I know I probably can’t get a satisfactory answer on the internet. Later this week I’m probably going to swallow my pride and go to the pool with a friend who actually knows something about swimming, but I figured the internet is worth a try.
Question one: How, exactly, does one float on their back, which seems to be something of a prerequisite to swim on one’s back? I could never do it as a kid (and thus never graduated from the basic ‘how not to drown’ swim lessons), and apparently, cannot in my twenties either. Is there some trick to it? I get on my back and immediately start to sink. Any pointers?
Question two: What the hell does one do with their knees while swimming freestyle? From watching people who seem to actually know how to swim, it looks like you barely move your legs at all, and all the movement comes from the hip - just an inch or two straight up and down. That also seems tremendously ineffective, and I kind of keep wanting to use my knees, but I can’t figure out what’s the most effective motion (I have learned that it is not anything remotely like how you ride a bike, which is apparently my natural instinct, and also makes you an even worse swimmer than you may be to begin with).
IANASwimmer, so let me get my two cents in before someone who knows what is going on chimes in. (I did take a swimming class in college though ;))
Breathing has a lot to do with it, and staying relaxed (yeah, while you’re worried about sinking). Tensing up your body will make you sink. Also, your body tends to go where your feet are pointed, if you can keep your feet up, parallel to the water, or at least close to it, your body will stay there. You may have to kick just a little bit to keep your body balanced in the water.
I keep my knees mostly still, although I don’t concentrate too hard on them. I mainly use them to keep my momentum up. I find that if I kick too hard, I just wear myself out for no reason, and then it’s harder to swim. I don’t think that bigger splash=better kick, but I am not sure on that point.
Our swimming teachers used to have us hold on to the side of the pool, laying on our tummies in the water, and practice flutter-kicking. That’s the kick I use for freestyle swimming. Your legs kick up and down in a scissors-like motion; your legs are mostly straight but keep a slight bend in the knee. You might try practicing that yourself.
The bicycling-motion is the one to use for treading water; although I like to also use a frog-kick for that.
I don’t think there’s any satisfactory way to describe how to float on your back other than to say “turn on your back and float.” It’s kind of like asking to describe how you balance on a bicycle; you just have to do it.
In my experience, most people who aren’t able to float right away fail because they don’t keep their bodies straight. If you turn on your back and then start bending at the hips (folding your body up) you will sink. So focus on remaining straight, and see if that works.
Some people, however, just don’t float. Especially if you are very muscular and have very little body fat. Never fear. You can still learn how to swim even if you are not particularly buoyant.
When swimming front crawl, you want to keep your legs mostly straight. A little bending at the knees is OK and helps you get a nice “whip” motion with your kick, but you want to try to limit your knee-bending to less than 20 degrees or so. Most of the front crawl kick motion should come from your hips as you note. Kicks should be relatively small with little splash – if you are lifting your legs far out of the water and flailing them through the air, you’re wasting energy.
In order to float on your back, you have to have sufficient buoyancy; many have this, some don’t.
I’m more or less in the second category. I was able to pass the test when young, but it was marginal: Everyone but me had to leave the pool, which had to then sit for 10 minutes in order to get absolutely calm. I would take a deep breath and hold it - this would allow me to float with about half my nose above water. By taking short and very shallow breaths I could just barely stay afloat for the required time.
You do not need to be able to float on your back to swim that way - you can derive adequate lift from your movement through the water.
back floating worked for me by arching my body, keep your lungs full of air and the highest part of you. doesn’t matter if your forehead is under water, just keep your nose above the water.
I’m not an accomplished swimmer so I can’t comment on freestyle technique so I’ll leave your second question.
As to the first, I grew up in a hot climate in a suburb where most houses had swimming pools and we kids spent most of summer in and out of them. Some people seem to float very easily on their backs without effort (or say they do). I never met anyone who would literally sink like a stone if they just relaxed, as long as they had air in their lungs*. If you are like me and don’t float easily, if you just totally relax and allow yourself to flop while at the surface, you will roll onto your front and find yourself floating face down with head, arms and legs hanging down, suspended with only your back above water no doubt suspended by the bouyancy of your lungs.
However, if you start face up on your back and hold yourself gently rigid so you don’t flop and roll over onto your front, you will float. Here is the trick for dense people who don’t float well (like me): expect not to float well, and keep your head down (ie tilted back if you are lying on your back).
Aim to be like a log that floats so badly it barely breaks the surface. Tip your head right back so that even your forehead is under water. The only thing you should be aiming to have just above the water are your eyes, nose and mouth (but only just). If the waterline is lapping at your eyes and nose, you’re doing it right. Then hold your body reasonably rigid so your legs and arms don’t go down.
The key mistake is that I would expect to float well. When I felt myself going down I’d assume I was going to sink and give up. When I learned to expect to only just float and only just be able to keep my eyes and nose above the water and to expect the water to be lapping over my forehead, I was fine. It’s a natural tendency to try to hold your head up so that your face is well clear of the water. Your head is heavy and holding it up will rather than letting the water take its weight will require more bouyancy than the rest of you can supply, and things will go wrong from there.
*We used to play the game of breathing out all of the air in our lungs to allow ourselves to sink like a stone to the bottom of the pool, before coming up gasping just before we blacked out. Fun times.
Pretty much this. Lungs as full of air as possible (uncomfortably so, even), head back to keep the nose as high out of the water as possible - meaning none too high even so - take shallow breaths, and gently kick the legs to keep them and the lower body towards the water surface. Is what works for me. More or less.
assuming that you have a standard amount of body fat floating is no big deal.
You can do it one of two ways.
Either keep your body straight and with your arms out stretched, or arch your back with your arms outstretched. In the second position, your feet will sink. This is OK. If your face starts to go under a movement straight down with your arms will bring your face back out of the water. This is called drownproofing. It is quite effective at keeping you afloat for a long period of time, like after a ship wreck.
In both cases, the more relaxed you are the better you float.
Way back when I first learned to swim (it was a requirement in my high school), I was put into a “remedial” class of guys who really didn’t know how to swim at all. In the first class the instructor taught us something very important: Whether you float or sink has to do with how much air is in your lungs. We practiced exhaling and sitting on the bottom of the pool. Then we came up and took a big breath . . . and we were incapable of sinking, no matter how much we tried. As long as there was air in our lungs, we could not sit on the bottom. Then we slowly exhaled . . . and sank to the bottom again.
As Princhester said - hold your head back so your mouth and nose are pointing towards the sky. Expect the water to come halfway up your face. Fill your lungs up with air as much as you can to get started.
Never bend your knees, except when doing a turn. Keep them locked straight and move your legs only from the hips.
I was a terrible swimmer and could not pass my swimming test for PADI.(Put another dollar in).
My daughter was a very good swimmer and I asked for help. She can float on her back for hours but not I.
She arches her back and let her lower legs relax and hang down. full lungs and short breathes.
It worked for me to. I was amazed that I too could float on my back like her.
Then my friend at work helped me perfect my leg kick for the breast stroke. The next time I was able to complete the swimming exercise with ease.
Thanks to my daughter and Pee-Wee.
I’ve never not been able to swim (literally; my parents had me in baby swimming classes) was a competitive swimmer in high school, and I still don’t float very well. Relaxing and keeping your lungs mostly full helps, but if you’re like me you’ll probably have to kick a bit. My legs go down almost immediately unless I arch pretty hard, which then drives my head under, so when I float I have to flutter my hands around my hips, or gently kick to keep position.
Personally, I think the minimum-time float requirement with a strict no-movement back float that people mention is bullshit. Practically speaking, all you need to be able to do is keep breathing with minimal energy expenditure. Doesn’t matter what technique you use as long as you’re not exhausted by it. Being able to tread water for at least a few minutes is at least as important, but no one seems to mention that as a requirement.
Here’s a decent description of a flutter kick as it applies to scuba diving. The fault you’ve described is not keeping your legs in line with your hips. Two drills that could help are doing some laps with a kick-board where your only propulsion is a flutter kick, and practicing with fins. Fins force you to move at least partially correctly, or they feel very awkward. The movement is small and fast. If you’re taking big kicks, you’re creating more drag than propulsion.
Take a look at this video of freestyle swimmers at the Beijing Olympics. They’re doing two kicks; a dolphin kick at the start before they surface at the start and off the wall, and the flutter kick when they’re stroking. Notice how their hips do not bob up and down, even if their knees bend. Some people have a fairly stiff-legged kick, some have a lot of knee movement, but none of them bend at the hips.
You don’t want your ass to stick out of the water, nor do you want your hips to sag down. Everything should be in a nice line from your shoulders to your knees. Think about stretching out from the end of your fingers all the way to your toes with every kick and every stroke.
To float on your back, look up at the ceiling/sky, point your toes up, and concentrate on lifting your pelvis.
I’m taking a beginners’ swim class because I can’t actually swim. The four others in the class with me started without being able to float. Fortunately there are two instructors, so one works with teaching the very basics to the four absolute novices, and one works at trying to convince me I’m not going to drown while she’s watching me like a hawk :o Anyway, the advice in that first paragraph is what the instructors keep saying to the novices. Look up, toes up, lift your hips. It also helps to sprawl out like a starfish, if you’re not going to be swimming.
Try this in water where you know you can stand up, so you can relax and not worry about sinking.
As far as the knees during freestyle kicking, I’ve watched my sons’ swim classes and noticed that the instructors have them practice both kicking with legs straight and kicking only from the knees down. I’m assuming that if you’re just swimming for fun and exercise and not racing, either one is fine. Racing swimmers seem to use their whole leg, knees straight.
The biggest mistake people make with most swimming moves is that they try way too hard, get scared, and wear themselves out. You don’t have to float on your back perfectly. Just flip over, let your feet and arms go under, and slowly (I mean really slowly) use them to keep you in a comfortable position. You won’t drown or come close to it and you can maintain that position for hours if you stay relaxed.
Body composition plays a part - more body fat means more floating power, and also body type plays a part; I’ve heard certain ethnicities float better on average. Having air in your lungs helps - especially in the lower part, so exhale and inhale quickly and then hold your breath a little. I find that personally my upper body will float mostly on it’s own, but everything below the knees requires some very gentle kicking action to stay up. It also helps to tense and relax different parts of your body to create the right tension/position, changing your center of gravity more towards the parts of you (upper body) that have more bouancy.
No question Shag.
For those that are unsure of their buoyancy. you need a little snorkel time. There is no more relaxing water activity like snorkeling. One is usually so engrossed with the beauty of the underwater world (provided there is some visibility) that there mind is not dwelling on sinking into a deep dark obis that they just know is below them. You have to have a mindset that it makes no difference if the water is 8’ deep or 800’ deep.
This is just my personal theory, but I think floating ability has a lot to do with body fat percentage/distribution.
My hips float effortlessly, and it has ever been so. To the point where my butt pops to the surface when I don’t want it to! It’s where all my fat is stored.
Keep in mind body fat percentage has little to do with how ‘fat’ someone appears externally.