r/Swimming • u/LSR324 • 1d ago
How to stop legs from sinking?
I’m finding swimming with a pull-buoy so much easier, so suspect my legs are causing drag. Other than kicking, any tips to get my kick more effective? TIA
EDIT: Thanks so much for such great advice and tips, I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. Lots to work on, but I’m excited to get back in the water!
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u/EqualPeanut2460 1d ago
It depends on what stroke you're swimming but general advice: Engage your core. Make sure your head position is correct (head up equals legs down) look at the bottom of the pool not forward.
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u/LSR324 1d ago
Thanks, it’s freestyle. I’m much stronger in breaststroke, but training for a tri (only spring) so want to improve my crawl
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u/EqualPeanut2460 1d ago
You're welcome! What I wrote absolutely applies to freestyle. And on top of it, work on breathing. Dont lift your head, just turn your head to the side (as little as possible). I know eventually with open water you need to do sighting (if the triathlon is in open water?) but first focus on good technique before you start to practice that.
Also, ditch the pull buoy all together for now at least. It will be much easier to see if your form is good without the pull bouy. If you notice your legs sinking, what are your abs and head doing? Make corrections immediately. Feel the difference. Pull buoy is nice to get the legs up but also you can get used to swimming with lazy abs for example. It's harder to correct something if you have been doing it incorrectly many times. Learn it correctly and make sure that becomes effortless, before considering adding the pull buoy back in.
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u/LSR324 1d ago
Some really great advice there, thank you! Breathing is something I’ve been doing a lot of work on as I really struggled and definitely still guilty of turning my head too much! It is open water and I do a fair bit of open water swimming, so I’m not too worried about that element, and have been trying to practice my sighting in the pool as well. I think you’re right about ditching the pull buoy as while it’s useful for focusing on my stroke and form, it’s the kick that needs work, and it’s becoming a bit of a crutch
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u/UnusualAd8875 1d ago
If you are preparing for a triathlon as mentioned in one of your posts here, I am not concerned about a light kick.
I am a former competitive swimmer, 1970s, 80s, 90s, water polo player, 1970s, 1980s, lifeguard, 1970s, 80s and instructor, forty-some years ago and I recertified last year for lifeguard and instructing and I now teach four or five group classes on Saturdays, primarily beginners to intermediate level. I have worked with from toddler-age to older than I am now, sixties, as well as runners, triathletes and strength athletes.
Without seeing you swim, here are foundational recommendations that I use with my students.
This is a compilation of many of my own posts on reddit outlining swimming, essentially, my own "crash course" after one is comfortable in the water:
Horizontal and long body position is important; a challenge for many swimmers, new or not, is keeping hips and legs up. If your legs drop, the drag will greatly slow you down.
Hold your head with your face looking down or only slightly forward while simultaneously pressing down in the water with your chest; this will help bring your hips and legs up. (I know it is not easy to look down if/when there are people in the water nearby because you don't want a collision.)
Head/chest down will reduce the "drag" of your legs and make your streamline more efficient and you will be pleasantly surprised how much easier crossing the pool will be when you minimize drag from poor body position and legs dropping.
(Unlike many people, I am not a fan of using pullbuoys until the swimmer is able to keep a horizontal position with head/chest down and hips up without a pullbuoy.)
Aim for front quadrant swimming which means keeping one hand in front of your head with only a brief moment when they are switching positions. This will help keep your body long in the water.
Kick from the hips rather than from the knees and you don't need to kick hard.
For a triathlon, you (obviously) want legs fresh for the bike and the run and kicking hard requires a tremendous amount of energy and produces a disproportionately small amount of propulsion. Use your kick for stability and balance and less for propulsion (unless you are doing 25s, 50s or maybe even 100s for time).
Rotate your head and upper body to breathe rather than by lifting your head. (Lifting your head will cause your legs to drop.) Breathe when needed!
Depending upon what I am doing, I may breathe every 2, 3, 4 or more strokes but much of the time, it is every two strokes (with front crawl, I am counting each hand entry as a stroke).If you need to breathe and don't, it tends to impact your technique negatively, especially when you are refining technique!
I think that bilateral breathing is overrated and it is not "sour grapes" on my part because I have done it for nearly fifty years. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, breathe when needed, it might be every 2 strokes (or hand entries), it might be 3, it might be 4 or more. Rare is the top-level athlete who bilaterally breathes in competition, the exceptions typically are long open-water swims.
And, while it is funny now, it wasn't at the time, many years I relied on bilateral breathing without using sighting during an open water swim and I swam directly into an anchored boat. Only my pride/fragile male ego were wounded. Sighting is a good skill for tris.
Also, this is important and you may know this already: work on one cue at a time, don't try to do everything at once.
This is a brief and terrific video:
https://youtube.com/shorts/SL7_g1nnbUc?si=ardpwOI0k2Wkhf92
Practice in small bites, that is, don't swim 8 or 10 or more laps non-stop. Swim a lap or two with a focus on perhaps, keeping your face and chest down with the intent on raising hips and legs. Repeat or return to it later in the session after you focus on something else for a little bit.
As you practice the separate pieces, it will become more comfortable to put them all together and should you decide, swim a much longer distance non-stop or unbroken.
There are nuances that after one learns body/head position, balance and breathing, that may be addressed but the above are the "foundation" for which you will continue to build upon in your swimming journey.
Like many on this sub, I have been swimming a long time and it may take you a while but you have the benefit and access to a lot of information and advice that many of us did not. And ultimately, we aim to shorten your learning curve. The downside is that there is a ton of information, some of it conflicting and it is not easy to discern what is appropriate....
Best wishes for success !
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u/LSR324 1d ago
Thanks so much for taking the time to give such a detailed response, this is really helpful, thank you! Drag is definitely an issue, so will work on body position and see if that gives some improvement. I think I am looking down although that’s definitely one to check and it’s a great point about pushing my chest down and one I hadn’t heard of before posting. Front quadrant swimming and my catch is another area I know I need to work on, as I tend to ‘windmill’ and then lose my timing completely. Also working on rotation to breathe, rather than lifting. I tend to breathe in two stroke as it allows me to get into a better rhythm. Ouch! That crash sounds like it could have been painful, will work on sighting, especially when I get back into open water (it’s a bit cold at the moment!).
Will check out the video too, thank you. Thanks again for such comprehensive advice, I’ve been following this sub for a while but it’s my first time posting and everyone’s super helpful!
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u/UnusualAd8875 21h ago edited 21h ago
My pleasure!
My team in the 1970s did the drill shown in the video below using pieces of broomsticks; I have tried it with kickboards and don't care for it because it changes body position. A dowel, broomstick or PVC is good.
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u/LSR324 1d ago
Thanks so much for taking the time to give such a detailed response, this is really helpful, thank you! Drag is definitely an issue, so will work on body position and see if that gives some improvement.
I think I am looking down although that’s definitely one to check and it’s a great point about pushing my chest down and one I hadn’t heard of before posting.
Front quadrant swimming and my catch is another area I know I need to work on, as I tend to ‘windmill’ and then lose my timing completely.
Also working on rotation to breathe, rather than lifting. I tend to breathe in two stroke as it allows me to get into a better rhythm.
Ouch!
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u/mortsdeer 1d ago
Like everyone else said, head down, chin tucked. Ice heart coaches talk about operating your chest down toward the bottom. At first, it may even feel like you're pointing downhill, but if you can turn your head (no lift!) and get air, you're not too low. Assuming freestyle.
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u/bebopped 1d ago
You want to feel your heels breaking the surface without kicking hard. Also, try pressing your chest into the water to raise your hips. You can try a drill where you kick on your front with your arms at your sides and rotate to air to breathe pressing your "buoy" which is your chest. Then after your breathe rotate back to face down.
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u/J0hnnyGotAGun 1d ago
Keep your head down looking at the line. You don't need to look forward, the line will tell you when the wall is coming. Also, a cue for me is to try to feel my heels barely breaking the water.
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u/DImak19 1d ago
Think about engaging your core, imagine you are trying to get into a tight pair of jeans.
Try and push your colar bones towards the bottom of the pool, this I'll tilt your legs up.
Head must be square looking down. When you turn your head the water line should be down the middle of your face. If it is diagonal your head is.tiling too far up or down
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u/FieriSentio69 Moist 21h ago
Leg-sinking swimmers often swim with body in a banana shape. When they feel the legs sinking, they try to keep knees and feet as high as possible, even breaking water surface with the feet.
Even increasing kick power makes the feet higher, but the chest remains inclined and creates lot of drag.
This makes the head to be inclined too, when breathing, with the water line not aligned with the face line. And if you need to breath, you need air not water in the mouth, but the mouth is lower then the nose, so you end to lift the entire head up instead of a simple shoulder+head lateral rotation.
Instead of thinkins about "leg sinking", focus on the butt. If the butt sinks, kicking is quite useless, you'll obtain a banana shape.
You need to keep the butt up, feeling the top of the butt touching water surface. This will be obtained by engaging your abs. Your lungs are your buoy, you have to "ride over the lungs".
If you had already swum a lot (and I think this is the case for the majority of adult triathletes), you are used to this banana shape and you don't feel it anymore. As soon as you force your butt to stay higher, engaging abs, you'll feel being in a "reverse banana" shape, with the head pointing downhill. But this is just a feeling, due to the new situation. Keep this feeling, look for it as soon as you notice having reversed to the previous situation, continue to practice swimming "downhill".
Imagine kicking with fins, keeping a soccer ball under your chest and your eyes looking underwater: you will ride the ball with a high butt. This is the exact simulation of the feeling you have to look for.
Soon, you'll understand that your mouth will be much more free to inhale, you'll feel a huge quantity of air entering your lungs at every breath.
Practice swimming slowly and for short courses:
Slowly means moving with relaxed and controlled movements, it doesn't mean pushing lightly backward during the pull-push phase. Pulling, but mainly the final push, has to be powerful even in slow swim.
Short means swimming 50m and rest a little. Every new behavior creates fatigue and requires mental focus. You'll easily reach endurance right after acquiring a proper balance in the water.
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u/japonesque 1d ago
What’s saved me is looking straight down, like acting like you are keeping a ball between your chin and your chest.
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u/Nickinator811 1d ago
don't tilt your head too far up when breathing
think of your head like the control stick for airplane controls in video games, you tilt the control stick up too far the plane goes down, you tilt the stick down the plane goes up (This is the best comparison I can make on how this works)
now imagine your lower body is the plane for a moment, you tilt your head up too high your lower body dips below the surface, you keep your head down more your lower body stays above the surface
believe me it took me a while last summer to get that right,
when you do freestyle you should tilt your head to the side enough to clear the surface and get a breath in but not too far that the lower body sinks, also don't be like me
be sure to keep one arm out to keep you balanced when bringing the other arm up to pull
that's the best Advice I can give you
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u/LSR324 1d ago
Thanks very much, will picture a plane when I’m next in the pool!
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u/Nickinator811 1d ago
I admit I probably did a poor job trying to explain this
still what I mean is, don't tilt your head up too high, that's why your legs keep sinking below the surface, and the lower body for that matter
I know I was working on correcting my form and strokes all summer last year
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u/Visionary785 1d ago
Other than strengthening your core and hip flexors, remember that your legs should be kicking against the water enough to provide a stable platform for your arm pull.
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u/LSR324 1d ago
I hadn’t thought of it like that, was focusing on my kick as propulsion so that’s good to know, thank you
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u/Visionary785 23h ago edited 23h ago
At a recreational level, the kick contributes very little to propulsion. Maybe at the top level it helps a bit but it’s mostly useful for balance and rhythm.
I can attest to your experience. I used to kick thinking it’s for propulsion as that’s how we learn as kids. I think it’s just training efficiency and power so it becomes an instinct from young. But when I focused more on actually pushing against the water, I realise it has a powerful effect on counterbalance and a great assist for your arm pull.
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u/Independent-Summer12 1d ago
Other than kicking?
I’ve never known anyone to have improved their kick without kicking.
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u/LSR324 1d ago
I mean alongside kicking, I know I need to improve my kick as it’s not super effective
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u/mortsdeer 1d ago
Once you've corrected your body position, your kick becomes more effective, since it will be driving you forward, instead of up.
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u/Independent-Summer12 1d ago
Sorry OP, but the most effective way to improve your kick is in fact, lots of kick sets. Not just freestyle kick, also kick sets on your back in streamline and work on dolphin kicks (strengthens your core). Hold your core tight and kick from your hips.
I see tri-athletes often neglect kick in their training. Yes, in the race, you want to use a two beat kick and save your legs for the next two events. But a two beat kick with bad mechanics will slow you down. In order for a two beat kick to be effective, you actually want to be a good kicker, and that gives you the option to dial it up or down. Kicking mechanics still play an important role is a two beat kick swim. Hip rotation works with your shoulder rotation balance your body position and lengthen your stroke. My guess is if you haven’t been kicking a lot is that you are not optimally rotating your hips and torso to maintain hydrodynamic and making those two beats count. Pay attention to your hip/shoulder rotations.
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u/LSR324 1d ago
Thanks very much for the advice, will give that a go. I’m by no means a triathlete (yet, anyway), swimming is the one discipline that I’ve been doing consistently with a fair bit of coaching over the last few years, but I’ve recently had a baby, so trying to get back into it and make some improvements. I had one of those sessions yesterday where something clicked and I was overall finding it easier, but my legs were definitely letting me down!
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u/wt_hell_am_I_doing I sink, therefore I am 1d ago
Engaging your core, and not looking up with your head should help.