Backstroke swim faster

Hey people, and welcome back to my swimming blog! As most of you (at least those of you who have constantly read my blogs about swimming) may have known, this week we're still focusing on the backstroke and tips on how to maximize your skills in it.-In this post, we are going to learn about something all the skills we have learned will apply to. All the things we have learned will help us in today's topic. The topic for today is how to maximize your swimming speed when you're in a race or a competition or whatever. It's going to require all the skills we have learned over the week, since all of those skills we have learned were mainly to maximize your speed in backstroke and the energy efficiency of swimming this way. So without further ado, let's just get straight into it!

As usual, I WILL still require a video to help support my “theories” about how to swim faster in backstroke (remember, as most of you may have seen in my previous posts, being the idiot no-brainer swimmer about swimming theories does not exactly arise a feeling of confidence that you could trust me that much with a swimming style I don't know). I suppose this video should be “official” enough to become safe proof on how to swim backstroke as fast as possible, so I highly advise you to watch it.

If you don't however (whether due to an error in your computer/Internet connection whatsoever or if you just don't want to watch it), don't blame me if you get any difficulties whatsoever trying to understand the rest of this post starting from the next paragraph (like I always say). For those of you who want to/are able to watch the video, good for you. You'll understand the rest of this post as easy as one, two, three. So enough chit-chat, let's just get straight into it (And by the way, here's the link to the video)

As you may have seen in the video (for those of you who've watched it, that is), the first tip to swim faster in backstroke is to keep your belly button underwater (not TOO deep, that will affect some aerodynamics in your body's glide through the water. Just a few centimeters below the water's surface should suffice). In addition, your hips should also be a few centimeters below the water's surface, just like your belly button.

Keeping your body like this will create a body position that resembles a straight body floating on the water, and that is the best position when swimming through the water in backstroke; high up the water enough for your hand strikes to be easily executed and also for your leg strikes to be much more effective than if it is submerged, unable to kick the water powerful enough. Most swimmers who spend their period swimming backstroke mostly let their hips sink down into the water, creating a “bowl” that gathers water and increases drag, making the swimmer go slower and require more energy to advance.

Well, that should be it for today. Hopefully this post has proven helpful to you, despite the (at least according to me) small amount of advice given to you. Nevertheless, by the next post we will be doing the final post about the backstroke, which is basically a “reflection” about the things we've learned so far about this style. Until the next post then, guys. See you until then!