Swim Faster And Easier With The Right 'Base Position'

we ran some clinics in New Zealand recently and we did a lot of video analysis while we were there and one of the most common things that I saw was people not being front quadrant hey Brenton here one of the concepts I find very helpful is to consider having a base position a position that you return to every single time you take a stroke now they're the best base position that I sort of think of is being on your side with one arm out in front the other arm close to your side and the shoulders are rotated to around 4045 degrees I like to think of that as the base position because one of the most common things that we see when we analyze strokes is there a number of issues that when people are in this position here that they don't tend to get in to the right position so if you think of that as your base position that not only helps with your balance your timing but also your catch and minimizing drag so the reason it helps with your timing if we look from above so this bird's-eye view with most top swimmers most elite swimmers who are doing any sort of distance they're going to be front quadrants so there's always going to be a hand or an arm in front of the head so we ran some clinics in New Zealand recently and we did a lot of video analysis while we were there and one of the most common things that I saw was people not being front quadrant so at a point in time there was nothing out in front of the head and when that happens it's pretty common to see the legs start to drop down and for you to lose balance it also makes it very hard to breathe if there's nothing out in front to give you balance and stability really hard to get that breath so it can really help with that part of the stroke the other thing it can help with is minimizing drag so you've probably seen some of our videos before we want to try and avoid the breaks on position where the fingertips start to drift up towards the surface creates a lot of resistance on the hand and forearm so if you can get your fingers to that base position which is fingers below wrist wrist below elbow and normally the fingertips will be just a little bit deeper than the shoulder can help minimize drag in that way the other thing that it can help with is the catch so if you start the catch with those fingers high and the elbow slightly dropped then it's very hard to then move into a high elbow catch or it's a lot more difficult so it really helps to start that in the right position the other thing with your balance and alignment is in that base position your hands should be directly in line with your shoulder so again if we're looking from above we want to try and see that hand directly in line with that shoulder that's that train track position that you've probably seen in previous videos if the hand is crossing the center which is a really common thing it's probably the second most common thing we see when we do analysis if it's crossing over then again you're going to be forced to press down on the water very hard to get a good catch from that position so in this this one base position there's a lot that you can work on and you can refine and the the two drills we normally do to help refine these positions here sidekick drill very similar to that base position and six one six drill where you do six kicks on the side one stroke change over now what we we do these drills at clinics because they're really good for ironing out some of these mistakes and flaws that we see in the stroke when you do that six one six drill you want to make sure that as you're kicking on the side you've got all those things in place which is fingers blow wrists wrists blow elbow hand directly in line with the shoulder you also want to make sure that you've rotated in the drill about sixty degrees a bit more than what you do when you swim and also having the head somewhere in that zero to 45 degree range now when you do that that sidekick drill and you're getting everything in place there as you do the six months six drill we're doing the six kicks one stroke after you take that one stroke the challenge is can you get back into that very good position what we normally find and it's really common after people take that stroke the finger starts come up head comes off to the side they lose that very efficient streamline position so just by doing that six one six draw you can start to refine the movement and just change that muscle memory and refine the motor pattern a little bit to get you into that base position because if you get that right every single stroke it helps you in a number of ways so that's why I find it very helpful to think of that base position now it's probably best for people who aren't front quadrant so if you feel like you're on this treadmill that you can't get off like the arms are just spinning and there's no point where you actually get to rest it all in your stroke then it's probably because you're entering and pulling through too soon and then that hand starting to catch away and maybe combined with that you're not getting enough reach out in front and rotation along with it so you might be swinging flat and the arms are just spinning through so if you consider all you want to do when you're swimming is just move from that one base position to the other base position then you've got that very that ability to kind of rest each each stroke now obviously you're not stopping you're not pausing we don't want to just stop completely the lead hand should always stay in motion but as a general rule of thumb that can be a very good way to bring the heart rate down and make sure you refine or get rid of some of those really common mistakes that we seen the stroke and this is a drill that can work really well for not only while experienced swimmers but really for people who are newer to the sport and a way to get started with this is you might just start by doing kick on your side now we're finster this drill it's a heap says you're doing it with fins and ikemen also be useful to wear a snorkel in the beginning as you're going through this drill we spoke about the key things we want in place which is fingers deeper than the wrist wrist deeper than the hand and or arm directly in line with the shoulder and head somewhere down but what I normally recommend to people is look forwards every now and then check your hand position make sure that the arms not drifting across make sure the fingers aren't rising up to the surface because if you can get those things in place and you can sort of bridge that gap from perception versus reality that is one of the best ways that you can change your stroke so it there's nothing wrong in drills just to sort of look at your hands look at your arms see they're in the right position because more times than not what you think you're doing is very different than what you're actually doing so you might just start with something like 450s with fins on and snorkel on doing sidekick drill just making sure that each of those things are in place the other thing you need to check is your rotation you should be a little bit more on your side than you are on your front for this drill then after that after you've refined each of those things go into 450s of swim and you can practice or you can try and make yourself feel like you're moving through each of those base positions left side to right side then you can progress onto that six one six drill which is where you do your six kicks on the side take one stroke and then you keep going when you do that six month six drill just make sure that all those things are in place again now you've probably seen these drills before they're really simple they're really common but having great fundamentals really really helps going forward so even with the lead streamers sometimes we'll bring it back to the very fundamentals because there are things that they can still improve on so there's nothing wrong with doing simple drills maybe not as as fun or as or as unusual as drills like the YMCA drill that we showed a few weeks ago but getting good at these fundamentals is so important and that's why we start was just some really simple drills in our clinics when we run them here in Australia and overseas and even with our virtual clinic where we recorded a clinic and that's inside out our video membership so we start with really basic ones then progresses some more challenged ones that work on the catch and the pool but get good at being perfect in this base position and that will help you going forwards now I'd love to hear your comments below what do you think of this base position is this something that you currently get into or do you feel like you're off track there and it's something that you might need to work on if you did enjoy this video please like and subscribe it helps other people find out about us and if you'd like to take this further and interested in learning more about what we teach and the way we like to teach freestyle check out the effortless swing video membership that's where we teach the five core principles of fast freestyle where we'll take you through some of these things like the side kick drill finding that base position and progressing on from there so that's all inside the video membership it's only fifty five dollars a year and the best way to get started and it basically consolidates and condenses all these videos that we do puts it in a really simple step-by-step way to follow the way that we teach so thanks for watching and I'll see you next week [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Effortless Swimming

Views: 50,997

Rating: 4.9326186 out of 5

Keywords: how to swim, swim faster, front crawl, how to swim faster, freestyle technique, swimming technique, swimming (sport), triathlon (sport), swimming tutorial, how to swim freestyle, how to improve swimming, effortless swimming, freestyle swimming

Id: p0vVTmGtYgM

Length: 10min 14sec (614 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 05 2019