Backstroke Swimming Drills – Head-Lead Supine Balance

Head-lead supine balance is an important drill to learn to swim backstroke, as it teaches how to be balanced and supported on your back using the buoyancy of your lungs. Being balanced while swimming backstroke means that you can easily keep your body in a horizontal position in the water.

The video below demonstrates the swimming drill covered in this article:

Swimming Drill Instructions

The drill will be easier to learn if you already have practiced some of the exercises to learn the flutter kick in backstroke. Do the following:

• Put on a pair of swimming goggles.
• Put on a nose clip if you are afraid of getting water into the nose.
• Go to the shallow area of the pool.
• Push off the ground and get into a horizontal position on the back.

TopSync

• Start to flutter kick to provide for propulsion and to get into a horizontal position.
• Leave the arms along the sides of the body.
• Now try to move forward only using a flutter kick for propulsion and without using the arms for balance.

As a beginner, you most likely will have problems keeping your balance. What you need to do is twofold:

1. You need to ensure that your body is in a straight line from head to toes. A friend or your swim teacher can be of great help to spot mistakes in your posture, for example if you are bending the body at the hips.
2. If your legs and hips have a tendency to sink, don’t kick harder. Try instead to push the back of the head and the upper back down in the water. Because your lungs are buoyant, this will create leverage and push the hips and legs up to the surface.

This last point is the main skill to learn in this backstroke drill. Once you have learned how to push your upper body down in the water to keep the legs and hips up, it will become second nature. As a consequence, you won’t need to kick so hard anymore, which will allow you to breathe more easily.

BottomSync

Additional Tips

• Use swim fins if your flutter kick doesn’t provide enough propulsion.
• To be more relaxed you can use swimming goggles and a nose clip. This avoids that water enters the eyes or the nose.
• While you are learning balance on the back, the best might be to hold your breath and to drill for a few seconds, after which you stop to breathe.
• Finally, once you have learned how to keep balance on your back, you can remove the nose clip and breathe freely.

Conclusion

Once you can keep balance on the back using only a flutter kick for propulsion, you are a big step forward on your journey to learn to swim the backstroke. So take your time to master this drill and have fun while practicing!

 Previous Drill – Learn the Flutter Kick Next Drill – Head-Lead Side Balance