Sinking Issue

In the pool with the "current" i found if i get on someones feet and draught them there is not much "pull" going up but if i draught them coming back down it really pulls me along to the point i have to hold back a little.

Strange.

Originally Posted by Mushroomfloat

Ok so you got the feeling with the pullbouy thats good, but you need to transfer that over to swimming without it,
my guess is you are releasing the body profile and it is likley head position and the downward pressure on the breastbone

try all again but glue your chin to your chest, this is extreme but i'll wager your legs come up.
when you need to breathe roll to the side and look backwards towards your shoulder / under your armpit.
keep the chin tucked when returning face back down.

From here if sucessful you can then play about with slowing raising chin to a more neutral position and find the optimum balance and at what point you lose it and begin dragging again.

put arms as deep as you like i prefer just below lung level

also try and keep your big toes brushing against each other and point feet like a ballerina.

to kick with pullbuoy relax lower legs from knee down and you'll notice a flick down the leg originating at the hip caused by rotation this is a natural 2bk and will just appear naturally

be good to see if this works :-)

I went to the pool this morning but I think I had too many ideas to try out. I did try tucking my head right down but seems difficult to swim like that. I can't see anything of where I am going and there are always other people in the pool to avoid crashing in to, and I am used to watching the position of my hands so I can see where they are going. I need to give it another go but first impression is that although my head and possibly torso was further underwater, it didn't raise my legs. I can't really see where my hips and legs are in the water and any attempt to look changes my position anyway, but it didn't feel like there was any less drag.

I did try pulling with fists which was interesting, and very hard to make any progress, especially against the current. This also seemed to put my head much lower in the water, possibly because I am going so slowly that there is no "lift" generated from movement, but also I suspect because I am not pulling in the right direction. Doing a bit of a windmill, missing the EVF so the first part of the pull is pushing down instead of back, which might lift my head and sink my hips. But, I still have the sinking legs even when not stroking.

On land, I have quite a pronounced arch in the lower back so sometimes in the water I feel like I have to round the shoulders and curl forward a little to straighten out, but I don't know if that is a good idea. Also maybe there is a disconnect between the torso and the legs, if I get my head lower in the water but my legs still sink. I should have a reasonably strong core, 25 years of tai chi and I can do the plank with no problem but maybe I am being a bit too relaxed in the water?

Although, I have never experienced a "too relaxed" issue for myself, I can totally see that this might be an issue for other people: All the balancing between "center of buoyancy" and "center of gravity" assumes (and I'm talking just static balancing without any actual swimming) that your shoulder/hip/knee/spine is fixed. But "fixing" them in real life requires muscle work. So, yes, even with perfect balance it is still "possible" to let your legs sink, by letting them go in terms of relaxation.
However: the specific density of your legs is so close to the density of water, that it shouldn't take a significant amount of muscle work. You know what I mean?
If you have a chance to send us a video showing your experiments, we might be able to come up with suggestions.
Here some general thoughts from my side:
1. The fact that swimming with fists makes you almost stand still, suggests that you definitely have to improve your balance first. I believe that your overall position should not change when swimming with fists vs. open hands. I would even go as far as claiming that breathing should feel as easy with fists as open hands. That's not 100% true, because faster swimming creates a larger drag wave that helps breathing. I kinda assume that we can neglect this effect in your case (sorry, dude :-)).
2. I'm regularly doing "floating" experiments in the pool, actually almost every time, I go swimming. Those experiments don't need a lane and are almost completely static (sometimes, I'm doing half a stroke or 1 stroke or even 2 strokes to experiment with a certain movement of my limbs). What I want to say with that: In almost every pool at almost any time should you be able to find a spot for experiments/exercises that are targeting balance without crashing into people. To me it sounded a bit like you were going for swimming an entire length with your chin tucked down. But my point is: I believe that the majority of balance-learning can be done on an 8x3 foot area.

Others, please chime in, if you disagree, but my suggestion is:
Do not try to go faster for now. Rather take it slower and start (over) with floating experiments. Gotta get your legs up first, then stream-line your body and then swim again. I'm 100% confident that you are able to get you legs up (it might require some cheating that you can't maintain in real swimming, but you can slowly work down the "cheats", once you got 'em up).

Ok i had a play around with static balance at the pool last night for you guys, here is what i found:

1. You can do the full pro streamline arms above head squeezing ears super taught etc and then start holding & swimming from that position, but it requires alot of fitness core strength and flexibility, as well as a bit of an extreme evf near the surface.

2. Push off into a sort of deadman float but dont let the legs drop too low
the arms need to go into superman glide but at a depth of 4pm & 7pm if you imagine a clock face in front of you and 9pm 3pm is the surface.

This kept me floating horizontal on the surface feeling cold air on my butt but requires the tiniest impeceptible flutter kick to maintain, like just brushing your big toes together.

when swimming from this position i focussed on hitting the targets of 4pm and 7pm with every spear
which i recall Terry saying at a seminar he focuses on hitting the X/Y co-ordinates consistently every spear
this worked really well and seemed to lock me onto a rail gliding on my entire side, i got a "pull" from this like i was being magically pulled down the pool every time i locked into this groove by hitting the XY co-ordinate.

im going back tonight for more experimentation

So for those trying out static balance try putting the arms in front of shoulders and at a depth lower than your lungs, its about 4pm & 7pm on a clock face or 3-400mm below the surface

you can hang there all day with a slight brush of the big toes in the tiniest slow motion flutter kick.

[Grant]

2. Push off into a sort of deadman float but dont let the legs drop too low
the arms need to go into superman glide but at a depth of 4pm & 7pm if you imagine a clock face in front of you and 9pm 3pm is the surface.

Why do you Speer deeper on side than the other?

Originally Posted by Grant

2. Push off into a sort of deadman float but dont let the legs drop too low
the arms need to go into superman glide but at a depth of 4pm & 7pm if you imagine a clock face in front of you and 9pm 3pm is the surface.

Why do you Speer deeper on side than the other?

Oh yeah! I meant 4pm & 8pm my bad.

Here is Terry on XY co-ordinates:

http://www.totalimmersion.net/blog/t...estyle-part-5/

Here's a question, that I came across while reading the "starting over" thread:
Do muscular legs sink faster than "skinny" legs? Well, muscles are heavier than water and therefore, yes. The more mass of leg-muscels you have, the more downward force will be created.
However, even Peter Sagan's leg muscles probably don't exceed a total mass of 40 pounds (tell me, if you think, I'm wrong) and are probably less than 20 pounds heavier than the "skinniest" leg muscles you could think of.
With muscles being 6% heavier than water, that makes a downward force in the ballpark of 1 pound (difference over the "skinny" legs).
Now, the real world calculation is a hell lot more complex, because the leg muscles are distributed with the bigger muscles closer to the center of gravity. If anybody is in for a more accurate calculation, I'd be happy to discuss it. :-)
While 1 pound of difference does sound kinda significant to me, I'm having difficulties estimating the percentage of 1 pound against the overall downward force (mainly created by the bone mass). What do you guys think?
Body-fat might have a greater impact, as it is roughly 10% lighter than water. I recommend chicken wings and donuts. Lots of donuts.

Originally Posted by Mushroomfloat

Ok i had a play around with static balance at the pool last night for you guys, here is what i found:

1. You can do the full pro streamline arms above head squeezing ears super taught etc and then start holding & swimming from that position, but it requires alot of fitness core strength and flexibility, as well as a bit of an extreme evf near the surface.

2. Push off into a sort of deadman float but dont let the legs drop too low
the arms need to go into superman glide but at a depth of 4pm & 7pm if you imagine a clock face in front of you and 9pm 3pm is the surface.

This kept me floating horizontal on the surface feeling cold air on my butt but requires the tiniest impeceptible flutter kick to maintain, like just brushing your big toes together.

Nice! Mushroomfloat, you're confirming my experience with static balance experiments: I still believe that everybody is able to get their feet to the surface without moving, but it'll be far from energy-efficient. I haven't tried the full pro streamline, but I bet it works. I achieved it by "lifting" my arms from deadman float to the surface and a little tiny bit beyond the surface. Alternatively, I achieved the same by lifting my head above the water surface. Both isn't all that helpful when talking about actual energy-efficient swimming.
Much more energy-efficient is a relaxed position and a tiny little bit of footwork, which also confirms, that it doesn't take all that much to compensate the "remainder" of downward force of your legs, when you're already in a somewhat balanced position.

Others, don't get me wrong: I'm not arguing for simply accepting sinking legs. It was very helpful for me and I believe that everybody should once experience that it is possible to counterbalance the legs completely, in a static experiment. From there you should start trading compensational efforts. Find the sweet spot between "static" and "dynamic" sinking compensation.

My balance does seem to return to somewhat normal(for me) during my swimming stroke. All the information now (you tube videos) just make it look so easy to float in balance while static. I think I just got stuck on making sure I successfully completed every part of the balance, streamline and propulsion modules. I have moved onto stop-stop-switch drill and really working on improving my kick using snorkel and pencil position while kicking. I want to ingrain the feeling of propulsion during the underswitch drill as I believe this has always been part of my undoing. Feeling like my pulling arm is moving me forward rather than my spearing arm and hip rotation. It just seems like I have to kick much harder than a slow flutter kick in order to stay somewhat balanced.

Thank you for all the help on this forum. Greatly appreciated!!

swmcoach