How to Swim Faster Freestyle. . . with High Legs and Low Drag

This amusingly serious video explains the physics of why our legs sink while we swim and what muscle groups need to be engaged in order to swim horizontal to the surface of the water. The video also includes drills we can do to strengthen the muscles used to swim flat and gives hope to those who swim with lead in their legs.

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• fast
• faster
• freestyle
• swim
• swimming
• flat
• legs
• butt
• drag
• horizontal
• surface
• learn
• technique
• triathlon
• stroke
• tips
• how
• to
• thorpe
• phelps
• high
• elbow
• sinking
• floating

[jshaules]

Glad you now have the tools to swim with high legs now. You'll eventually be able to lightly tense the back muscles and, with a little leg tension, swim as flat as can be.

[jshaules]

Thanks! We had never found any intelligent instruction on how to remain horizontal to the surface of the water.

[sidrealtc]

lol this is great and your props are first class

[jshaules]

@sidrealtc  thanks

[FruitarianSwimster]

Wow! Awesome explanation! It's been a while since you last uploaded, was very excited to watch :)

[Andy3381000]

Thank you so much for this! It really helped !

[teazalamode]

Thank you for the epiphany!!! can't wait to get in the pool!

[TheJardov]

Excellent - and very entertaining too! wish I'd seen this a few years back when I started trying to swim 'properly'. I'd just about given up on getting my kick anywhere near decent but I think I know where I'm going wrong now and more importantly how to go about fixing it - many thanks.

[pandahaya]

great one, you stated the basic problem why people sink their lower body! gonna tell my friend what their problem are :-)

[josephshaules]

Cool to see how it's possible to lie flat on top of the water. It's helpful to have the illustration of the muscles that need to be used to accomplish this. Lots of fun to watch too!