The hybrid is to dive and reduce water resistance with the weaker side stroke, and break water surface to have a comfort breath with the stronger side stroke. The speed will be more stable, less acceleration and deceleration.

What makes the hybrid work is the strong coupling motions after the breath. The recovering arm comes down faster, causing faster shoulder rotation and combined with a strong surge kick with the head under water, the swimmer zooms forward. It is not a good technique for the 50 free, as one cannot get high enough stroke rate to make it work well.

Yes, certainly better than head raised. Sprint freestylers seem to do best with head in alignment with upper body, but kicking or in breast or fly, it is best to tuck the chin down more.

@@theraceclub Awesome and great intel. Thanks very much and ill do that. Head aligned when freestyle and tucked a bit doing fly!! Thanks n have a nice week.

The head is the lead object of the swimmer moving forward. It is essentially the bow of the boat. The higher the head in the water, the more drag it causes.

@@theraceclub Well, that is kind of swimming 101. The main comment I see on freestyle videos in particular is that the head should be no higher than 45 degrees, which doesn't tell you what the ideal angle is. For some reason, it seems like all the snorkels are designed to have the head at that 45 degree angle. I tend to look straight down at the bottom of the pool, and when I do this, I always get water down the snorkel. So, the question remains, what is the ideal head position for most streamlined/least drag?

@@robohippy Most athletes should have an inch or two of extra clearance in the snorkel left out of the water with a neutral head. If you're getting water in the snorkel from an "looking straight down" approach, I'd suggest first filming yourself to confirm that your head is actually neutral - its easy to overcorrect and bury the head when trying to make this adjustment. If your video confirms that your chin isn't overly tucked in, it could have something to do with your body position in water - athletes with stronger kicks and strong cores tend to "sit" higher in the water.

Well, I have yet to see myself swim, and for sure underwater filming. I will be doing some of that when I do my videos on the over arm side stroke. Swimming the side stroke, I can see every one in the pool but myself. Should we have mirrors up on the sides of the pool so we can watch???? I approach body position like I approached posture in gymnastics, which was a tight core and head in like with the spine. Same with martial arts where teachers would say 'think that you have a string coming off the top of your head, and it is pulling straight up'. Pretty sure my posture is good. I have a weak kick, but when I suck in the old gut, I can feel my butt just slightly out of the water, and barely any water flowing across my knees when I kick.

If I had one of those endless pools available to me, I would want to hook myself up to a tether on a pound scale and see how the drag rating changes with different positions, probably in both freestyle and back stroke. Also for how far your knee can come down into the slip stream before drag gets to be a problem, or a bigger problem. So many swimmers seem to have an arch in their backs while swimming, and maybe more so when pushing off the wall and diving in. It would be interesting to test from a stream line position and see exactly where the ideal position is. Even, how much drag reduces when you rotate in freestyle and get the top side shoulder out of the water. I did play around with sticking my hand out the window when driving, and found out what ideal finger spread is, and also that having a slightly cupped hand yields more drag in the wind, which would mean slightly more pull in the pool. This would be an explanation of why paddle board oars and the racing skull row boat oars are cupped.

We have some great videos on proper fly pulling motion Lane 3 membership at TRC website.

Arena pro fin, but the jerks just upped the price by $20 because everyone is telling their kids to buy em now

Arena Powerfin Pros are great, but expensive

Aussie DMC Available outside Australia.

we like the DMC fins (www.theraceclub.com) Elite Max. Best fin on the market.

Perhaps..but chin down produces less drag at 2.3 m/sec

There have been some amazing swimmers, like Thorpe and Federica Pellegrini, who swam with head tilted forward. There was definitely more drag that way, yet more propulsion with that technique. Even a barge can move fast with enough power. Both swimmers had great kicks.

That depends on you but more sprinters recently have been moving more towards getting the head lower! Test yourself on some fast 25's or 50's and see which position is the fastest & feels sustainable!

@@theraceclub Thanks very much, leading with the top of the skull feels best, smoothest. i was curious what the data showed for speed for the 3 positions.

theraceclub.com/video/velocity-meter-jimmy-feigen-freestyle-head-position/ In Jimmy Feigen, we found higher average velocity and less drag in head down but higher peak acceleration & deceleration with head up. Check out the link to see the whole video! But in general, a lot more swimmers are looking too high up as opposed to burying their heads - that's why we tend to coach/queue getting the eyes down & leading with the crown of the head!

@@theraceclub sounds great, iike tht feel best too. No kinked neck to fight against. Thks very much!

Not sure what you mean. Perhaps you can explain more.

​@@theraceclub I tilt my head in such a way that my head "surfs" on the bow wave. The position is probably for everyone different, but in my case I had to tilt my head a little bit more forward. The energy that it costs to create the wave is not just waste, because I also use the bowwave for this surfing-effect. Therefore the efficiency of your headposition cannot be determined by the size of the bowwave. In other words: I think there is a sweetspot where you tilt your head a little bit (not too far, otherwise your legs sink), so that you can make use of the bowwave, instead of letting the energy of the bowwave go to waste.

@@Dikzak225 Head position is definitely important. But I think it's documented in "The Science of Swimming Faster" that you can have your head ride OVER the bow wave only when you achieve a certain threshold speed.

@@Dikzak225 i understand what you mean and i think it depends by your body type. It happens to me when i swim at B1 pace or faster. I feel that surfing effect but it's hard to mantain that position for too long repetitions

Less drag higher in the water 👍

In another swimmer (Jimmy Feigen), we've previously found the head slightly up position to be 1% slower but with higher peak accelerations and decelerations. This suggests that he gets more propulsion in the head slightly up position... but takes more frontal drag than he gains in terms of propulsion. So, head down is faster! As for Brad's results... you'll have to wait and see!

@@theraceclub ok!

@@loganswims As it turns out, part 2 of this video is available to our Lane 2 subscribers! Tandy likes the head tilted slightly forward but you can find & watch the full series on our website with a lane 2 subscription. 👉 theraceclub.com/membership/ (Sorry for the confusion - sincerely, the new guy)

@@theraceclub ohhh that makes a lot more sense. Thank you new guy ❤️

You might be right Anne! We like to see the hand generally under the shoulder, but that doesn't mean every athlete (even the elite ones) do this perfectly every stroke.

@@theraceclub yes under thé shoulders i m agree Happy New year.

You are right. Sprinters pay a bigger price for having their heads up. Drag on the surface is proportional the swimmer's speed to the fourth power!

@@theraceclub True.