If you have ever been told by a coach to get your hips up what you might have done is bent at the hips and stuck your bum up higher in the water; therefore your bum is higher but your legs are dragging. What that does it creates more resistance and more drag than what you originally had at the start because your legs are now dragging through the water.
00:28 – Being Taller
00:52 – Kicking Drills That Get The Right Body Position
00:58 – Why  Do Swimmers Snake?
The solution in order to actually get your hips up and have a better body position in the water is to sit up nice and tall, have your shoulders back and your chest out; you push your hips slightly forward. That will get you sitting straight in the water and reduce the resistance on your legs. You are actually doing the opposite of what you might think that you need to do in order to get your hips up. Instead of trying to get your bum up in the water you are pushing your hips forward and that will bring the rest of your body up with it.
In the Mastering Freestyle Program a lot of the kicking drills in there help you get into that position where you have a nice straight body position and you are not bending at the hips. If you have ever seen a swimmer with a snaking type of technique where they are going from side to side and their legs are dragging along behind them; the reason most likely is because they are bending at the hips. Look at sitting up nice and tall, shoulders back, chest out, pushing your hips slightly forward and you will be a lot taller in the water and reduce your drag and resistance.
That’s it for new this week. I will see you next week.
These videos are frustrating for me to watch. The video is just some guy swimming. Nothing different than I can see on YouTube. What does ‘push my hips forward mean’? Yes, I’m clueless, but that is why I signed up for your emails. A diagram of what to do and what not to do, or arrows overlaid on the swimming guy would be helpful. I can see in the video that you’re trying to demonstrate what to do, but all I can see are your shoulders shaking around. How does this help me understand what to do with my hips? All the videos are of you with a headshot in the camera and your shoulders shaking as you try to demonstrate the move but we can’t see what you’re actually doing. Honestly, this doesn’t help me at all. It would be great to see a full body shot with you possibly turned sideways saying, “Here is the wrong way that most people do” and then “Here is the correct way that you should be doing”. Thanks.
Thanks for your feedback Brian. I’ll try and include more demonstrations and full body shots to help explain things.
Brian made a good point. Perhaps a sideways look at the body would be helpful in demonstrating what one is to do to “push the hips forward”. For me, I think it is similar to what some runners do to align their hips with their belly. They do this by placing the palm of one hand on the navel (belly button) and the back of the other hand at the buttocks. They then gently push both hands inwards, into the body. This way, the hips are pushed forward into alignment with the belly. Perhaps this is what is what you mean by “pushing the hips forward”?
I just downloaded Coach’s Eye for my Android phone (also available for iPHone). Have you seen this app? It’s pretty amazing for $5. It does slow motion video, replays, and lets you draw notes on the video as you talk about it. You can record this ‘training session’ (with slow motion replays and drawing annotations) as a separate video to post online for your training videos. It’s a fantastic tool and is really simple to use. I did a video of myself and I’m shocked at how low my hips sink in the water. Looks like I’m dragging an anchor behind me! So much to learn I guess.