Sinking Legs When Swimming Freestyle And How To Fix It

Fixing Sinking Legs When Swimming Freestyle

Do you find yourself with sinking legs when swimming freestyle? Dragging yourself in the water with your feet hanging down toward the bottom of the pool?

Wait... Get Your Lesson Plans Here

It's a very common thing for beginners to experience. However, the solution is just a matter of practice.

There are a number of reasons why you may find your legs dragging you down. But all of them can be fixed by:

• Improving the pull you have in the water by improving your stroke
• Improving your kicking
• Improving your breathing

The linked article above shows some great picture and a very short video that makes it easy to see the problem but it only talks about one of the solutions; improving your breathing. So let me talk about the solutions to the other two.

Improving Your Kick

I have said before that kicking does a lot more than just help move you in the water. In fact, you get most of your propulsion from your arms alone. For most people, swimmers like Ian Thorp with his big feet being the exception, your kick ads very little to your movement in the water. But it does do other things. One of those things it can do for most beginners, in particular, is to help raise your angle in the water.

That Sinking Legs Feeling

Now it has to be an efficient kick or it won't make any difference. The picture in the article gives a good example of a poor kick so you need to study up on how to kick.

Improving The Pull You Have In The Water By Improving Your Stroke

However, the very best way to improve your angle in the water is to improve the pull you have in the water by improving your stroke. Of course most beginners are still developing their stroke so basically what I'm saying here is, if you have good instruction and are persistent you should start to come up in the water by yourself over time.

It is true that your core strength is the biggest factor in keeping your body high in the water. But that takes time to develop. In the meantime beginners should work their stroke development, kicking and breathing.

Enjoy
   Richard