Welcome to whiteboard Wednesday and on today's episode we're gonna answer the most common
question that we get from swimmers around the world which is how do I swim faster and we're
gonna answer it in this video there's only two ways that you can swim faster either you decrease
drag or you increase propulsion there's only two ways there's no other way everything that you
could think of the swim faster falls under one of these two categories and in this video we're
gonna talk about them let's start with decreasing drag what is drag drag is the resistance that your
body feels in the water remember water is 800 times more dense than air so you really feel all
of that resistance so actually the easiest way to swim faster is to decrease the thing that's
slowing you down which is drag so how can you do that how do we actually how do we actually
execute on this decreasing drag comes down to body position in your body position is the way
that your body sits places floats if you will in the water and that's controlled by only two things
it's controlled by your head position the way your head is positioned as you flow on your front or on
your back any of the strokes your head position which ties into your hip position so where is
your butt where are your legs are they sinking or are they high in the water and in fact you
can actually control your body position mostly with what you do with your head so if you look
at our diagram right here you see our swimmers and most of his head is actually out of the water and
as a result the legs are sinking so his legs call this guy Bob Bob's legs are sinking really deep
in the water how can we fix that by dropping the head so that the eyes are looking at the
bottom of the pool only about 10 to 20 percent of the calf the top of the head should be out of the
water so let's redraw it and see what happens so we're gonna redraw the head we're only about 20%
is above the water and what's gonna happen is the legs are gonna start to lift so the
legs are gonna go up because the eyes are looking down and because the eyes are looking down you're
automatically going change the hip position and as a result you're gonna have less drag because
this distance and the space that you occupy in the water is going to decrease you go from one
meter down to half a meter and these are just example members but you can see by dropping your
head position and lifting up your hips raising your hips in the water you can decrease all of
this drag your legs you're just dragging in the water there's a lot of tools probably different
things you can do to improve that but really it's the easiest to just lower your head lift up your
hips and that'll make you some a lot faster second to that is rotation right so when your hand hits
the water extending and really a longer stroke and rotating with your hips and your shoulders
rotation is the hip and shoulder function and that rotation will allow you to get on your side and
occupy less space less volume similar to this on the lateral plane rather than the vertical which
is what we're talking about with head position the right so rotation can actually decrease the
drag because your body's gonna be narrower through the water kind of like a speedboat and you'll go a
lot faster right now how do you decrease drag with your kick your kick you might think it's
propulsion that's what's making you go faster but in fact if you look at our diagram down here the
kick can actually be too big and your kick your feet will actually increase your drag more than
the propulsion it's a balance increased drag decrease propulsion right so you want to have
rather than decreasing your propulsion you want to increase it but just enough so that it's not
making you slower so if you look at Bob's legs right here his legs are way way too big right
we want to make his kick a lot smaller like that right so we want his kick to occupy less space
so that he's getting the benefit of propulsion but the kick needs to be short and it needs to
be fast right now how do you how do you increase your propulsion rather than decreasing drag let's
talk about it so this is really talking about the catch right the catch is the way you're actually
pulling water right now I could just say go to the gym go to the weight room get stronger swim
a lot more that will increase your strength but that takes a lot of time it's actually way easier
to just decrease your drag right focus on your head rotation some of these things you can have
any immediate impact in how fast you're swimming because just by changing your head position you're
gonna change your body position and remember water is 800 times more dense than air but you
want to increase propulsion I understand let's talk about it so the catch starts with the entry
okay and let's go back to Bob let's look at his hand entry in this diagram he's gonna enter at
a 45 degree angle to the water right 45 degrees right in front of the shoulder about 18 inches
30 centimeters right in front of the shoulder it's different based on how tall you are in
your strength level step one is you need to extend right so if you look at this hasn't initiated any
pull you want the arm directly at the level of the water just a few centimeters underneath the water
step two is to initiate the early vertical forearm EVF early that means the forearm right here is
starting to engage with the water and it's not just pulling with your hand you're pulling with
your forearm step three is to continue that early vertical forearm and continue pulling water behind
you if you have a flat arm pull you're actually pushing the water down you want to pull the water
behind you every step of the pull step one you start with the fingertips you initiate the early
vertical forearm and then you're gonna continue pulling yourself forward pushing the water behind
you and that continues all the way through you want to maintain that forearm vertical as long
as possible and even at the finish of the stroke when you're armed your forearm is starting to go
back up towards the sky you want to maintain your hand to continue pulling yourself for
it and pushing the water behind you so those are the steps of how you do the catch and that's the
pretty much primary way of how you can increase propulsion it's really talking about obviously
your cake you can kick faster harder make that more efficient point your toes all that good stuff
but that's increasing propulsion now the best way to apply all of these once you've improved your
technique you're decreasing your drag that's the easiest way you increase your propulsion you're
getting stronger in the water at the end of the day if you want to swim faster you have to train
fast right it's it sounds easy right easier said than done but there's a common quote if you want
a swim faster you have to train faster you can't just expect the perfect technique and get stronger
and then you're gonna swim faster if you want to swim faster you'd have to train faster how do
you train faster it's a simple process address to whatever that you're doing give yourself more rest
so that you can have shorter reps so that you swim faster with good technique and actually you know
what it's not good technique it's great technique you have to swim with great technique if you don't
swim with great technique all the time especially when you're going fast it's not gonna happen so
address swim shorter repetitions swim fast with great outstanding technique and then make sure
you repeat that process on a consistent basis and that is how you will swim faster finally I want
to add a point about silent swimming you need to train with more than just your feel multiple
senses actually listen to the noise that you make when you swim right the easiest way to decrease
drag when it comes to the way your hand enters the water any other splashing inefficiencies you
have is to actually listen and use all of your senses to become more engaged with your total
body in the water it's not just listening to the noise that you're that you make when you swim but
it's smelling the chlorine right tasting it in your mouth don't drink it don't drink it tasting
it in your mouth right see be aware of what is around you in your in your environment before
you push off the wall and most importantly feel right so silence swimming is a combination of all
the senses starting with the ears listening to the noise that you make and you want to eliminate all
the noise a quiet swimmer is a fast swimmer so that was whiteboard Wednesday how you can swim
faster than ever before there's only two ways either decrease drag or increased propulsion
decreasing drag is ten times more efficient than anything you can do to increase your propulsion
because it's something that you can do immediately and it starts with your body position if you have
any more questions leave them in the comments make sure to follow us on all of our social media that
was whiteboard Wednesday how you can swim faster wishing you all the best and happy swimming bye