Can a swim cap make your head more bouyant ?

[craigcurtin]

Guys,

Only a newbie to TI (and any sort of concerted swimming) - have recently inherited (from my wife who is a life long swimmer) a swim cap of quite thick rubber.

Prior to using this i felt my form and alignment was pretty good and was starting to get glide etc happening. However since starting with the cap i feel i am having to fight to push my head down lower in the pool to where it used to be.

I know i am meant to be totally relaxed - so do i go with what i feel is a higher head position with the cap on and just try and work that into my training - or do i continue to try to force my head back down to the position that i felt it was before using the cap.

It is starting to get colder in the water here in Australia now so really think that i will have to get used to wearing a cap (so ditching it is probably not the answer !)

Craig

[exmax]

from a materials standpoint
if you have gone from a closed cell silicon cap to a wetsuit style open cell material you would in theory increase buoyancy
an easy test would be to use a small pebble or weight in a bowl to see how the caps float/sink relative to the weight added

[tomoy]

Yeah!

http://totalimmersion.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3234

p.s. I would go with the relaxed feeling higher head position vs forcing it lower.

[CoachSuzanne]

yes but i'll take the opposite stance as Tomoy...strive to be aligned regardless. If a front floating bouyant cap brings your front up and causes your hips to sink you do yourself a disservice

My guess is that you wil need someone to look at you or film you so you can see what is actually going on.

[craigcurtin]

I will be getting some video done this week and will see what that shows.

Craig