In 1989 Terry Laughlin, a US swim coach founded Total Immersion Swimming based on principles of balance, streamlining, core driven stroke, roll to air breath and 2 beat kick for esp for distance swimming. Total Immersion Swimming introduced to the swimming world the principles of body balance : head position, arm position below the head on a slight diagonal with a soft pitched hand as anchor, and no knee bend with a toe flick kick. It is impossible to kick your legs to the surface and it just makes you tired with little forward movement. No kick boards. No pool buoys. Often neglected is lower arm position entering fingers, knuckles, wrist elbow slightly steep and forward.
Question for you: I almost drowned several times in my life, starting when I was 4 or 5 years old. Therefore I have a lot of psychological difficulty in putting my head in the water to breathe properly and therefore swim with my head above water at all times, which obviously results in a very poor leg angle. I've tried several times to accustom myself to the breathing technique by standing in shallow water, put my head under, and try to breathe with the proper technique but I just can't get myself to stay under the water for longer than a few seconds before I have to fully raise my head. Any tips for overcoming this psychological barrier? I can't move forward with my technique until I overcome this as I can't even get myself to practice the technique….
4:22 if your arm enters the water too soon, your arm extension is contrary to the direction of motion of your body which is hindering forward displacement in water. This is very hard to achieve but entering the water further ahead like Mark will benefit your glide and catch
Hi GTN! Big fan of the channel…Got me into triatlon 2 years back… Its never ending story with me in relation to sinking legs. My ankles are terribly stiff and I cannot get that smooth kick into my stroke. I am either only dragging my legs or kicking as crazy which makes me more desprate for air/making me tired after few 100m… I do practice with fins where I do few beats kick and its super cool and comfy but once I get rid of the fins and my bs core shorts I immediately get slower and legs are getting down again, creating the drag… I went through all your tips, sitting on my ankles to make them more flexible every time I think of it. Is there some other super tip that can help?
Wow! Very impressive video! I had to work on all aspects that you covered to improve my leg positions in the water. BUT what made the biggest impact was a very simple observation from one of the women in the swim team that made me realized how much faster I was swimming with the pull buoy versus without it which meant that I was dragging a lot of water with my legs even when I was using my legs. I had to be video taped to see by myself how bad was bad and it was pretty bad. I am still working at it and any improvements on my leg positions translate to less work with my arms so it is a very worthwhile time spend just trying to float in horizontal position with minimum movement. Applying pressure with my upper body on the water and tucking in my abdomen is giving me good results. Proper body rotation and head position also made a big difference. I am a fairly slender runner with big lungs with short arms and feet so I really do not have the body of a natural swimmer but I enjoy swimming.😁😁😁
You two are great swimmers..but that scull drill example was awful. And the best way to swim with a pull buoy is with a snorkel and ankle band focusing on head position, body alignment, and tautness.
Difficult to understand. These drills, This language is for a seasoned swimmer. Check out: Tower 26 Jerry Rodrigues – it's worth it. More incremental breakdown for "triathlon" specific drills and focused swimming for the non-swimmer. (Tower 26)
I have noticed in this and other swimming videos (this and other youtube channels) that the swimmer holds breath until almost the next breath stroke (breath… hold… hold… hold… exhale-breath… hold…) but many tutorials say "start exhaling as soon as your head (nose-mouth) goes back into the water. Can you talk a little more about this? Is it for video purposes or is it the way you breath while swimming? @4:22 or @6:10
i disagree with parts of your explanations. buoyancy is a matter of volume and weight (Archimedes' principle) and not a matter of technique. you can only change your buoyancy through breathing. irrespective of your body position or swimming technique your legs will always sink while your upper body will always float (unless you exhale that is). what will keep your legs up is speed and/or kicking. or a wetsuit since it substantially increases volume without adding much weight. adjusting your head will improve streamlining thus enabling you to swim faster with the same effort. it is the water flow that will keep your legs up. you can have the most streamlined body position, if you don't move forward your legs will always sink.
Obvious related question you didn't address, how much does kickboard yards aid in strengthening the kick while swimming? I've definitely improved my kickboard speed and stamina by working on it, but I don't see it translate much to my regular swimming kick. Would kicking with a snorkel and no kickboard better simulate the real swimming pool position?
Aha! Forty+ years on, and it's my desire to not drown by keeping my head back (out) of the water that's causing this. Thanks GTN, I should probably get myself to adult learn-to-swim class because it's the one thing that was stopping me getting into Tri.
You forgot one of the most common reason for sinking legs – apart from looking too much forwards: Bend ankles. The feet acts as foils, and bending the ankles works like flaps on a wing – the bend feet will force the legs downwards. Just try and push off the wall and then shift between stretched and bend ankles. You will experience the difference immediately.
My legs seem to sink way too much as I complete my flip turn. Not sure if this is a result of picking my head up too soon (looking for that breath) or if something else is causing this. Any pointers??
Another very common problem (which stopped me from being interested in Triathlon) is not being able to figure out breathing. Do you have any video tips or drills to figure out how to learn continued swimming without feeling out of breath in the first 100m?
Have you experienced sinking legs and what have you done to try and fix it? Let us know!
Thanks for the video. I am a runner that would like to learn how to swim and do triathlons. I am hoping that this will be helpful!
The girl on the video need more practice high elboes under the water, with that she will have a better swimm perfomance.(sorry for my bad english)
Her mouth is always half open when under water. How does she get it out that mouthful of water?
I'm too scared to leave the shallow end and keep smashing my toes off the floor.
Only kidding, I'm actually under specific bail conditions not to enter public pools.
Nice video
In 1989 Terry Laughlin, a US swim coach founded Total Immersion Swimming based on principles of balance, streamlining, core driven stroke, roll to air breath and 2 beat kick for esp for distance swimming. Total Immersion Swimming introduced to the swimming world the principles of body balance : head position, arm position below the head on a slight diagonal with a soft pitched hand as anchor, and no knee bend with a toe flick kick. It is impossible to kick your legs to the surface and it just makes you tired with little forward movement. No kick boards. No pool buoys. Often neglected is lower arm position entering fingers, knuckles, wrist elbow slightly steep and forward.
I tried the pull buoy and always fell off, so I try now the floating belt
Question for you: I almost drowned several times in my life, starting when I was 4 or 5 years old. Therefore I have a lot of psychological difficulty in putting my head in the water to breathe properly and therefore swim with my head above water at all times, which obviously results in a very poor leg angle. I've tried several times to accustom myself to the breathing technique by standing in shallow water, put my head under, and try to breathe with the proper technique but I just can't get myself to stay under the water for longer than a few seconds before I have to fully raise my head. Any tips for overcoming this psychological barrier? I can't move forward with my technique until I overcome this as I can't even get myself to practice the technique….
4:22 if your arm enters the water too soon, your arm extension is contrary to the direction of motion of your body which is hindering forward displacement in water. This is very hard to achieve but entering the water further ahead like Mark will benefit your glide and catch
Please let me know your pink swimwear brand.
Whew Mark…ever thought about running outside without a shirt on? I think even the sun would think you're bright.
Mark, what is the benefit of those socks you're wearing?
Sees title
KICK
Hi GTN! Big fan of the channel…Got me into triatlon 2 years back… Its never ending story with me in relation to sinking legs. My ankles are terribly stiff and I cannot get that smooth kick into my stroke. I am either only dragging my legs or kicking as crazy which makes me more desprate for air/making me tired after few 100m… I do practice with fins where I do few beats kick and its super cool and comfy but once I get rid of the fins and my bs core shorts I immediately get slower and legs are getting down again, creating the drag… I went through all your tips, sitting on my ankles to make them more flexible every time I think of it. Is there some other super tip that can help?
Highly underrated channel wow
Wow! Very impressive video! I had to work on all aspects that you covered to improve my leg positions in the water. BUT what made the biggest impact was a very simple observation from one of the women in the swim team that made me realized how much faster I was swimming with the pull buoy versus without it which meant that I was dragging a lot of water with my legs even when I was using my legs. I had to be video taped to see by myself how bad was bad and it was pretty bad. I am still working at it and any improvements on my leg positions translate to less work with my arms so it is a very worthwhile time spend just trying to float in horizontal position with minimum movement. Applying pressure with my upper body on the water and tucking in my abdomen is giving me good results. Proper body rotation and head position also made a big difference. I am a fairly slender runner with big lungs with short arms and feet so I really do not have the body of a natural swimmer but I enjoy swimming.😁😁😁
Now, if you can find a way to get me through the panic attacks when I'm swimming. Or trying to "swim" would be good?
Jus wat i needed to see cause my legs always sink 😀 thx
You two are great swimmers..but that scull drill example was awful. And the best way to swim with a pull buoy is with a snorkel and ankle band focusing on head position, body alignment, and tautness.
None of these suggestions helped me.
… definitely consider some mid-size fins + pull-buoy combo too, as a good self-correcting method imo
Difficult to understand. These drills, This language is for a seasoned swimmer. Check out: Tower 26 Jerry Rodrigues – it's worth it. More incremental breakdown for "triathlon" specific drills and focused swimming for the non-swimmer. (Tower 26)
Make sure you have more fat than muscle in your legs is a good start.
just kick?
This video could have been like 10 seconds long.
"How to stop your legs from sinking"
Intro
"Kick them"
Video ends
Got to love Marks tan lines 👌
I have noticed in this and other swimming videos (this and other youtube channels) that the swimmer holds breath until almost the next breath stroke (breath… hold… hold… hold… exhale-breath… hold…) but many tutorials say "start exhaling as soon as your head (nose-mouth) goes back into the water. Can you talk a little more about this? Is it for video purposes or is it the way you breath while swimming? @4:22 or @6:10
i disagree with parts of your explanations. buoyancy is a matter of volume and weight (Archimedes' principle) and not a matter of technique. you can only change your buoyancy through breathing. irrespective of your body position or swimming technique your legs will always sink while your upper body will always float (unless you exhale that is). what will keep your legs up is speed and/or kicking. or a wetsuit since it substantially increases volume without adding much weight. adjusting your head will improve streamlining thus enabling you to swim faster with the same effort. it is the water flow that will keep your legs up. you can have the most streamlined body position, if you don't move forward your legs will always sink.
Obvious related question you didn't address, how much does kickboard yards aid in strengthening the kick while swimming? I've definitely improved my kickboard speed and stamina by working on it, but I don't see it translate much to my regular swimming kick. Would kicking with a snorkel and no kickboard better simulate the real swimming pool position?
Aha! Forty+ years on, and it's my desire to not drown by keeping my head back (out) of the water that's causing this. Thanks GTN, I should probably get myself to adult learn-to-swim class because it's the one thing that was stopping me getting into Tri.
You forgot one of the most common reason for sinking legs – apart from looking too much forwards: Bend ankles. The feet acts as foils, and bending the ankles works like flaps on a wing – the bend feet will force the legs downwards. Just try and push off the wall and then shift between stretched and bend ankles. You will experience the difference immediately.
My legs seem to sink way too much as I complete my flip turn. Not sure if this is a result of picking my head up too soon (looking for that breath) or if something else is causing this. Any pointers??
Marks tan lines haha
Tan = the dark Mark on Mark
Reggae beat in the water? Yeah Mon! GTN 'smoking' hot.
Nice tanlines Mark 👍
This is what makes swimming hell for me. 50 minutes for swimming 1500m. Basically squatting 150KG+ for reps is rather detrimental to swimming ability.
I'd highly recommend some swimming lessons though as it's so technique based that you really need someone else to help you fix up.
Another very common problem (which stopped me from being interested in Triathlon) is not being able to figure out breathing. Do you have any video tips or drills to figure out how to learn continued swimming without feeling out of breath in the first 100m?
That's definitely me. I'm much faster with just arms and pull-buoy (no kicks) than when swimming normally.
Where's the video of Mark competing in the Norseman??