a while as a means to an end, but it's not supposed to be the end.

The idea is to have your head fairly in line with your spine, but the spine has some natural curvatures, so you'll see variation in the head angle as well--but overall the head is in line with the spine.

I agree with this sensation. I actually think that for me, it's less about the turbulence caused by head movement than the phenomena of being more 'boatlike' and getting my head up out of the water rather than dragging like a lead anchor as I pull through. 

With my head forward and purposely popped up high enough so water's at my forehead (but my legs are still high in the water), I feel a lot more like a boat rather than a submarine. That's probably the best analogy I can come up with - it's a lot easier to row a boat than it is to row a submarine, and that's the exact sensation I'm feeling with my stroke between the two positions.

Will further fine tune this week and see how it goes - thanks for the advice and feedback - just wanted to make sure I wasn't going too far off the deep end in experimentation here.