Mark Threlfall: Here's a problem that here at GTN,
we know many of you guys struggle with in the pool.
Do you find yourself struggling to keep your body parallel to the surface of the water or perhaps,
you find yourself frantically kicking your legs to keep your body and your legs afloat, or maybe,
as my coach used to joke, you are sweeping the bottom of the swimming pool with your legs?
If so, well, unfortunately, it may be a case of the dreaded sinking leg syndrome. How do you fix
it? Well, you just pop a pool boy in between your legs, of course. No, not quite. Here today, I'm
going to explain why your legs and your hips may be sinking in the pool and how you can fix that.
[music] Now, I just joked about using one of these, it is
a pool boy. Essentially, a bit of foam that traps air and they pop that between your legs
and that helps to keep your hips and your legs afloat. You can also resort to using a wetsuit,
that works in a similar way. Its neoprene traps air in there and that helps to keep your hips,
legs, and your whole body afloat. You can also get shortened down versions, this buoyancy shorts
which also a lot of swimming pools and clubs actually allow you to wear in the pool. Now,
there is a time and a place for these. These are fantastic bits of kit. However,
they shouldn't constantly be used to just mask the issue. In fact,
we should be looking at the reasons why your hips and legs are sinking before we lean on these.
The first reason that you might be finding that your hips and
your legs are sinking is due to a weak or unstable core. If you think of your hips,
almost like a hinge or a pivot point for your body, having a good, solid core will help to
support the weight of your legs a lot better and keep them closer to the surface of the water. Now,
when we're talking about a core, we're not just simply meaning our abs. We're talking
about everything for our mid-thigh area up to our chest. That includes even our back and our sides.
Now, if you would like some ideas and some exercises to follow, we've actually got a video on
that already. I'll throw that in the description, just down below, and then you can start including
them into your weekly routine and hopefully, start seeing some improvements in the pool.
[music] Our next consideration is our breathing,
and this is kind of twofold. Firstly, we've got the fact that a lot of people hold their breath
when they're swimming. Therefore, we've got a lot more air in our lungs and that, therefore,
makes our chest more buoyant. If you imagine it, your chest starts raising in the water,
your legs start sinking a little bit like a seesaw. Ideally, you just want to
slowly trickle your breath out as soon as you're taking a breath and your head reenters the water.
The other reason is basically how we breathe. A lot of people actually raise their head
too far out of the water when they breathe or they look right up at the ceiling or the sky,
if you're lucky enough to swim open water. What we want to do here actually is when
you're taking a breath, it's almost just looking straight to the sides of the pool on either side,
so onto the wall. I often describe it as just one eye in the water, one eye out.
To help us, you can also include some rotation into your stroke. It's quite advanced, but there
is a video we have on our channel already for that. You find it in description just down below,
but a simple drill you can do just to help this head position when you're taking breaths is
three swim, six kicks. You're taking three strokes, and then on that third stroke,
you lie out on your side, really focus on that head position in the water, and then continue into
another three strokes before doing six kicks. music]
Okay, following on with this head position, just how we hold our head
generally when we're swimming, regardless of breathing is also really important. If we use
that seesaw analogy again, if we lift our head too high in the water whilst we're swimming along,
our legs will sink, but equally, if we bury our head down into the water so it's going to cause
quite a big drag effect from our head and even our shoulders from a plow through the water.
We want to find that happy medium between the two. Personally, I find that if I look directly
down towards the bottom of the pool, if I bury my head too much into the water,
and then look forward about a meter or two, that's just about right for me.
Obviously, it is very personal so I suggest going and trying out for yourself and finding
what works for you. [music]
Okay, obviously, we can't talk about sinking hips or legs without talking about our leg kick. Now,
if you're doing any sort of long-distance endurance swimming, anything sort of over 400
meters or you're a triathlete, we're obviously in the game of energy preservation. A strong
six-peak leg kick isn't really what we're after. Ideally, we're after a two to four-beat leg kick,
also described as a flutter kick, is enough to give us a little bit propulsion, bit of balance
to our stroke, but also is going to help keep our legs afloat. Now, in terms of the actual technique
and the action, ideally, we want it to be coming from the hips rather than from the knees.
Obviously, there's going to be a slight flex in the knee, but most of the drive is coming
from our hips. That's going to go all the way down through to our ankles, which is another issue that
a lot of people struggle with in terms of their techniques. They have quite stiff ankles. They
struggled to get that flick off through into their feet. If this is you and also maybe struggling
with coming from the hips, I would actually really recommend using some small fins like
this and just doing maybe a handful of lengths with a short break between each of the lengths.
[music] Finally,
the front end of the stroke could also have a dramatic impact on the back end of the stroke,
on our hips and legs sinking. If you think about that hinge point, that pivot point around our
hips, if we're able to apply good pressure and get a good capture, the front of the stroke,
that's therefore going to allow our legs and hips to raise as we apply that pressure.
If we have a weak catch or our elbow drops through that catch phase, our legs and our hips are going
to start sinking. Now, I'd actually say that a majority of people out there could do with
working on their catch. It's one of the hardest things to master. Actually, a really good drill
for this is called the front skull. If you keep your legs relatively still behind you, maybe pop
a poor boy in, extend your arms out in front of you and almost drawing like a figure of a action
with your hands and trying to slowly propel yourself through the water. It's just going to
get you used to applying pressure at the front of the stroke just below the surface of the water.
Another really good drill is the doggy powder drill, where we're doing the arm action underneath
the water, removing that recovery phase, and just allows us to slow the stroke down and really focus
on getting that catch. [music]
Well, if you are someone that struggles with sinking legs, then do let me know how you get
on in the comment section down below, or perhaps maybe share this video with or tag
one of your friends that you know is constantly reaching for that pool boy or buoyancy shorts.
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