I enjoy competative swimming but stink at diving starts mainly because im the opposite of micheal phelps. I have legs that are as long as someone with a 6’2 6’3 body frame but im 5’10 and when i dive its hard to control my legs. Any tips would be helpfull, Thanks
You can try to focus your power off the block into gaining more distance before you enter the water. Set yourself on the block, and pull back a little – try to keep your hips level. If you drop your hips, you push upward, which means that you will go farther down when you enter the water. Drive your legs forward, and when your shoulders are over the edge of the block, use your arms to push off the block. If you push off too early, you just waste your energy and you don’t go as far out in the water.
Because you have such long legs make sure you set yourself wide on the block. If you do a track start, move your back foot so that only your toes and front part of your foot are poised on the back edge block.
That should be good for all starts except breaststroke. I wouldn’t even try doing a breaststroke start in such shallow water because it will mess up the timing of your pullout.
Very carefully :p
lol, I’ve been in some CRAPPY pools to start in. One time I was at a pool that was 4 feet deep and the block was about 3 feet higher than the water surface since it had this huge gutter on the side of the pool!!! At one pool it was 3-1/2 feet deep and I cut my chest on the bottom of the pool and a little on my lip. All you can do is practice A LOT! Start as low as you possibly can on the block and then just try to jump as flat as possible. I know just telling you this doesn’t help much but really practicing is all you can do. About your legs all you can do is practice too. It seems like all that you can do is hold as tight of a streamline as possible.
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you dont. trust me. there is a reason it says no diving. i myself have broken that rule many times. but i’m good at diving and can control myself as to where i can make a successful dive while escaping my head opening like a watermelon on the bottom of the pool. but even then my torso has still scraped against the bottom of the pool (another reason i only wear racing one pieces and why bikinis are impractical).
if you want to get better at diving, go to your local pool and dive off of those diving platforms. its much safer and will give you practice on how to dive from the platform. because if you’re just diving off the edge of your pool then it’s different and you still wont get that control practice. if you notice, the diving platforms are not only at least a good 3 feet off the ground, but they’re also slanted in towards the pool. being good at diving off of those is different from diving off the side of the pool or even a diving board. it’s pretty much physics and to get the best dive to start off your swim, you have to be able to dive properly from the right angle. practicing diving into 4 ft deep water is not diving from the right angle, nor is it safe.
also, since you want to gain control of your legs, you want to do it from the diving platform. diving off the side of the pool into 4 ft water wont help you gain control of your legs and it definitely wont help you gain control of your legs when you’re actually competitively swimming and diving off the platform. again, it’s the physics and the different angles. diving off the side into 4 ft requires different leg control then diving off a platform. and if you become accustomed to how you dive off the side into 4ft water, that could hurt your performance when it’s time to compete and dive from a real platform into deep enough water. since the leg control will be different, you’ll still have your original problem of not being able to dive correctly to have a successful swim in a competition.
but if you still want to dive into 4ft water, try diving at the closest angle there is to 180 degrees without belly flopping. you’ll kind of want to dive as a close to flat angle so your body doesnt go straight into the bottom of the pool.
but i still suggest learning to have control while diving from a real platform into a safe depth of water before learning to safely dive into 4ft deep water. its always better to learn the safest stuff first before attempting the more dangerous stuff.
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Sorry, but you can’t do a dive into a 4 foot deep pool. That is just too dangerous, and if you were to go too deep even one time (which is extremely easy to do) you can break a bone, knock yourself out and drown, or break a your neck even. In the news here just last week, a guy dove into the shallow end of a public pool and drowned. Don’t do it. Go to a pool that has at least an 8 foot deep end to practice your dives. Be safe.
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You can try to focus your power off the block into gaining more distance before you enter the water. Set yourself on the block, and pull back a little – try to keep your hips level. If you drop your hips, you push upward, which means that you will go farther down when you enter the water. Drive your legs forward, and when your shoulders are over the edge of the block, use your arms to push off the block. If you push off too early, you just waste your energy and you don’t go as far out in the water.
Because you have such long legs make sure you set yourself wide on the block. If you do a track start, move your back foot so that only your toes and front part of your foot are poised on the back edge block.
That should be good for all starts except breaststroke. I wouldn’t even try doing a breaststroke start in such shallow water because it will mess up the timing of your pullout.
References :