A Comment On Balance In The Water For Effortless Front Quadrant Swimming

Hi folks, welcome!

See narrative, and click image for link to movie.

In response to a recent blog post, a couple of people said that easy swimming might be effortless for me, but it isn’t for them. I suspect that they are fighting the water due to poor balance.

The key to ‘effortless’ swimming is to fall forward, with the fulcrum or point around which you fall being the air in your lungs. I’ve spent hundreds of hours practicing my balance in the water to eliminate unnecessary wastage of energy, and one trick is front quadrant swimming, which I am yet to perfect.

Floating on your stomach, whilst refraining from kicking is a great swim balance drill.

You can see from the image above, which is linked to the associated video, that Rick (left) has both arms above his shoulders for a brief moment, whereas I do not quite achieve this. Having both arms in front of your shoulders, the front quadrant, creates a downward force in front of the fulcrum of your lungs, which will pull your hips and legs up, towards the surface of the water. This results in a higher position in the water and better streamlining. The best exercise to get the feel of this position is floating face down with your arms above your head, trying to fall forward. This will cause your hips to rise and if you’re lucky your heels will break the surface of the water with no effort from you.

Try it! You’ll see, and then easy swimming could become effortless for you too.

-k @FitOldDog