Subject: RE: Please help my swim....please This is something I wrestle with, too. I have found a few things helpful: 1) catch phase, as someone else noted above. If your first move in your stroke is to push down with your hands, you'll become a see-saw with your upper body going up and your lower body going down. This video is somewhat amateruish production quality, but does a very good job explaining the catch dynamics From your video, you are actually doing pretty well on this to my mostly-untrained eye. 2) engage core muscles - don't let yourself droop in the water. If you tighten your abdominal muscles and maintain some tone there, you will feel your lower body at a higher position in the water. Ie, be a board, not a wet noodle. 3) head/chest postion - be careful here. The advice to push the head, chest, or shoulders lower in the water seems to work for some people, but for me, it was creating a tendency to "bury" my head too low in the water and create a lot of drag. I actually picked up some speed by extending my neck somewhat and keeping my upper back flat - think of a military posture, rather than slumping shoulders. This is almost the opposite of the usual advice, but helped me a lot. Swimsmooth.com advises to experiment with different head positions and see what works, and to do this periodically as your technique develops. For me, that was more helpful than the set advice to look down or press down in the water. Edited by alath 2011-12-22 10:10 AM
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