Join CrossFit Endurance swimming coaches Brian Nabeta and Chris Michelmore at De Anza College in Cupertino, Calif., as they fine-tune swimming mechanics with their athletes.
In this video, Michelmore and Nabeta drill the floating position to develop a balanced body position for swimming.
“The first thing to realize when you are in water, your spine naturally wants to stay in line,” Michelmore says.
Through dead-man’s-float drills, the participants find their balance point by raising their arms, then legs. Once the legs and arms are raised in a face-down float, the body is streamlined and balanced.
“They’re not kicking to keep their legs up. Their core is doing that, and we talk a lot about that in CrossFit,” Michelmore points out after a demonstration. “Swimming is unbelievably along those parameters in that it starts in your core and then moves out.”
10min 15sec
Additional video: Bringing CrossFit to Collegiate Swimming by Chris Michelmore and Sage Hopkins, originally aired Aug. 27, 2010.