Need feedback on using a swim buoy...

Yes, I am not a believer in swimming with a pull bouy because it maintains a horizontal body position for you and prevents you from learning that skill for yourself. Below is some information about doing it for yourself.

Go Hokies!!! Ken


Horizontal Body Position: Efficient swimmers maintain a relatively horizontal position in the water to minimize frontal area and drag. Less efficient swimmers legs and hips stay lower in the water, increasing frontal area and drag enormously.

Human swimmers are buoyant, we are just imbalanced in the water. We float naturally, but not in a horizontal position. A human’s center of mass is located in our hips. Our center of buoyancy is in the chest, caused by the air on our lungs. What pulls us down in the water is located low; what pulls us up in the water is located high. Our heads and chests tend to ride too high in he water and our hips and thighs sink.

There are two ways to keep the hips and legs higher in the water as we swim. The first is very effective at keeping the hips and legs up, requiring tremendous energy. The second requires almost no energy, enlisting the water to do the work for you. Which sounds like a better approach to you?

Many swimmers kick very hard when swimming. While this does keep the legs up, it uses tremendous energy and produces almost no propulsion. Kicking hard is exhausting, causing cardiovascular fatigue while swimming and muscular fatigue during the bike and run. Since the feet move up and down, almost all of the propulsion is produced vertically and very little horizontal propulsion.

A more efficient way to keep the body horizontal uses the pressure of the water to keep the hips and thighs up. Since the air in a swimmer’s lungs provides most of the buoyancy, balancing the body around this source of floatation is key. Efficient swimmers keep the head, arms, and shoulders low in the water. This causes water pressure to maintain the body’s horizontal position with almost no energy expenditure from the swimmer. There are a number of keys to balancing the body around the position of the lungs to maintain a horizontal position.

Head Position: Most triathletes tend to lift the head when swimming. As anyone who saw the movie Jerry McGuire knows, the human head weighs 10 pounds. This much weight several feet in front of the center of buoyancy has a great affect on balance. Lifting the head only a few inches will cause the legs to drop significantly. Efficient swimmers carry the head in a neutral position, at the same depth in the water as the lungs. During workouts, concentrate on looking at the bottom of the pool and not forward in the lane. Occasionally swim a few lengths alternating several strokes with the head carried high in the water and several strokes with the head positioned lower in the water. Notice that when you carry the head high the feet drop and you naturally kick harder. Pay attention to the decreased effort when you correctly keep the head down.

Entry: At completion of entry, before the arm begins the pull, it needs to be positioned horizontally in the water to minimize drag during the glide. Since the shoulder will be about 10 inches below the surface, the fingertips need to be about 10 inches below as well.

Many swimmers extend the arm forward and begin the stroke with the arm relatively straight and pulling down into the surface of the water. This downward pull, against the resistance of the water, lifts the upper body which causes the hips and thighs to sink.

Efficient swimmers spear down into the water, with the forearm and elbow following the hand and passing through the hole in the water cut by the hand. This entry keeps the upper body lower in the water and positions the arm to initiate a high-elbow catch.

The pull buoy gives a new swimmer a false sence of "correctness" I would immediatly stop using the buoy and start working on correcting the problem. I used to have the very same issue and am now working on rolling and tweeking things to get faster. The article above gives great advice to fix the real problem... I would also suggest reading Total Imersion Swimming  and also watching the DVD.  

I am no coach... but it sounds like you need to focus on using the kick board and kicking properly... and getting the feeling of how to kick with your hips up.

My personal thought is that both kickboards and pullbouys are crutches if you have not already learned proper balance like Ken's post above discusses.  Ken explains it very well, and the total immersion DVD is a great visual aid for drills to learn balance. 

I think the only "practic" most people need with kicking is to do less of it, and to do it from the hip and not the knees.  And not to splash. Splashign wastes half of your energy above the surface of the water where it's doing no good.  NO one would run an outboard motor with the propeller half above the surface of the water.  So I guess I have more than one thought on kicking!

Anyway, it sounds like you are motivated!  I think the pullbouy can be useful, but not for the use you are getting out of it right now.  Put it away until you learn to balance on your own.  Then pull it back out again when you are ready to focus on upper body strength and power after you've got your balance down.

I don't agree that a wetsuit and poull bouy affect body position in the same way. A wetsuit keeps the whole body higher in the water, but doesn't correct horizontal imbalances. A swimmer whose hips sink will have a higher, but still imbalanced position in the water.

The pull bouy specifically raises the hips and thighs, not the whole body.

Ken

One more suggestion, practice swimming VERY slowly. This does two things. Obvioiusly it lets you get through a 50 without being as winded. Also, human swimmers tend to rely way too much on our arms and legs for balance. If your pull is extrmely gentle, you won't use it as much for balance and it will help you develop a sense of balance from the core.

I noticed that you are in Vienna. Fitness Concepts conducts swim clinics regularly in Fairfax using underwater video analysis. Seeing your position and the effect that technique changes has on it can be incredibly helpful.

Ken

A lot of what has been said here, I can relate to 100%.

If this helps, what I did was to not kick at all. I had severe runner's kick and was spending all of my energy kicking and getting absolutely nothing out of it. I used pull buoy just so I could feel what is right. Plus, the TI floating drills were essential for me.

Also, the torso/hip rotation is critical. Once I did nothing with my legs, and could roatate, reach, pull, etc., I felt like a brand new swimmer. It feels so good to get in a rythym in the water. And do everything very slowly, and still move through the water at a decent speed due to form.

I have not perfected this yet, as I am still just a beginning swimmer. Hopefully, you can gain something from my experience.