High Engaged Hips Drive Propulsion in Triathlon Swim - Louis Tharp

West Point swim coach, Louis Tharp, works with grad to improve his tri swim. This drill focuses on perfect balance and using hips for propulsion. Watch Joe as he uses his hips to glide through this drill at at 1:18 per hundred yard pace. Before he started training with Louis Tharp his race pace was closer to 1:45. Now his drills are at race speed for most triathletes. Notice that he is not working hard. He is very relaxed and even takes time to check his balance off the wall by going into a hand-lead drill. One common misconception is that because a wetsuit provides buoyancy which raises hips and reduces drag, everything is fine and the swimmer can focus on pulling through the stroke. Actually, just having high hips which reduce drag is not enough. A swimmer has to engage those large muscles to drive propulsion. Most triathlete swimmers have no idea how to do this, but it is a very learnable skill.
Go to Louis Tharp's swim blog http://www.totalimmersion.net/blog/blogger/Louis%20Tharp/

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Sports

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• Louis Tharp
• swim
• swimming
• coach
• triathlon
• freestyle
• crawl
• tri
• triathlete
• open water
• total immersion