th your head down and streamlined is what will really make you go farther and faster.Here's a little experiment you can do right now:
Take in a deep breath and hold it. How long can you hold your breath? What does it feel like? Now, hold your breath again but this time, take in a deep breath and blow it all out, entirely. Then hold on and see how long you can go until you have to take in the next breath? What does it feel like? It feels easier the second time because your lungs autonomically feel the urge to take a breath when there is a build up of CO2 in your lungs. If you exhale all of that CO2 out, you can trick your body into going longer.
You don't push the water back towards your feet; you grab the water and pull your body through the hole in the water that you made. The slower you try to swim, the more you have to concentrate on your form. There's a reason that those early morning Tai Chi people move very slowly. Spiritual enlightenment comes through proper form, not speed. When you try to swim faster, your form and stamina will fall apart. I guarantee it! If you can swim slowly and feel the "underwater glide," you've got it! When it happens, you'll know it and it feels really cool. You're like, "Am I coated in Vaseline? I'm just slipping through so easily and fast! Awesome!" It only happens when you swim smooth and SLOWLY.
Your swimming stroke is not meant to push yourself up and out of the water. It is meant to propel you forward. Keep saying to yourself "forward forward forward." This is why the pull-phase of the stroke does NOT HAVE YOUR ARMS STRAIGHT! You're not taking straight arms down and back from your shoulder. Because the entire beginning part of THAT pull has you pushing water down, not back. If you bend your elbows and immediately pull water back towards your feet (the same motion as climbing up a ladder)...
Let's practice that right now:Hold your arms straight over your head and with your elbows locked, bring an arm down and rotate from the shoulder until your hands touch your thigh. Now do it again, but this time pretend you're climbing up a ladder. Bend your elbow (hand a little away from your body) and your hand goes straight down to your thigh. The second way has all the energy going straight down - nothing wasted - everything to power - very efficient. And that's what triathletes are all about, EFFICIENCY!The most common mistake by amateur swimmers (me not excluded) is that they convert their breathing stroke into a vertical support stroke to push their heads up and out of the water further. It doesn't work and it's wasted energy. It slows you down (dramatically) and creates bad habits. Keep that chin in tight to your shoulder and use that stroke to go FORWARD! Why? Again, I have to go back and talk again about displacement bodies in water and how length of waterline/wetted surface affects speed. Unless a boat can plane above the waters surface and eliminate drag all together, it has to push water the water out of the way to move through it. That's YOU! Going through the water and pushing it out of the way. You have no choice, you're displacing that water. The fastest sailboats are those that are very long, 100-feet, and very narrow, less than 15-feet. That's a long, thin, displacement body.The moment that length is decreased, you create "wake turbulence" behind you which is like little whirlpools. These areas of twisting, turbulent water act like suction and hold you back. So it is imperative to maintain the maximum length possible at ALL times while in the water and displacing that water. That's why the thumb-to-thigh or catch-up drill is so important. It forces you to always have an arm fully extended. This actually allows you to glide through the water longer and easier making it easier and faster to swim. Most professional swimmers will have a blazingly fast catch-up phase to their stroke. Their recovery arm comes forward to meet their extended arm to where they always have an arm up front. The actual pull can be slower. It doesn't need to be that much faster than the moving water because 