When thinking about core stability we tend to think about the abdominals, lower back and hip region of the body. This area of the body was the subject of the core stability boom across the sports world in the mid to late 1990s. In swimming terms we would call this the ‘lower core’ and like in many sports, it plays an important role in the pool as we’ll investigate in this chapter. However, the ‘upper core’ – a swimmer’s thoracic spine, their shoulder and scapular region – is thought about much less often but is arguably even more important for good swimming technique.
When we swim we enter the water and extend forwards, the lead hand being controlled by the shoulder, chest and scapular region muscle groups. If your chest muscles are short and the muscles between your scapulae overstretched, then this tends to draw the lead arm across the centre line of the body causing a crossover in front of the head.
The solution to a crossover is not to think about taking the arm wider. It is commonly said that you should be aiming for your hands to enter at ‘10 o’clock and 2 o’clock’ in order to correct a crossover,
the theory being that thinking about going wider will result in you becoming straighter. All this would do though is reduce your body rotation and cause you to swim flatter in the water and over time your arms will have a tendency to move wider and wider!
Instead of this, the solution to a crossover is to improve your posture by drawing your shoulder blades together and back. We can see in Figure 10.6 how this draws the lead arm straight and also promotes good body rotation. Try this yourself in a standing position.
If you have a crossover in your stroke or you lack body rotation then it’s very likely that you need to work on your swimming posture in this way. Improving your posture will also increase the length of your stroke as it helps you extend forward much straighter, this is of direct benefit to your swimming efficiency. We will take a good look at some exercises and drills in this section to help you tune in to this part of your stroke and we’ll recommend some simple stretches to help loosen off your chest and shoulders in Chapter 29.
10.1 Transferring Power from Your Rotation to Your Arm Stroke
Hopefully you can see how your upper core helps connect your arm stroke to your body. Swimming with good posture forms a strong connection between the two and lets you utilise the larger muscle groups of the chest and upper back to help drive the arm stroke. Swimming with poor posture tends to overload the weaker shoulder muscle groups, which will quickly fatigue. Having a stable upper core, combined with a good catch and rotation technique will really help you to generate some controlled power in the stroke.
10.2 Developing Better Posture in the Pool
At Swim Smooth we like to use drills that involve kicking on your side to improve your posture. Many swimmers have performed similar drills before but normally think of them as rotational drills or something to improve their leg kick. However, the focus here is less about your rotation and more about your posture.
Start off by performing the
Kick On Side Drill described in Appendix A. Use a pair of fins (flippers) and kick gently to propel you down the pool, extending the lower arm out in front of you. Notice how aligned or otherwise your lead hand is, does it cross the centre line? This is a clear indication of what is happening with that arm in your full freestyle stroke too. Do you find you drift across the lane in the direction of the crossover? Think about bringing this arm straight by drawing your shoulder blades together and down. You should track much straighter when you get this right.
Perform the drill looking straight down past your armpit exhaling in a long stream of bubbles. When you need a breath, rotate your head to the side and then return it to the water again. Keep your lead arm perfectly straight while you breathe and do not let it drop down in the water. The other arm should remain relaxed by your side as though your hand was in the front pocket of a pair of jeans.
After 25m swap onto the other side. Repeat the exercise here, working on drawing your arm straight in front of you. It’s well worthwhile performing these exercises with a coach or friend watching you from the pool deck to give you feedback on your alignment.
This
Kick On Side Drill makes you aware of the alignment of your lead hand when you swim and it helps you tune into developing a better swimming posture. When you feel you have got the hang of this you can progress to the 6-1-6 and 6-3-6 drills.
The
6-1-6 Drill involves kicking on your side again for around six kicks. Then perform one arm stroke to swap sides and kick on that side for six further kicks before swapping back again. This is a more challenging drill because you have got to maintain your posture during an arm stroke. Watch that you don’t crossover as you enter into the water and then straighten it up, you’re aiming to enter straight in the first place! Again, feedback from an observer is very useful here.
The
6-3-6 Drill is slightly harder again and involves taking three full arm strokes between side kicking. You should start to feel the power coming into your stroke now as your improved posture
helps drive the stroke.
Once you’ve tried the side kicking exercises perform some fullstroke swimming using the Middle Finger Visualisation described in Chapter 12. Focus on entering into the water and extending your middle finger gun-barrel straight down the pool in front of the same shoulder. If you own a pair of the excellent Finis Freestyler Paddles (see Chapter 3) you can also perform some swimming using them. These have a keel on the bottom of the paddle, which gives you kinaesthetic feedback on how straight you are in the water – crossover and you’ll feel them trying to spin off to that side!
10.3 Other Posture Drills
The
Broken Arrow Drill described in Appendix A is ideal for swimmers with tight shoulders and upper backs. The drill has a similar timing to 6-1-6 but the recovering arm is taken vertically and paused there for a second. The elbow is then bent to at least 90° before the hand spears into the water. To perfect the drill, as the arm reaches the vertical position consciously relax the shoulder and feel it sink back down into its socket. This will help you loosen off your upper back and shoulder muscles ready for moving back to full-stroke swimming.
10.4 Lower Core Stability
The ‘lower core’ of your hips, lower back and abdominal area is important in swimming to keep you straight in the water and to help rotate your hips and shoulders together as one. Good core control during swimming has a slightly different feel to it compared to other sports, which can cause some confusion.
The key to developing your lower core control is to feel a stretch between your pelvis and rib cage as you swim. In a sense you are trying to separate out the two as much as possible, raising the chest away from the hips. If you try this you will feel your posture improve at the same time as your chest is pushed out and your shoulders come back – great! Warning: avoid holding your breath when you do this.
If you suffer from low-lying legs in the water the first benefit you may notice from improving your core control is that your legs are lifted higher so you slip through the water more easily. That’s a great sign that you’ve made a substantial improvement to your stroke!
At Swim Smooth we use several visualisations to help you use your lower core in the right way:
As essential as good lower core control is to your stroke technique, we can easily forget about it when we swim. An excellent way to remind yourself is to use a good torpedo push-off (also known as a streamline) at the beginning of every length which involves stretching through your core. Doing this will improve the connection between your upper and lower body at the beginning of every length and help remind you to keep that connection and feeling of stretch in place for the whole lap.
10.5 Dry Land Core Conditioning
Most swimmers and triathletes have enough core strength to swim very well, it’s more a matter of coordinating and engaging the core muscles in the right way. Unless you have very poor core strength indeed it’s not normally necessary to add in additional gym classes to your training routine. Saying that, a strong core has many benefits on dry land so we wouldn’t discourage you from a good pilates or yoga class either! Time availability will always be the limiting factor for most non-professional swimmers, so the more specifically you can introduce good core control into your normal swim sessions the better.
For more information on dry-land conditioning that you can adopt within your programme in a time efficient way, see Chapters 29 and 30.
