The Good, The Bad, The Ugly- Body Boosts

My intention for this blog was to have lots of video and photos for you to enjoy and explore. Well today is the day I finally got some videos up for you.

I have noticed there are a few videos on youtube for body boosts, but I feel they do not help the coach discern between the good and not-so good leg actions.

The first video I want you to watch is an underwater view of a swimmer who is excellent at body boosting and eggbeater.  Typically a swimmer who is good at body boosting is also good at eggbeater. Both skills have similar basic mechanics they share.

Watch the video and then I will discuss what you should note.

So for this body boost you will see that the athlete gets into a position with her knees close to the surface just prior to boosting.  She is loading her spring.  Then as she kicks, her feet actually go towards the surface and are higher than her knees.  Her kick is up and then out.  This is key.  The knees stay stationary during the kick.  By keeping the knee to hip joint stationary more force can be produced allowing for more height.

Let’s watch a not so good boost so you can see the errors you are looking to correct.

Notice that the legs kick down to the bottom of the pool, both knees are not level with each other to start which leads to an uneven kick.  If I placed both boosts together you would see that the second body booster is slower and  she needs to get her knees and feet up faster. The long preparation to boost is wasting her eventual force production.

Although I do not have video to show this(yet), if you watch the best eggbeaters you will see how their heels come close to the same line as their knees.  The weaker eggbeater swimmers move their knees up and down and their feet move up and down too opposed to moving in circles parallel to the surface of the water. Their heels are deep when compared to their knees. Weaker swimmers have a hard time doing eggbeater and body boosts in the shallow end because they kick down. Swimmers good at body boosting can at least do the up in shallow water because their legs are up and out where as weaker swimmers are moving their legs towards the bottom of the pool.

Two different skills with similar basics.  Be aware of the connections that the skills share. You can teach a lot at one time by recognizing connections.

Let me know on Facebook or in the comment section if you like the video analysis and want more.  If you have a particular skill you would like to see tell me.  I also now have a few videos uploaded to my youtube page so when you are checking out the body boost videos subscribe to it if you would like to follow me there.

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