Aquatic Posture and Balance

Human beings have evolved to function effectively on land in an upright position. Early in childhood, you learned land-based posture and balance that you have subsequently used throughout your life. The posture and balance that serve you well on land, however, do not serve you nearly as well in the water. You understand that balance is essential on land—you simply never choose to do anything on land without first getting balanced. Yet most swimmers swim with poor posture and balance, because the skills needed for good posture and balance in the aquatic environment are neither instinctive nor intuitive. In the water, just as on land, poor posture and poor balance will prevent you from correctly performing other swimming skills. This section teaches you what effective aquatic posture and balance are and how to achieve them.

Posture

 

I liken a swimming human being to a kayak. A kayak is an efficient design for an aquatic vessel. It takes little effort to make it move forward, and once it is moving, it wants to keep moving. Now imagine cutting that kayak into three pieces—front, center, and rear—then tying them back together loosely with bungee cords. It is clear that you’d have a much less effective kayak—less stable, tougher to paddle, and positively impossible to maneuver.

A swimming human being is also an aquatic vessel. In learning to shape and control that vessel, a swimmer must focus on three bodily sections—the head, thorax, and hips. Without good posture, each of these sections will move somewhat independently of the others, despite the structures and tissues—the spinal column, muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia—connecting them, somewhat like a three-piece, bungee-connected kayak. But when the three sections are drawn into a straight and tightly connected line, the human body behaves more like a solid kayak.

You can get a feel for good aquatic posture by standing with your back against a wall. If your hair is bunched at the back of your head (a bun, a ponytail, or just a tangle of hair stuffed into your swim cap), first let it down. Place your heels a few inches away from the wall. Your butt, shoulder blades, and head should touch the wall. When you are relaxed, your lumbar spine forms an arch (the small of your back), which does not touch the wall (figure 4.2a). Now decrease or eliminate this arch by contracting your lower abdominal muscles to draw your navel toward your spine. This will tilt your pelvis, as if tucking your tail under. You want to do this entirely with abdominal muscles without involving your gluteal muscles. Then use your upper abdominal muscles to tuck in your lower ribs (figure 4.2b). While holding this abdominal tension, tuck your chin in a bit and try to bring the back of your neck closer to the wall. This should lengthen your neckline, pushing the top of your head a bit higher. The idea is to align your three sections (head, thorax, and hips) in a tight line from the floor of your pelvis, up your spine, and through the top of your head (figure 4.2c).

Your body parts are now organized so that you are taller than you have been in a long time. Note what muscles you are using to hold this tight, straight, tall position, and resist the urge to schlump back down to normal height. While continuing to hold this posture, step away from the wall and try walking around, maintaining your full height. Experiment with breathing fully. Experiment with first extending one, then both arms overhead. Experiment with turning your head as far as possible to each side without letting the crown of your head move off your spine line. At first, you will find that keeping your body parts organized in a tight line while walking and breathing is a complex task, but keep practicing—it will get easier. Learning to properly organize your three sections in the water and to maintain that posture as you swim at various intensities also takes time. Luckily, acquiring and keeping a tight line is one of the few aquatic skills you can practice effectively on land. In addition, Pilates training can greatly enhance your understanding of how to effectively link your core and extremities, and it can help you strengthen and condition the muscles that maintain excellent posture while swimming.

 

Figure 4.2 The tight line of a well-organized swimming posture creates a far more effective aquatic vessel than the disorganized, relaxed line of a schlumpy swimming posture. (a) Schlumpy posture with body sections out of alignment,(b) good land-based posture with body sections somewhat aligned, (c)well-organized, aquatic tight-line posture with all three body sections fully aligned.

 

 

FOCUS POINT ➤ Tight Line

 

Throughout this book, we’ll keep reinforcing the fact that swimming tall with a tight line, rather than swimming schlumpy, allows you to slip faster and farther through the water with less energy. And the muscular tension used to keep your line tight will allow your balancing and propelling mechanisms to work together (rather than against each other, as they will when you allow yourself to revert to a schlumpy posture).

 

Balance

 

Aquatic balance is dependent on aquatic posture. In general, a balanced position for the freestyle stroke is one in which the head, thorax, hips, and legs are all in one line, parallel to the surface of the water. This position allows for minimal frontal resistance, the strongest of the resistance forces a swimmer encounters.

Many swimmers understand the need to have their whole body parallel to the surface, but they go about it the wrong way—by using a strong kick to lift the hips and legs up to the surface. Kicking uses a tremendous amount of energy. Great swimmers use a different approach that requires much less energy to achieve and maintain this balanced position. It starts with maintaining a tight line of good aquatic posture but adds keeping the head in line and pressing the buoy (chest).

Your head, weighing 10 pounds or so, and its position have a great influence on the balance of your body in the water. The crown of your head needs to be in line with your spine, and your nose needs to be pointed straight toward the bottom of the pool when not breathing (figure 4.3a). Lifting or tilting your head off this line puts a large downward force on your hips, causing them to sink (figure 4.3b). (You can easily feel this by lying facedown on the ground, hands at your sides, and lifting your head up off the ground. You will feel your hips press toward the ground.) If your posture is organized tall, your head will be in the right position. But the instinct to lift your head to look forward will remain strong until you have developed an even stronger habit of keeping the crown of your head on your spine line. When balanced, whether on your belly, side, or back, only about one-quarter to one-third of your head will be exposed above the surface. The rest will be under water.

 

 

Figure 4.3 Aquatic balance, dotted line depicting the spine line. (a) Keeping the crown of your head in line with your spine will help you stay balanced.(b)Lifting your head off the spine line, even a little bit, will immediately and dramatically drive your hips toward the bottom of the pool, destroying balance.

 

Pressing your buoy will also help keep you balanced. Your lungs are a buoy that tends to float the upper body. By contrast, your center of mass, which is located near your navel, tends to sink your hips and legs (figure 4.4a). Imagine a kickboard placed on the water’s surface. If you press one end of the kickboard toward the bottom, the other end rises. Similarly, if you are holding a tight line, then leaning on your buoy to press it toward the bottom raises the hips (figure 4.4b). The greater the force you lean on your buoy with, the greater the buoyant force the water exerts in response. The muscular tension used to hold a tight line transmits the buoyant forces from your buoy to all other points along your spine line. As you press your buoy, you should feel your entire body tilting slightly downhill, fully supported by the water.

 

 

Figure 4.4 Pressing the buoy. (a) Even if your posture is good, without sufficient buoy pressure, your body’s center of gravity will sink below the surface, taking your legs with it. (b)Leaning on your buoy (chest) will raise your hips and legs toward the surface.

 

FOCUS POINT ➤ Buoy Pressure

 

As you practice the drills and swim the workouts in this book, you always should seek to have enough buoy pressure to be completely supported by the water. If there is too little buoy pressure, you will be forced to work with either your arms or legs for artificial support.