Legs sinking during freestyle

panda100

Just looking for some advice from all the lovely swimming boardies.

I saw some drone footage of myself recently doing an open water swim and was struck by how poor my freestyle technique was compared to others. In particular, my legs seem to sink in the water and I don't seem to be making any splash with my feet so they are under water most of the time. Does anyone have any tips to improve this?

I have tried to start kicking from my hips and not my knees, but not making much of a difference. If anyone has any good information on leg technique during freestyle and drills to help this it would be much appreciated.

Pidae.m

panda100 wrote: »

Just looking for some advice from all the lovely swimming boardies.

I saw some drone footage of myself recently doing an open water swim and was struck by how poor my freestyle technique was compared to others. In particular, my legs seem to sink in the water and I don't seem to be making any splash with my feet so they are under water most of the time. Does anyone have any tips to improve this?

I have tried to start kicking from my hips and not my knees, but not making much of a difference. If anyone has any good information on leg technique during freestyle and drills to help this it would be much appreciated.

Maybe your head is in a bad position which upsets your balance

WeeBushy

Couple of threads recently about body position, and specifically leg position. Have a read through them, not much extra I can think to add..

Moral of the story is it could be a host of different issues causing your legs to drop, and in my experience is most likely caused somewhere further up the body. But hard to say without seeing you swim.

https://www.boards.ie/b/thread/2057733158#103664320

https://www.boards.ie/b/thread/2057706065#102620947

AngryHippie

Your head position is the most critical part try looking down a little further and see if it helps. lifting the head sinks the legs every time.

The feet shouldn't kick massively out of the water(particularly on an open water)
the heels should just break the surface unless you are doing six beat kick in a sprint, in which case the legs kick in massively.

Legs only provide about 10% of your propulsive force most of the time, so body position is key, if your leg kick is deep, or if you are over-rolling your hips and kicking sideways (across your centre-line) it will also have the effect of snaking your path through the water.

If you PM a link to the video, I can have a quick look at it for you and give you some pointers.

A useful tool for training is some fin work. It will also help once the head position is correct (you get very rapid feedback on your propulsion if you are doing it wrong)

panda100

I think it's definitely my head positioning. It's quite far out of the water I but I find it difficult to breathe to the side if I submerge it more. I have fins that I don't really use as I'm not sure what to do with them. Is there any website with good swimming drills for body positioning? I find so many YouTube videos give conflicting advice and you don't know which ones are good advice or not!

WeeBushy

Swim Smooth and Effortless Swimming are two good resources to start with. There are many others, but they're both well renowned so a good starting point. They both produce some good, free, videos and articles on all aspects of swimming including body position and breathing. As an aside, Brenton Ford of Effortless Swimming does a good podcast series as well!

You definitely want to keep your head down and breath to the side or it will cause lots of issues throughout your stroke and in particular cause your legs to drop. Sounds like a good place to start..

Here's a couple of links to get you going, but have a good look around both the sites.

http://www.swimsmooth.com/breathing.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiN-ylVXb1o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7ETlhaMsEk

If you can afford it, it could be well worth getting a one on one session (even just one to get you going, doesn't have to be a regular thing) to identify your faults and give you a good starting point.

thejaguar

I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, you'll doubtless get better advice from others on here, but I did have this problem and I found a couple of things worked for me.

1. Head Position - I let my head drop down into a more relaxed position (between breaths) and it immediately helped
2. Improving core strength - doing some pilates and yoga classes definitely improved my ability to hold a better position.

and this is where it gets a little "fuzzy" - but actually what I personally found the useful

3. Feeling - When kicking I tried to deliberately break the surface of the water with my heels so I knew they weren't dropping low.
While doing that I tried to really pay attention to what the rest of my body was doing - where was my head? how did my core feel? did my arms do anything different? was I using any particular set of muscles more (e.g. my glutes).

Then I tried to do those movements without paying attention to the position of my legs (insofar as I could).

As a result, I feel I have a much better feeling for how my entire body should feel when my legs are a little higher in the water.

thejaguar

WeeBushy wrote: »

Swim Smooth and Effortless Swimming are two good resources to start with. There are many others, but they're both well renowned so a good starting point. They both produce some good, free, videos and articles on all aspects of swimming including body position and breathing. As an aside, Brenton Ford of Effortless Swimming does a good podcast series as well!

You definitely want to keep your head down and breath to the side or it will cause lots of issues throughout your stroke and in particular cause your legs to drop. Sounds like a good place to start..

Here's a couple of links to get you going, but have a good look around both the sites.

http://www.swimsmooth.com/breathing.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiN-ylVXb1o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7ETlhaMsEk

If you can afford it, it could be well worth getting a one on one session (even just one to get you going, doesn't have to be a regular thing) to identify your faults and give you a good starting point.

+1 for swimsmooth - I find it really useful

Unpossible

Don't forget your head position when you go to breathe too. Keep the bottom eye submerged or half-submerged. I see a lot of people lifting the top of their head slightly which actually puts their mouth lower, which causes them to lift the head more, which sinks the legs.

Also as thejaguar says, a lot depends on your core, you have to hold yourself up.
You can get a feel for it if you do pull with a pull bouy, but engage the core and legs so that your heels are just touching the surface of the water.

AngryHippie

The advantage of the fins in drill work is that they give you the momentum to be able to work on body position and head position while still using your legs in the correct way.
With fins, if the kick is not driven by the thigh and butt muscles, it will be ineffective. In this way, fins will help you get a feel for a correct kick. You will absolutely fly along with a small flutter and correct technique, whereas big low kicks will just tire you out and leave you slowly rolling around.

Feedback 1.
Fins and a kick-board, head down, small flutter kick, concentrate on keeping the head position down unless breathing, lean on the kick-board to raise your head straight up forwards to breath and feel what happens....immediately, the legs drop and you lose momentum.

Feedback 2.
Fins and a kick-board, head down, small flutter kick, concentrate on keeping the head position down unless breathing, drop one arm down by your side and roll your shoulders to allow your mouth and nose out of the water to breath and feel what happens....you keep your speed up, your hips roll slightly but your legs stay up.

Drill 1
Develop a catch-up drill from Feedback two. Each time you are taking a breath, do one arm stroke, alternating sides, but working with the fins all the time.

Drill 2
Develop drill 1 into a high elbow drill to accentuate the shoulder roll while keeping the hips more level.

Drill 3
Lose the kickboard and do the same catch-up drill, focusing on long relaxed arm strokes with a gentle pull and steady flutter kicks.

Drill 4
Switch the above to a high elbow with more pull on the arms, focus on the entire body position and shoulder roll.

Final
Lose the fins and put it all together. Being conscious that the lack of fins will make balance a little more tricky without all that momentum steadying you, be careful not to over-reach with the armstroke, if you get wobbly, drop back into a rhythmic high-elbow to control the movement with your shoulder roll rhythm.

I'd do all of these in each training set, building up the distances gradually.

panda100

This is all really useful.Thank you all. I went for an open water swim last night and started putting in to practice. It feels very strange having my head so low in the water but I did feel my kick was more effective as a result. It's very difficult to change 34 years of a wrong swimming technique but I'll try!

JosDel

Working on balance myself, seem to be doing well until I need to breathe, then the legs drop

AngryHippie

Try an extra leg beat on your breath stroke, just a little flutter, it will break up your current rhythm, which may be incorrect.

Sometimes the rhythm can be all off on the kick/breathe cycle, which results in the kick fighting the breath. As you need to breathe, the breath will win, but at the expense of the legs sinking down.

If that works, well and good, if not, try drop into some catch-up drill. It pretty much forces the legs and arms into the right rhythm by forcing your balance.

panda100

Had my first one to one session yesterday with a swimming coach in limerick and its the best money I ever spent! He showed me proper technique and how to do drills. It's going to take a lot of drill work to change old habits but when I started putting everything he said together I was able to swim much more easily and swiftly through the water. Just in case anyone is interested these are the drills I am starting off with:

Line Drill:
One hand in front (hand just below the surface), one hand by the side
Head facing down (not forward) while breathing to the side (not to the ceiling)
Maintaining a good body position

1 Arm Freestyle + Board
1 arm out in front with board other arm swimming f/c.
Br on the same side you are pulling on every 2 strokes
Remember to keep a steady head!! Looking at the black line & try swimming in a straight line.
Still using rotation on BOTH sides

JosDel

AngryHippie wrote: »

The advantage of the fins in drill work is that they give you the momentum to be able to work on body position and head position while still using your legs in the correct way.
With fins, if the kick is not driven by the thigh and butt muscles, it will be ineffective. In this way, fins will help you get a feel for a correct kick. You will absolutely fly along with a small flutter and correct technique, whereas big low kicks will just tire you out and leave you slowly rolling around.

Feedback 1.
Fins and a kick-board, head down, small flutter kick, concentrate on keeping the head position down unless breathing, lean on the kick-board to raise your head straight up forwards to breath and feel what happens....immediately, the legs drop and you lose momentum.

Feedback 2.
Fins and a kick-board, head down, small flutter kick, concentrate on keeping the head position down unless breathing, drop one arm down by your side and roll your shoulders to allow your mouth and nose out of the water to breath and feel what happens....you keep your speed up, your hips roll slightly but your legs stay up.

Drill 1
Develop a catch-up drill from Feedback two. Each time you are taking a breath, do one arm stroke, alternating sides, but working with the fins all the time.

Drill 2
Develop drill 1 into a high elbow drill to accentuate the shoulder roll while keeping the hips more level.

Drill 3
Lose the kickboard and do the same catch-up drill, focusing on long relaxed arm strokes with a gentle pull and steady flutter kicks.

Drill 4
Switch the above to a high elbow with more pull on the arms, focus on the entire body position and shoulder roll.

Final
Lose the fins and put it all together. Being conscious that the lack of fins will make balance a little more tricky without all that momentum steadying you, be careful not to over-reach with the armstroke, if you get wobbly, drop back into a rhythmic high-elbow to control the movement with your shoulder roll rhythm.

I'd do all of these in each training set, building up the distances gradually.

Thanks AngryHippie, some great advice there.

Whats fins would you recomend??