In order to achieve ultra-efficient propulsion in swimming, it's crucial to focus on core power and whole-body swimming. By utilizing natural forces and fatigue-resistant muscles, swimmers can conserve energy and avoid muscle soreness. This article discusses how core power works, the benefits of whole-body swimming, and provides some practical exercises for core awareness.
Core Power and Whole-Body Swimming
Experts in human movement suggest that all movement should originate from the center of mass, which is located just below the navel. This is the point around which the body balances and rotates. To swim ultra-efficiently, use your entire body instead of just your arms and legs.
Advantages of Whole-Body Swimming
By swimming with your entire body, you can conserve energy and avoid muscle soreness in three ways:
- Access "free" power from the interaction of your body mass with gravity and buoyancy.
- Transfer most of the muscles' workload from fatigue-prone arm and leg muscles to fatigue-resistant core muscles.
- Apply power with precision, using your entire body to propel yourself through the water efficiently.
Focal Points for Core-Powered Propulsion
Two focal points can help direct attention to your core first before focusing on how you use your arms and legs:
- Use energy from the "high" side: Hold your place with your stroking hand while driving the high hip to move past your grip.
- Swim from the inside out: To increase power and tempo, move your core more energetically and briskly, allowing power and rhythm to flow to your arms and legs from your core.
Core Awareness Exercises
Perform the following exercises as a series of 8 or more 25m freestyle repeats to familiarize yourself with the sensations of swimming from your core:
- Count strokes: Count hand entries on odd lengths and hip rotations on even lengths.
- Vary energy: Nudge your high hip lightly on odd lengths and add more energy to hip drive on even lengths.
- Vary tempo: Rotate your hips at a deliberate tempo on odd lengths and at a slightly brisker tempo on even lengths.
- Watch and listen: Observe bubbles in your stroke and listen to the sounds you make when varying hip energy or tempo.
Final Thoughts
- Body control is crucial. Recovery and breathing can undermine your propulsive efforts by destabilizing your core.
- Propulsion is a continuous process of improvement. Focus on enhancing armstroke and kick to achieve better results.
- Connect with established skills and habits. Strengthen balance, stability, and streamline skills to master more advanced techniques.
Remember, if you find yourself working too hard for too little speed or improvement stalls, recheck balance, stability, and streamline. You can never go wrong by doing so.
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