 ones. How do I know this? I’m also a sailor! You are not a motorboat which goes so fast that it can plane up and above the water’s surface. You are a displacement boat and you need to move water out of the way in order to swim forward. SO LENGTHEN YOUR BODY! How? First, make your reach as far as it can go. Think of getting something off of the very top shelf of the kitchen cabinet. Do you face it shoulder square and reach up? No. You twist your body to one side and extend your shoulder. There you go - now you can reach it. Swimming is the exact same way. It's that twist (or roll) and the extension from you shoulders and lats. For an extra inch or two of reach, twist your hips in much the same way that a belly dancer would, one hip higher than the other. It’s from this ‘core’ that comes great swimming. So don’t ignore that Pilates class at the gym! Swimmers don't have huge arm muscles or triceps; they have great back, abdominal and oblique muscles! So makes sure that each and every reach is as far out in front of you as you can. It's a good stretch too. Go into the weight room before your swim and go to the chin-up bar. Grab it with one hand, twist, and let your body hang for 20-seconds. Do your belly dancer hip twist and see how far down you can go. It’s a great pre-swim stretch.
You have to try and maintain a slim, sleek, torpedo shape. Back and legs straight as a board. Think of your body swimming through a narrow two foot-wide-tube. Most swimmers' legs tend to sink. You need to overcome this by two things: First, improve your back, abs and oblique core muscles. I can’t stress enough how good exercises like Pilates are for swimming! And second by lowering your head and pressing your chest down, you raise your legs. This is known as “downhill swimming”.Unusual Training Tip: Try to look at your feet! That's right. As you swim, I want you to try and look under and behind you. This is going to drive your head down, get your feet up and make you more streamlined in the water. Your chin should be against your chest. 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 