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Swimming Advice: your questions
Question: When you're doing front crawl: the leading arm when you turn to breathe, mine goes down and my face then goes down and I can't take breath properly and I take in water, how best to fix that?
Swimming Without Stress Says: The arm goes down because you lift your head. Think of keeping the same mass of head in the water all the time, and roll like a pig on a spit. Really point the crown of your head and your arm where you want to go - think about this over and above getting air in. |
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Question: I can only breathe on one side when I am swimming front crawl. Does this matter? I am getting conflicting advice!!! Also I don't swim breast stroke often as I suffer from backache generally but when I do I like to swim 2 strokes under the water then breathe but I am told I should breathe with each stroke but that means I strain my neck.
Swimming Without Stress Says: I think if you're one sided as most of us are, there's nothing wrong with breathing to one side. Bilateral breathing, in my view, if you're one-sided, isn't going to make your stroke more balanced, it's just going to cause strain when you turn to the 'b side'. This is my own experience and I don't think anything's going to change this. Anyone can breathe bilaterally but to do it with a free neck is another matter! As for coming up on every second breast stroke, if it produces less strain for you, fine. I actually think that doing this can help you work on improving the coordination of your arms and legs. Remember to enjoy the glide between each stroke, looking at the floor. My book, Swimming without Stress, may be worth a read for you. And also have a look at our youtube channel, swimwithoutstress. |
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Question: In my swimming lesson we are told to breathe out jump in the air and touch the
bottom of the pool and swim back up.My problem is no matter how much air I breathe out I cannot get to the bottom of the pool as I always float back up
before Ii get to the bottom of the pool.Why is that?
Swimming Without Stress Says: You need to point the top of your head to the bottom of the pool, where you want
to go. If you're looking at the bottom (which you will be) then the top of your
head will be pointing to the other end of the pool not the bottom and that's why
you can't get down. |
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Question: I'm learning the front crawl and making reasonable progress but no matter how
hard I concentrate I don't seem able to kick my legs, instead once the arms come
into play my legs revert to a breaststroke type movement. Any suggestions
please?
Swimming Without Stress Says: Cheryl says: As a lady, you can get away with very little kicking. If you feel you are
needing your breaststroke style kick to actually create propulsion maybe you
are not quite getting that from the arms and roll. The propulsion comes
when you sweep an arm back and think forward along the head, neck, back and
other arm allowing the body to roll. Think of the kick mainly for rhythm -
just ticking along - and think length through the legs - long and loose and
tidily together trailing behind.
Have a look at the Swimming without
StressYoutube videos and Ian's book, Swimming Without Stress |
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Question: I do not feel any "glide" phase in my way of doing the
breaststroke. From one "grab" i go next to the other one, and it feels perfect to me. I tried to "glide", but I do not really feel the benefit of it. It rather feels like an artificial brake inbetween the sweeps. I
would greatly appreciate it if you could tell me if I need to fix
anything.
Swimming Without Stress Says: Cheryl says: I suspect something is not quite right, as you say the glide feels like a "brake". Instead it should feel like the dynamic part of the stroke when you are really moving through (falling through) the water.Have you tried
gliding on its own, outside of any stroke? It is worth doing this to find
out how easy movement through the water can be. You could have a look at the Swimming Without Stress book or look at the Swimming without Stress glide video on Youtube.The actual
"stroke" getting the head out, sculling the hands and letting the legs
prepare for the kick, should all be part of the slowing down, non-doing phase. Make sure you really release the weight of your head back into the water before you kick. Try also, just one stroke - begin in a glide, roll your eyes up, let the arms and legs join in and finish releasing back into >another glide and REST (that's the hard bit!)Hope that has given you
some food for thought. As to the question "do you need to fix anything?" -
If you are not experiencing any discomfort during or after your swim, are
enjoying your swim and are happy with the speed, then no - carry on and
enjoy. Too often we try too hard to get something "right".
Ian says: Thanks for your useful question. I think your problem is that it 'feels perfect' to you. The grabbing for the next bit of propulsion in the breast stroke does feel right for most people and because it feels right it's difficult to change. The reason it feels right is that it - the pulling back the arms instead of letting them rest - is a deeply ingrained reflex known as the 'baby panic' or 'moro' reflex. I think it's important to 'tame' the arms in breast stroke, not to let the reflex dominate you and not to let your arms dominate your legs. This is what happens with most self taught breast stroke swimmers. Swimming Without Stress, for me, is all about being calm in the water and not letting your fear reflexes get the better of you. Most recreational and fitness breast stroke swimmers over excite their fear reflexes when swimming lengths. This can feel quite stimulating (a bit like taking drugs) but it's the opposite of what we want from an Alexander Technique point of view.
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