How to Incorporate Floating Exercises Into Your Swim Workouts

Getting exhausted after even the shortest distances in the water is no fun.

In fact, it’s downright miserable.

The worst part is that it’s so hard that the THOUGHT of sustained swimming just seems impossible.

If your approach is to just slog through it and hope for the best, well maybe it is impossible.

Fortunately, there’s an alternative.

Last time, I talked about why you’re probably getting exhausted when you’re swimming, particularly if you’re someone that’s reasonably fit on land.

It all comes down to body position.

If your body position is off, swimming is going to be HARD.

Your legs and hips are going to be low, which is going to make swimming through the water even harder.

Instinctively, you’re going to kick hard to compensate.

Sinking legs are also a threat; it feels like you’re about to drown and that makes you tense up.

These reasons all add up to tired, fatiguing swimming.

Thankfully, improved body position solves all these problems.

How do you improve body position?

It starts with the Ball Float.

This exercise helps you feel the support of your lungs.

It helps you feel effortless floating.

It helps you RELAX.

For maybe the first time, you might find yourself in the water, NOT feeling like it’s a struggle.

Then, you have to learn how to create leverage on your lungs to get your hips up.

It starts with learning to press the head and chest into the water to pop them up.

It may feel VERY weird, but once you get it, you get it.

For some, that’s not enough, and you also have to learn how to create tension in the back of your body to pull the legs up to the surface.

Different ‘letter’ floats are really effective.