The most sacred cow

(AndresMuro) said:

What happens when you arch your back is that both the torso and the legs are lifted making the
upper body and lower body ride higher in the water.

OK, but since buoyancy remains constant, when something raises, something else sinks. With TI's
'pressing the buoy', you submerge your head a lot and your chest a little which raises your legs a
lot. With Larry's idea, you arch the back, raise the head a lot and submerge the stomach a lot which
raises the legs either a little or a lot depending on how elite you are. Kicking raises the legs
even farther. So do pull floats.

Quoted message said:

In addition, as you swim, the water also produces lift. Just like in an airplane, or when you drive
and you stick your hand out the window and the air pushes it up.

Hmmm, sounds like hydroplaning. Humans don't swim fast enough to hydroplane.

Quoted message said:

If, while your torso is being lifted by the arch of your back and by the water raising it, you
lower your head into the water, you will create more resistance.

Why would your head create more resistance than your shoulders and chest?

Quoted message said:

So, in essence, it is true that as you arch your back, you lift your torso higher and the head goes
with it. Also, the water hitting your chest will further raise your torso. The faster you go, the
faster it'll go up just like a motor boat.

Well, that is hydroplaning.

Donal Fagan AIA Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com (Anglicise the name to reply by e-mail)

Hi Donald, my response to this discussion have been based on my analysis of what I do when swimming
and when I observe others, and not on empirical research. However, it is what I have observed and
felt. When I sprint, I feel my body riding higher in the water than when I do distance. By
increasing my pull and my kick I get I feeling of lift. When I look at other swimers, same thing.
Sprinters seem to ride higher in the water than in longer distances.

Physically, this makes sense, and I am not a phyisicist. There are two forces coming in contact with
each other. One is the swimmer, the other the water. As these two collide, the swimmer displaces
water some goes to the sides, and some goes below the swimmer, causing some lift. It is not hughely
significant, but significant enough that lowering the head will increase resistance.

This hypothesis has been tried in breathstroke. To increase speed, and reduce resistance, sprinters
are asked to do the arm recovery above the water and do a little dive, where they break the
resistance of the water with their hands for the head to follow. Also, when you are trying to swim
with the head completely above the water, swimmers increase stroke and kick rate, to increase lift.
this allows them to sight momentarily, but it is exhausting and swimmers return their head to the
water. I think that in freestyle the head and chest rides right on the surface slightly submerged
but the water is being split ahead of the head by the hand going in. So the head in the normal
position is causing some drag, but not as great as if you submerge it and place it where the water
is still. So, in essence I believe, from the way I feel when I swim and from what I have observed,
that there is slight lift.

Regarding your explanation about bouyancy, I buy it. How do you accomplish this, You arch your back.
This action alone, forces the legs up, the stomach down, and the chest up. But it is not just
bouyancy that holds the legs up. It is also the hamstrings. By arching your chest, you are pulling
your hamstrin muscles up preventing them from falling. You are also pulling the entire torso up
together with the head. However, you don't need to further raise the head as Larry suggests. To do
this, you would need to bend the neck back. This is the part where I think that he is wrong.

OTOH, I don't think that TI is wrong either. I think that the explanation is wrong, or rather
unclear. When they say push your bouy down. You can't do this since you don't have any leverage to
do this, unless you use the back muscles to do this. I do disagree with Terry Laughlins ideas of
lowering the head. He suggest that you do this, not as a way to push your bouy down, but to improve
aerodynamics. By bending the head down, you'll create more drag rather than reducing
it.

Andres

Donal Fagan <Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

(AndresMuro) said:

What happens when you arch your back is that both the torso and the legs are lifted making the
upper body and lower body ride higher in the water.

OK, but since buoyancy remains constant, when something raises, something else sinks. With TI's
'pressing the buoy', you submerge your head a lot and your chest a little which raises your legs a
lot. With Larry's idea, you arch the back, raise the head a lot and submerge the stomach a lot
which raises the legs either a little or a lot depending on how elite you are. Kicking raises the
legs even farther. So do pull floats.

Quoted message said:

In addition, as you swim, the water also produces lift. Just like in an airplane, or when you
drive and you stick your hand out the window and the air pushes it up.

Hmmm, sounds like hydroplaning. Humans don't swim fast enough to hydroplane.

Quoted message said:

If, while your torso is being lifted by the arch of your back and by the water raising it, you
lower your head into the water, you will create more resistance.

Why would your head create more resistance than your shoulders and chest?

Quoted message said:

So, in essence, it is true that as you arch your back, you lift your torso higher and the head
goes with it. Also, the water hitting your chest will further raise your torso. The faster you
go, the faster it'll go up just like a motor boat.

Well, that is hydroplaning.

Donal Fagan AIA Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com (Anglicise the name to reply by e-mail)

Donald, something that I thought about the bouynacy theory has to do with the fact that, since
overall, the body is bouyant by pushing somehting down, somehting must come up. With the body, I
don't think that this works completely, since every part of the body doesn't have the same bouyancy.
I think that the legs and the head are not very bouyant at all, while the torso is more bouyant. So,
if you sink the torso, soemthing will come up. On the other hand, if you sink either the head and
the legs, nothing comes up. You can try this by laying in the water on your back floating with the
legs and arms straight. If you bend your legs at the knee, and let them sink, nothing is going to
come up. Also, if you bend your neck back and let your head sink, nothing will come up either.

Andres

Donal Fagan <Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com> wrote in message
news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

(AndresMuro) said:

What happens when you arch your back is that both the torso and the legs are lifted making the
upper body and lower body ride higher in the water.

OK, but since buoyancy remains constant, when something raises, something else sinks. With TI's
'pressing the buoy', you submerge your head a lot and your chest a little which raises your legs a
lot. With Larry's idea, you arch the back, raise the head a lot and submerge the stomach a lot
which raises the legs either a little or a lot depending on how elite you are. Kicking raises the
legs even farther. So do pull floats.

Quoted message said:

In addition, as you swim, the water also produces lift. Just like in an airplane, or when you
drive and you stick your hand out the window and the air pushes it up.

Hmmm, sounds like hydroplaning. Humans don't swim fast enough to hydroplane.

Quoted message said:

If, while your torso is being lifted by the arch of your back and by the water raising it, you
lower your head into the water, you will create more resistance.

Why would your head create more resistance than your shoulders and chest?

Quoted message said:

So, in essence, it is true that as you arch your back, you lift your torso higher and the head
goes with it. Also, the water hitting your chest will further raise your torso. The faster you
go, the faster it'll go up just like a motor boat.

Well, that is hydroplaning.

Donal Fagan AIA Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com (Anglicise the name to reply by e-mail)

(andres muro) said:

When I sprint, I feel my body riding higher in the water than when I do distance. By increasing my
pull and my kick I get I feeling of lift. When I look at other swimers, same thing. Sprinters seem
to ride higher in the water than in longer distances.

But as you say, it isn't from hydroplaning, it is because hard stroking and kicking causes some lift
as well as forward propulsion.

Quoted message said:

This hypothesis has been tried in breathstroke. To increase speed, and reduce resistance, sprinters
are asked to do the arm recovery above the water and do a little dive, where they break the
resistance of the water with their hands for the head to follow.

That's very different. If the arms pull below the water and recover above the water, yes, you avoid
a lot of drag. But the head doesn't pull or recover.

Quoted message said:

So the head in the normal position is causing some drag, but not as great as if you submerge it and
place it where the water is still.

If you cut off your head, would you be a better swimmer? Wouldn't all the water that used to hit
your head still hit the stump of your neck?

Quoted message said:

By bending the head down, you'll create more drag rather than reducing it.

You aren't bending the head down, you're simply not lifting it up.

Donal Fagan AIA Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com (Anglicise the name to reply by e-mail)

In article <[email hidden]>, Donal Fagan

Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com said:

Quoted message said:

OK, but since buoyancy remains constant, when

something raises, something else sinks. <<

The idea is to have an even distribution of mass, ahead of and behind the center of buoyancy. You
are attempting to distribute submerged mass evenly. The ideal is not to have one particular part of
the body submerged to a greater extent than any other part.

Quoted message said:

With Larry's idea, you arch the back, raise the head a lot and submerge the stomach a lot which
raises the legs either a little or a lot depending on how elite you are.

You keep wanting to make it sound as if you are turning yourself into a banana. This is not what you
want to do. If you are aching your back so much that you are making your stomach protrude, then you
are doing it wrong.

What you want to do is simply "stretch yourself to full height," just as you would do on land. When
you do this, your butt comes forward at bit, your gut gets sucked in (not out), your chest goes out
and up, and your shoulders go back (all of these should not be exaggerated). Now, if you combine the
above with a forward tilted head (coincident with the pull of the strong side arm), this body/head
position effectively counteracts the leg sinking (Miller) torque of the pull to keep your body
horizontal at the time when, if you swim head down/buoy pressed, with the poor posture of the
typical fitness/adult/triathlete swimmer, your butt and thighs will typically sink like stones. A
lifted head is even more effective at counteracting Miller torque than is a forward tilted head, but
this requires much practice and training to master. The head lift is much easier to master in the
ocean than in fresh water.

I just wish that you would try the exercise I keep describing. Do it first with a kickboard, which
teaches you exactly how to contract your lower back muscles to make your butt and thighs go up. Then
alternate kickboard kicking with full stroke swimming, and you will learn to maintain this posture
as you swim and, I will bet you dollars to donuts, you will agree that this is the most effective,
easiest, most natural thing you have ever done to promote an optimally horizontal body position in
the water. Try also the forward head tilt (don't worry about lifting it at first; just tilt it),
coincident with the strong sided pull.

I'm guessing that maybe 1% of all elite swimmers "press their buoy." I'm guessing that 99% of them
maintain good posture, developed to no small extent through extensive kickboard training, which
serves the admirable purpose of strengthening the lower back muscles required to maintain good
posture in the water and which trains the neuromuscular "memory" to help make the maintenance of
good in-water posture automatic. Larry Weisenthal

Certitude is poison; curiosity is life

(Larry Weisenthal) said:

The ideal is not to have one particular part of the body submerged to a greater extent than any
other part.

Except that you apparently don't submerge the head.

Quoted message said:

What you want to do is simply "stretch yourself to full height," just as you would do on land.

While looking at a jet go overhead.

Quoted message said:

I just wish that you would try the exercise I keep describing.

I do own a Zura kickboard, which I got for swim team drills, but never use now. I'm far happier
kicking in a streamlined position. All through high school I kicked on a board and got nowhere. My
legs would burn after a length and a half and I'd switch to frog kick. I'm not going back there.

BTW, for a visual aid, everyone look at this picture of Anita Nall and tell me if her posture is
good or slouched,

donalfagan.comanitanall.htmlOpen ↗

because that's about the posture I try for when I swim.

Donal Fagan AIA Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com (Anglicise the name to reply by e-mail)

(Larry Weisenthal) said:

Donal, she's PUSHING OFF THE WALL, for goodness sake! There is no Miller's torque which must be
counteracted. This illustrates a great way to swim if you never have to move your arms.

Obfuscation aside, I notice you didn't answer the question. Is that good posture, or not? Is that
what you mean by an arched back, or not?

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

BTW, for a visual aid, everyone look at this

picture of Anita Nall and tell me if her posture is good or slouched,

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

donalfagan.comanitanall.htmlOpen ↗

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

because that's about the posture I try for when I

swim.

Quoted message said:

P.S. Kind of ironic that you chose Nall; I've never seen a breastroker who climbs so high up out of
the water and hyper-flexes her lumbar spine so much in the process.

With everything packed away, it is the clearest picture I have of a swimmer. According to Wayne
MacCauley, many flexible young women swim Breaststroke that way: "The undulating style is primarily
swum by young extremely flexible girls. Very few masters women or men retain the extreme flexibility
to do this style. I really cannot recommend this style for masters, primarily because this style
does not take advantage of the rules that allow you to put your head underwater."

Donal Fagan AIA Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com (Anglicise the name to reply by e-mail)

<MJuric> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

So to me the question is not head up head down blah blah blah.... Simply try all suggestions. If
they make you faster and or same speed with less effort, more than likely in some way the
suggestion has limited drag and or frontal surface area.

~Matt

Quoted message said:

I'll be at the pool tomorrow morning, I'll try some of this stuff. BTW, I

have

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

tried to push my head under before, and I got dizzy.

I think that is the most sensible approach, Matt, although many swimmers will not want to tamper
with their stroke during the competition season.

However, I also think that, whatever your body position, it's what your arms do underwater to propel
you forward that is really important. I recently saw some underwater footage of myself and I've got
plenty of stroke correction to do before I can spend time experimenting with head position.

Paul

The bouyancy force is dependent only on the volume of the body submerged.

While here, I have a question for Donal (Andres, it is "Donal" not "Donald". I believe everyone,
even Donal, should be paid the courtesy of getting their name right):

We have offered a physical reason why raising the head produces a beneficial torque. What is your
postulated physical mechanism for the claimed dropping of the legs when the head is raised? Please
restrict your answer to a simple head lift. If you think some other chain of events gets set into
play, please describe
it. Thanks, Donal; I'm really curious about this!

Don

"andres muro" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Donald, something that I thought about the bouynacy theory has to do with the fact that, since
overall, the body is bouyant by pushing somehting down, somehting must come up. With the body, I
don't think that this works completely, since every part of the body doesn't have the same
bouyancy. I think that the legs and the head are not very bouyant at all, while the torso is more
bouyant. So, if you sink the torso, soemthing will come up. On the other hand, if you sink either
the head and the legs, nothing comes up. You can try this by laying in the water on your back
floating with the legs and arms straight. If you bend your legs at the knee, and let them sink,
nothing is going to come up. Also, if you bend your neck back and let your head sink, nothing will
come up either.

Andres

Donal Fagan <Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com> wrote in message

news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

(AndresMuro) said:

What happens when you arch your back is that both the torso and the legs are lifted making the
upper body and lower body ride higher in the water.

OK, but since buoyancy remains constant, when something raises, something else sinks. With TI's
'pressing the buoy', you submerge your head a lot and your chest a little which raises your legs
a lot. With Larry's idea, you arch the back, raise the head a lot and submerge the stomach a lot
which raises the legs either a little or a lot depending on how elite you are. Kicking raises
the legs even farther. So do pull floats.

Quoted message said:

In addition, as you swim, the water also produces lift. Just like in an airplane, or when you
drive and you stick your hand out the window and the air pushes it up.

Hmmm, sounds like hydroplaning. Humans don't swim fast enough to hydroplane.

Quoted message said:

If, while your torso is being lifted by the arch of your back and by the water raising it, you
lower your head into the water, you will create more resistance.

Why would your head create more resistance than your shoulders and chest?

Quoted message said:

So, in essence, it is true that as you arch your back, you lift your torso higher and the head
goes with it. Also, the water hitting your chest will further raise your torso. The faster you
go, the faster it'll go up just like a motor boat.

Well, that is hydroplaning.

Donal Fagan AIA Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com (Anglicise the name to reply by e-mail)

Allow me to add one more thing before you make your answer, Donal. Thank you.

I suppose you will answer that if one thing goes up something must go down. That is true if the
buoyancy is constant. I could argue that it is not constant, but that is not necessary. How do you
rule out that if appropriate tension is maintained in the back the *entire body* goes down just a
little (in addition to the beneficial torque already described)? As long as the tension is
maintained, it is not a given that the legs alone must submerge. And you have claimed the head has a
small contribution, so any effect on the overall body would be small.

With that clarification to my question, I wait your response.

Don

"Donald Graft" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:IpvDa.1129677$S_4.1160395@rwcrnsc53...

Quoted message said:

The bouyancy force is dependent only on the volume of the body submerged.

While here, I have a question for Donal (Andres, it is "Donal" not

"Donald".

Quoted message said:

I believe everyone, even Donal, should be paid the courtesy of getting

their

Quoted message said:

name right):

We have offered a physical reason why raising the head produces a

beneficial

Quoted message said:

torque. What is your postulated physical mechanism for the claimed

dropping

Quoted message said:

of the legs when the head is raised? Please restrict your answer to a

simple

Quoted message said:

head lift. If you think some other chain of events gets set into play, please describe
it. Thanks, Donal; I'm really curious about this!

Don

"andres muro" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Donald, something that I thought about the bouynacy theory has to do with the fact that, since
overall, the body is bouyant by pushing somehting down, somehting must come up. With the body, I
don't think that this works completely, since every part of the body doesn't have the same
bouyancy. I think that the legs and the head are not very bouyant at all, while the torso is
more bouyant. So, if you sink the torso, soemthing will come up. On the other hand, if you sink
either the head and the legs, nothing comes up. You can try this by laying in the water on your
back floating with the legs and arms straight. If you bend your legs at the knee, and let them
sink, nothing is going to come up. Also, if you bend your neck back and let your head sink,
nothing will come up either.

Andres

Donal Fagan <Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com> wrote in message

news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

On 03 Jun 2003 13:33:19 GMT, [email hidden] (AndresMuro) wrote:

>What happens when you arch your back is that both the torso and the legs are lifted making
>the upper body and lower body ride higher in the water.

OK, but since buoyancy remains constant, when something raises, something else sinks. With
TI's 'pressing the buoy', you submerge your head a lot and your chest a little which raises
your legs a lot. With Larry's idea, you arch the back, raise the head a lot and submerge the
stomach a lot which raises the legs either a little or a lot depending on how elite you are.
Kicking raises the legs even farther. So do pull floats.

>In addition, as you swim, the water also produces lift. Just like in an airplane, or when you
>drive and you stick your hand out the window and the air pushes it up.

Hmmm, sounds like hydroplaning. Humans don't swim fast enough to hydroplane.

>If, while your torso is being lifted by the arch of your back and by the water raising it,
>you lower your head into the water, you will create more resistance.

Why would your head create more resistance than your shoulders and chest?

>So, in essence, it is true that as you arch your back, you lift your torso higher and the
>head goes with it. Also, the water hitting your chest will further raise your torso. The
>faster you go, the faster it'll go up just like a motor boat.

Well, that is hydroplaning.

Donal Fagan AIA Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com (Anglicise the name to reply by e-mail)

Paul Gormley said:

<MJuric> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

So to me the question is not head up head down blah blah blah.... Simply try all suggestions. If
they make you faster and or same speed with less effort, more than likely in some way the
suggestion has limited drag and or frontal surface area.

~Matt

Quoted message said:

I'll be at the pool tomorrow morning, I'll try some of this stuff. BTW, I

have

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

tried to push my head under before, and I got dizzy.

I think that is the most sensible approach, Matt, although many swimmers will not want to tamper
with their stroke during the competition season.

Luckily most/all of my competition comes in the form of tri's so if I tamper with my stroke and it
hoses my swim leg salvation may still lie ahead!

Quoted message said:

However, I also think that, whatever your body position, it's what your arms do underwater to
propel you forward that is really important. I recently saw some underwater footage of myself and
I've got plenty of stroke correction to do before I can spend time experimenting with head
position.

Here I think the changes one makes to their stroke is going to depend entirely on their
current abilities. I can say with a high degree of reliabilty that a good deal if not most
of beggining swimmers need alot of work on simple body balance and body position. Spending
alot of time working on stroke (Arm) tehnique and focusing on propulsion is going to do you
little good if your nearly vertical in the water (note exageration). I can say from
experinace since begining swimming I have progressed much farther practicing body balance
drills than many people I know that started around the same time practicing arm stroking
techniques or just plain old laps and no technique work. On the other end of the spectrum I
think for the most part more advanced swimmers who have "mastered" body balance and
streamlining will benefit more from stroke technique, I.E. Anchoring, hand and arm position.
In the end not only does a swimmer have ot look at "what kind of condition am I in" to match
the workload to that but also "where am I with my technique" to match the drilling. To me
this is the key difference between some of the other sports and swimming. Me personally as a
novice to beginer, although I spend some time working on anchoring, and stroke technique a
good deal of my time is spent on body balance including head position. Only recently have I
started to worry about what my hands and arms are "really doing"

~Matt

Quoted message said:

Paul

Donald Graft said:

Quoted message said:

What is your postulated physical mechanism for the claimed dropping of the legs when the head
is raised?

In general, you have a swimmer with poor balance who, while lifting the head, also lifts the chest
out of the water and has little natural talent or conditioning for generating a leg-raising torque.
I was that way myself, and I saw even worse cases at the TI workshop.

Quoted message said:

How do you rule out that if appropriate tension is maintained in the back the *entire body* goes
down just a little (in addition to the beneficial torque already described)?

I don't rule that out. As I wrote at the beginning of this thread, "Clearly there are some elite
swimmers that manage to lift their heads and raise their legs, maybe by kicking hard, maybe by using
the arch of the lower back, maybe something else."

Unfortunately, some people have assumed that I have an absolutist view of this issue, probably
because I disagree with *their* absolutist views.

Donal Fagan AIA Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com (Anglicise the name to reply by e-mail)