The most common causes of poor body position:

Holding your breath underwater. Holding your breath creates extra buoyancy in your chest, causing the front of your body to lift and your legs to start sinking. Work on improving and smoothly exhaling into the water.

A high head position on the inhale. This is very similar to holding your breath, because when you raise your head too high, your hips go down and your legs start to sink. Working on breathing inside the front wave is just necessary to improve your body position.

"Looking too far". Many beginner swimmers with low natural buoyancy and "fidgety" breathing try to "look too far forward" during a swim, causing their pelvis and legs to start sinking.

Knee kick (see Swimming: technique of footwork). Poor hitting technique with excessive bending of the knee joint increases resistance and sinks the legs. Work on your kick technique: it should be performed with a straight leg, with the motion pointing away from the hip.

"Scissor effect." This kind of kick is usually caused by the working arm rowing too wide in the front quarter. This leads to loss of balance and involuntary crossing of the legs to avoid tipping over onto the back. If you work on your posture and arm entry into the water (see Swimming: hand entry into the water), you can eliminate the "scissor effect" by improving your body posture as a whole.

Ankle Dorsiflexion. Many triathletes who participate in running and cycling along with swimming have problems with ankle flexibility. During these sports, the ankles become very stiff and athletes have difficulty pulling their toes back. This increases water resistance, and the feet sink down.

Weak foot strike. Swimmers who concentrate on lengthening their stroke often use a double-impact kick to expend less effort. Because of this, many athletes with low buoyancy and low ankle flexibility have a body position that is too low and the legs begin to sink.

Insufficient stability of body position (see Swimming to correct posture). If your shoulder girdle is too mobile and you don't know how to get your core torso muscles to keep your lower limb girdle in a high position, your legs are likely to start sinking.

Pushing the water down during the grip (see Swimming: Grip and Pushback). Many swimmers apply too much force during the catchphrase, which causes the movement to be performed with a straight arm downward with excessive pressure on the water. This movement lifts the swimmer's upper body and consequently sinks the legs.

Lack of flexibility in the hip joint (see Additional training for land swimmers). Spending a lot of time at your desk in the office or cycling (especially using a tri-bar handlebar attachment) can cause your hip joint to lose flexibility, which, in turn, affects your leg position in the water. Before you start your swim, do some simple stretches by making active movements in the pelvic area.

Pushing the water down during the grip, knee strike, and lack of hip flexibility result in a low body position in the water

Swimmers with very poor body position usually have three or more of these problems on this list at the same time. Therefore, there is rarely a simple one-size-fits-all solution that leads to an immediate improvement in body position. What is needed here is an approach that addresses various aspects of swimming technique. It is important not to lose your temper, to remain calm, and to be persistent in trying to change the situation. From the point of view of dividing all swimmers into different types, "Arnie" type athletes suffer the most because of low leg position. "Arnie" athletes are power athletes with a lot of muscle mass, so there is a good chance that they will never achieve great results in the water, nor will some of the swimmers. All because of their body position in the water. But there's nothing wrong with that, any improvement in body position greatly reduces the resistance of the water, and it's already worth working on this aspect of swimming technique just for the sake of it.

Head and Body Position

The term "downward swimming" is widely used on the internet when it comes to helping low legged swimmers lift in the water by pushing their chest down. You need to understand how to use this method correctly, otherwise it can only harm your technique, especially if your body is naturally gifted with the ability to get a good position in the water. As an example: in the picture Barbara has significantly increased the resistance because the front of her body is too deep under the water

Many coaches advise keeping your head deep underwater to "lift" your legs. For some swimmers this method does work, but for many it is only detrimental. We suggest considering the head position as a last resort and using it only if other methods have been exhausted. The low head position has a number of disadvantages.

You can choose the head position according to your individual characteristics.

It reduces proprioception, or affects the "feeling of the body in space", especially in front of the movement. It makes it very difficult to make a good hand entry and grip.

A low head position makes it difficult to navigate in open water, drafting. In this article, Effective Drafting, we'll talk about how the skill of "sticking with the leader" helps you conserve up to 38% of your energy, which is huge and should not be ignored.

A low head position bends the spine, which, in turn, is detrimental to posture, and there is a greater likelihood of putting your hands in when entering the water.

Moreover, low head position of a swimmer with good swimming technique and good natural buoyancy can cause overstriking of legs. This will cause imbalance, instability in the water. The situation will be aggravated if such a swimmer wears a wetsuit: the extra buoyancy it gives will push the athlete's legs even higher. To restore the balance and normal movements in the wetsuit such a swimmer, on the contrary, should keep his head up. We will discuss this issue in more detail in the "drummer" article.

There is no universal recipe explaining what the optimal level at which to keep the head is. You have to find your own.

How Ian Thorpe holds his head

Ian Thorpe, a legendary Australian swimmer, who won five gold medals at the Olympics and holds multiple world records in the 200m and 400m. Ian is known as one of the most efficient swimmers of all time. He worked hard on his technique and eventually realized that he needed to hold his head very high, leaving his eyes underwater. As soon as he lowered his head and his legs went up, his balance immediately began to suffer and his footwork began to deteriorate. Take Ian as an example: analyze how the position of your head affects your movements. Choose the optimal position for your own individual characteristics.

Ian Thorpe practiced a very high head position during his swim. A few millimeters were left between the surface of the water and his goggles

Dissecting the surface with your heels

The easiest way to check for proper posture is to ask a coach or friend to see if your heels are cutting across the surface of the water by foaming the water as you swim. Make sure you don't bend your knee joint too much when you do this. If the heels split the surface of the water, it is an indication of good technique, only if it is due to a proper kick, straight leg from the hip.

Floor: Some swimmers throw their feet completely out of the water on impact. Despite the impression of accelerated progression, the reverse and more realistic side of this action is that throwing the leg out creates a tremendous amount of additional resistance, which requires additional effort to overcome. A 2010 study by Matt Keys at the University of Western Australia on the Australian sprinter Eamonn Sullivan (Olympic medallist and former world record holder in the 50m and 100m), showed that his only inefficient movement was sometimes throwing his left foot too high out of the water. For most of us, that would mean a fraction of a second worse overall performance, but when you swim the 50 meters in 21.28 seconds, as Eamon did, you have to consider all the nuances!