 Not so tightly that you can't breathe or that it's uncomfortable, just so that you're leading with the top of your head, not your forehead and driving your head down. Again, the goal is to raise your legs and look like a flat, horizontal torpedo in the water.Throughout this article I'll have some "Unusual Training Tips" that over-exaggerate body motions. Why? BECAUSE YOUR SENSE OF BODY POSITION IN THE WATER IS WAY OFF FROM WHAT IT ACTUALLY IS!!! The only way to know for sure is to underwater video yourself and then watch it. The initial reaction is always the same, "THAT'S how I look?! I thought I was flatter/longer/better than that?!” Sometimes you have to over-exaggerate a position in feel to get it to where it's really supposed to be. Once you achieve the correct position and repeatedly do it and then get the feel for the proper positioning, then it becomes second nature. But in the beginning you'll have to accept that how you think it feels right, more than likely isn't right.
So if a longer displacement body is faster in the water, always be a long body. Always have one arm full extended out in front of you. If one arm is out of the water in recovery and the other is under you pulling back, then you are only as long as you are tall. You will slow down as compared to always being three feet longer with one arm always extended. How do you do this? A good drill is called the "thumb-to-hip drill". Before you bring one hand back in a stroke, make your thumbs touch in front of you. Feel the water flowing past your body. Then as you do your stroke, bring your hand ALL THE WAY back; make it touch your hip. This practice technique forces you to always be fully extended in the water. Later, as your swimming improves, the drill is called the “catch-up drill”. My personal style of swimming says to NOT move your arms like a kayak paddle. One arm is always fully extended. In order to do this, the recovering arm (out of the water, coming forward) moves twice as fast as the arm in the water pulling. The recovering arm has to “catch up” in order to keep one arm always fully extended out in front of you. Yes, your arms do not move at the same speed. The key is to think, “as soon as my thumb hits my thigh, get it fully extended in front of me as fast as possible and touch my thumbs.” But keep my pulling arm at the proper pace. Don’t pull too fast or too hard. You’ll waste more energy trying to pull yourself faster through the water than you will efficiently overcoming the drag of going through the water.
Oh boy! The tough one. When you swim, you roll to breathe. When you breathe, your chin should be up against your shoulder and your eyes looking back at your shoulder. Keep that chin in! Don't lift your head. The moment you lift your head, you create a massive drag wave that slows you down. You might as well tow a parachute! If you keep your chin in tight to your shoulder, you'll have to roll your body to breathe. Your mouth will be right at the surface of the water and yes, you may get a little water in your mouth - so just get used to it. You'll find that you can breathe just fine with a little water in your mouth. When you roll down again, just spit out with the exhale. Be an ambidextrous swimmer. Practice breathing from both sides. That's how you see where you are going and how you can see the people swimming on both sides of you. In an open-water triathlon with waves or sighting buoys, it's ok to occasionally lift your head to sight your bearing. Just don't do it too often - just enough to swim straight. If the water is choppy and has waves, your form won’t matter as much and you’ll have to lift some in order to site and breathe. But this is OK. But swimming and breathing from just one side usually makes people swim in a circle in open water without a big black line on the bottom of a crystal clear pool to help guide them. Practice bilateral breathing and learn to swim straight.Unusual Training Tip:
At the pool, count how many strokes it take to get from one side of the pool to the other. When you have that number, swim the next 