Here, Brent and I discuss the proper head position in freestyle swimming for triathlon. If you don’t get your head position right, it will be tough to develop an efficient freestyle.
Transcript:
Hi Guys, it’s Kevin Koskella of Triswimcoach.com and I’m going to be doing a series of videos with Coach Brenton Ford of Effortlessswimming.com and we’re going to be tackling the most common issues in swimming and mostly how it relates to triathlon. So we’ve taken a lot of questions from various people from both of our coaching experiences and compiled them into a series of videos. So stay tuned and feel free to stop by triswimcoach.com.
What’s the ideal head position – freestyle?
Kevin: The ideal head position. That’s a pretty common one and that’s an important one too because wherever your head goes, that’s where your body tends to go so one of the problems I see a lot with swimmers is they will move their head around a lot when they are swimming because they are trying to do the hip rotation which is good, but then their head goes with it and their head is going back and forth as they’re rotating. Ideally you want to be looking down at the bottom of the pool and for a while, like back in the 70s and 80s and when I grew up swimming it was you look up to face forward of where you are going, but then it turns out that moving you chin down and looking down at the bottom is a faster and more efficient way to swim. But sometimes people go a little bit tofar and they actually tuck their chin in and then their head is dragging and they’re creating a lot of drag. Ideally you want it somewhere in between and that’s where it becomes an individual call. Looking down at the bottom is good. You could look a little bit up, but you don’t want to look straight up or pull your chin in.
Brenton: I agree with that. I see a lot of swimmers looking to far forward. That’s usually the most common problem that I see with head position, so if you’re looking down to the bottom or slightly forward, that’s usually the best to get your hips up, your legs up and glide through the water a lot easier. Just check where your head position is, but it usually should be looking straight down and you want the top part of your head to be out of the water so the back of your head should be above the water. You don’t want your whole head under the water because then you have a lot of resistance while you’re swimming, so usually straight down or a little bit forward is what I like to teach my guys. It makes a big difference too because that’s the first thing I usually start with with swimmers is head position. Where are they looking and then that plays a part in what their body is doing. And like you said, where you are looking or where your head is is going to direct the rest of your body. If it’s moving with each stroke then you are going to snake through the water.
Kevin: Yeah, exactly. Especially with triathlon because you want to conserve that energy and if your head is a little up or to far down you are going to be wasting a lot of energy and then even if you are doing a mile swim, or even like a 500 meter swim coming up or something, that’s going to come back to hurt you later on in the race because you used up tons of energy just keeping you up on the surface of the water.
Kevin: Yeah, exactly. Especially with triathlon because you want to conserve that energy and if your head is a little up or to far down you are going to be wasting a lot of energy and then even if you are doing a mile swim, or even like a 500 meter swim coming up or something, that’s going to come back to hurt you later on in the race because you used up tons of energy just keeping you up on the surface of the water.
