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DIVE START BASICS

Foot Position on Block– Both feet facing forward, not to the side. Toes grabbing the edge on leading foot. Track start with one foot behind is faster/more powerful and almost everyone uses it, but having your feet side by side (grab start) is sometimes useful to teach kids dives. You can take a small step on the block, with slinging arms to get some extra speed in relays, but it’s tricky to time, so you don’t get DQ’d for early start, and should be left for more experienced swimmers.

Leaning Too Much– Either too much forward or too much back. Be in a neutral stable position first, you can tweak it for different strokes later (i.e. more forward for freestyle, more back for breast and fly). Find your perfect balance. No sitting the butt down, or falling in, watch where those hips are! FYI: Swimmers with very fast dolphin kicks tend to lean more forward to get a better reaction time and get to water faster, even if not as far. Short distance swimmers with great upper body strength tend to lean more back as they don’t have a strong UDK and want more distance in the air, even if they sacrifice in reaction time.

Pull with Hands– Grab the edge and really pull with hands at “Go” to give yourself that extra push. When buzzer goes off, hands pull first, so you get a little lean forward before the legs push, so your legs can push you off the block at a better angle.

Eyes Down and Body Ready– Eyes are looking down on the block and move to look forward as you push off. The head “snap-forward” helps to create momentum. Body should be tight and ready to go at the beep.

Getting Into Streamline– Head between your arms, and feet together with toes pointed straight back, is how you should enter the water. The goal is to dive into as small of a hole as possible, so nothing drags behind you or stops you in the front. Slip into the water, don’t fight it!

Dive Arc– You want to get into the water as fast and as far as you can without going too deep underwater. Don’t dive too high (you’ll spend energy going to the sky and then sink too deep), or too low, you won’t get the full speed and distance and hit the resistance i.e. water, sooner than necessary. Every person and every stroke has its sweet spot, so find it! Noteworthy: Dive deeper for fly and breast as you will do more things underwater, shallower for freestyle, especially sprints, so you can start swimming at max speed possible. You also don’t want to enter the water too far, as you will enter with way less speed and it’s not really worth it.

Arm Movement for Beginners– It is easier for smaller kids to get into streamline fast, if their arms are already straight and by their ears, and then they just fling them forward together. More advanced swimmers can pull off flinging their arms above their shoulders on the side, but it requires great shoulder flexibility and explosive power.

Leg Placement for Beginners– It’s OK to do the “old-fashioned” foot position with feet together and toes over the edge with some smaller kids- it helps to keep the legs together as your brain doesn’t have to think about positioning them after push-off.

Body Shape When Entering Water– Ideally you should be slightly bent at your waist when your arms touch the water to get into that perfect little hole with no splash. If your body is perfectly straight, then there will be a splash as your upper body turns up and legs/feet hit the surface in a bent “banana position”. Keep that butt up using core muscles and bend on the waist a bit for that perfect “splashless” dive!

Head Driving Forward- Where hands go, head follows, body follows, legs follow, and toes follow. But you can keep your head above your arms in the air until you have to enter the water. The goal of having your head go forward with chin off chest in full extension (but only enough to make the whole head pull your body straight forward, don’t stare at the sky!) until the last minute is to make it pull your body farther horizontally while your arms get into position. So aim/snap forward with your head (a heavy thing), make sure your arms get into position from below and then snap that noggin into a perfect streamline between arms just before entering the water.

Arms Driving Forward- Beginner swimmers lift them straight up together from below, but it’s not nearly as powerful as driving them forward on the sides with elbows bent. Progress from straight arms down low (so they learn to get into streamline first) and then start encouraging arms swinging to front via sides more and more until they can go over the head almost like you are doing a butterfly recovery. The higher the arms go, the more flexibility you need to have in shoulders.

Coupling Motions– Also known as “fancy acrobatics”. There are 3 body parts you can use to accentuate the movement and increase forward momentum in dives- head, arms and legs. This is best explained to older kids but they include really driving your head forward by snapping it up from the neck at the start of the dive, slinging arms forward on the sides/above shoulders (either with straight or more bent arms) and finally kicking up the whole (straight) back leg towards the sky off the block and bringing it down to streamline by the time hips enter the water. Smaller kids have to first learn to do a perfect dive where arms come straight up from below, head is gets between arms and they enter the water into one hole, but more experienced swimmers should definitely pay attention to this.

BACKSTROKE START BASICS

Essentially an Inverted Dive– But with a few differences from the regular dive, because you start lower/in the water. Physics still works the same way though.

Foot And Hand Position– Toes on the water line and hands grabbing the bar. Don’t put your toes over the gutter edge as it is illegal, but if the wall is straight, you can get them high enough the just have some part of your foot under water. Stagger starts with one foot slightly lower helps with slipping. Feet shoulder width or a bit closer, but not touching. Technically some part of your foot needs to be under water( the ankle) and your toes can not be over the gutter edge, but with small kids it’s usually easier to explain it as “toes on the water line” way and they more than likely don’t have the upper body strength to pull themselves high enough to take advantage of higher foot placement anyway. Hands grab the bars on the block as high as possible and are for about shoulder width apart as well.

Pull Up on Block– At “On Your Marks” you pull yourself up with hands to get higher. Arms should be bent. Legs at 90 degrees or little more and hips back. Bum above the water if you have the arm strength and back vertical (not too close, or not too far to the block). Nose should be enough away from the hands to have the back vertical and face looking straight (like the position you would walk in)- try to pull yourself more up towards the roof/sky, than towards the bar, almost like pressing away from the bar.

Explosiveness– Push with legs as hard as you can! Meaning, very, very, very explosively. Otherwise it will look like a duck shot out of sky.

Arms and Head Fly Back– It helps to fly back/forward with your head first (lead with your head at “Go”), as you bring the arms straight over your head as fast as you can. Unlike in dive start, the arms should get straight and together as soon as possible and fling straight over the head or beyond if you have the flexibility. The reason is you need more air as you start from a low position in the water. The reason they are straight is so they will pull your body up and then forward and then into streamline. Remember, arms are heavy and the rest of the body will follow where your head and arms go.

Hips to Sky/The Arch- Focus on the arch, because if you don’t have a good angle going in, you will either be too deep, or too low. Get the whole body into the air!