Good drill to push on your buoy

[truwani]

Hi everyone


An area which continues to be difficult for me is to lay on your longs


Thought it would come naturally with balance and long shaped vessel: feel like I have made significant progress in these areas but not on pushing your buoy down


In his books however Terry seems to put a lot of importance on this


Do you know of any good drills that could help?

[lloyddinma]

Originally Posted by truwani

Hi everyone


An area which continues to be difficult for me is to lay on your longs


Thought it would come naturally with balance and long shaped vessel: feel like I have made significant progress in these areas but not on pushing your buoy down


In his books however Terry seems to put a lot of importance on this


Do you know of any good drills that could help?

Boy, I can't wait to get a formal answer on this one. Over a year ago, did online research and kept coming up with nothing. No one really tells you how to do it. I have heard variations of "press your face down" to press down

(A few months ago, I was musing while doing the skating drill and had a sudden thought.

I pretended I was leaning on a balcony railing, with my waist as a point of contact. I then proceeded to sort of lean over some more. I felt a weight shift. This might be it.)

Interestingly and only today, I had a lifeguard verify that I had not regressed to creating splashes with my kick. She confirmed there were no splashes. BUT she further stated that was because there was too much of a downward slope to my frame and so my feet were too low to create splashes.

[CoachBobM]

TI has pretty much abandoned the term "press on your buoy" because it led to the very question you are asking: How do you do it?

Your body is like a teeter totter that is balanced on the fulcrum of your lungs. Your legs are obviously a heavy weight on one end, so you need something on the other end to counterbalance it. One important key is to relax your head into the water with your nose pointed down. Another is to always have one arm in front of your head (what we call a "patient leading arm"). Lower the wrist of your leading arm until your shoulders are level with your hips, and keep the wrist of your leading arm relaxed, with your fingertips angled down.


Bob

I find that in addition to the patient leading arm (front quadrant swimming), that spearing a little deeper is all it takes to bring my legs up. I always start every workout with a little superman glide where I find the arm position that keeps my legs up (gentle kicking only).

[Zenturtle]

it looks like magic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35pVR7hUWXw

[CoachStuartMcDougal]

As Coach Bob noted, TI has mostly abandoned "press the buoy" since it was a bit too general and use other focal points that accomplish the same task.

However, many coaches haven't abandoned the context or "press the buoy", but are more specific in the description. The "buoy" is your lungs that run form the bottom of your rig cage to the sternum. The swimmer needs to press on the *front* of the lungs, not just the the lungs itself.

As seen with the swimmer in skate drill, tipping his hips to the surface; he's gently leaning on the front of the lungs tipping him forward about his center of buoyancy. It's not magic, just physics. A good focal point to use is to press down gently (or lean) on the collar bone (don't push the head down!) - the hips will rise.

Stuart

[Danny]

Originally Posted by Zenturtle

it looks like magic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35pVR7hUWXw

This is a great video, but there are some subtle things going on that we all can argue about. I would suggest watching the position of his upper shoulder when he leans forward so that the hips rise to the surface. Key in all of this is that his upper shoulder is moving forward and his lower shoulder is moving backward, so that the line between them is becoming more vertical. Doing this raises the hips, but in order to do so, there needs to be a "cocking" motion where the upper hip tries to move forward in relation to the lower hip in order to raise the legs.

These are all subtle motions and hard to perceive, but the result is dramatic.

[lloyddinma]

Originally Posted by Danny

This is a great video, but there are some subtle things going on that we all can argue about. I would suggest watching the position of his upper shoulder when he leans forward so that the hips rise to the surface. Key in all of this is that his upper shoulder is moving forward and his lower shoulder is moving backward, so that the line between them is becoming more vertical. Doing this raises the hips, but in order to do so, there needs to be a "cocking" motion where the upper hip tries to move forward in relation to the lower hip in order to raise the legs.

These are all subtle motions and hard to perceive, but the result is dramatic.

Yes, but how would that translate into real-time swimming?

I thought ideally the swimmer should stay in this optimal position throughout. Are you advocating for continuous re-adjustment Danny?

Btw, Zenturtle should be ordered to tender all his videos. They should be comandeered as TI state property. He always has them available on demand. :)

[CoachBillGreentree]

Originally Posted by CoachStuartMcDougal

A good focal point to use is to press down gently (or lean) on the collar bone (don't push the head down!) - the hips will rise.

Stuart

That really is an excellent focal point. Too often swimmers (myself included) look at things are separate parts rather than a whole. Using the collarbone area as your focus avoids an excessive moment about the fulcrum which can easily happen when we take the pressing our head into the water way too literally.

I personally find visualizing a stretched out streamlined form while I'm swimming to work wonders for keeping the hips, shoulders, legs and head in line and drafting behind our lead arm.

[Danny]

Originally Posted by lloyddinma

Yes, but how would that translate into real-time swimming?

I thought ideally the swimmer should stay in this optimal position throughout. Are you advocating for continuous re-adjustment Danny?

Btw, Zenturtle should be ordered to tender all his videos. They should be comandeered as TI state property. He always has them available on demand. :)

When swimming full stroke, the upper shoulder is always moving forward with respect to the lower shoulder until the recovery, when upper and lower are switched, and the process starts all over again. People like to talk about the virtue of a quick recovery, and the explanation that is offered is usually that, by getting your recovering arm quickly up front you help maintain balance. The observations I just made seem consistent with that. I expect that the hip motion is similar. This motion can be observed on dry land if you stand next to a wall and reach for the ceiling with your right finger tips. As you do so, the left foot will leave the ground because you are stretching, not only with your shoulders, but also with your hips. These motions with the hips and shoulders seem to be critical to maintaining forward balance. When you skate on your side, as in the video posted by ZT, the balance is static, but when swimming it needs to be dynamic. Clearly, if you have your weight shifted forward most of the time, some brief instances when this is not the case will not cause your legs to drop, as long as the instances are brief. Hence the virtue of a quick recovery.