How do you swim backstroke outside?

June 30, 2023 8:35 AM

At an indoor pool, I can keep to a more or less straight line by watching the pattern on the ceiling. When I swim outdoors, once I get past the flags, all I see is a field of blue, and I'm constantly weaving around, bumping into the ropes. How can I fix this?
posted by juliapangolin to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (8 answers total)

I never figured it out, but I was told by a swim coach that it stems from a stroke fault or imbalance, and most of us pull one way or the other, and you end up hitting both lane lines in overcorrecting.
posted by advicepig at 9:21 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

As far as I can tell from Googling - nobody has yet tried doing this with the help of a drone - it might be fun to try!
More seriously: How do Swim in a Straight Line could give you some useful advice - I think they are considering face down strokes mainly - but the motto of trying to imagine a straight line down your back from your head - might help.
posted by rongorongo at 9:35 AM on June 30, 2023 [1 favorite]

As advicepig noted; better technique will result in straighter swimming which does help.

As tipsyBumblebee noted; a multi-sensory approach is good. One should be close enough to the lane-rope to feel it occasionally.

For my 2 bits; environmental awareness is really important but not often recognized in swimming. Knowing where you are in a lane shouldn't take direct (let alone sustained) visual contact. Think of it a bit like 'court-sense' in basketball or 'playing to where the puck will be' in hockey. Just as you learn to know when to take your first stroke by 'feeling' the different texture in the water as you get close to the surface you can learn to feel when you're close to something. The water feels different when you're close to the lane rope, and much different when you're close to the wall. This is made much easier if all the other stimuli in the pool has stopped shouting at you.

For my $0.02 this is the thing that's hard to learn about swimming - learning to relax because 'hard' is not the same as 'work', learning to feel because 'the water is touching me' isn't the same as 'I'm touching the water', learning to trust because the wall will be there whether I look at it or not.

TLDR; good goggles dark enough and wide enough to have peripheral vision. Spend a little time reaching for the lane rope, then reaching near the lane rope, then testing how it feels when you're close (but not on) the rope. And play with checking in on a visual cue without tracking it. Like learning to drive a long curve - watch the road not the line so you don't over steer. If you can see a diving tower for a bit noticing it will help ground you, if you pass by a ladder noticing it can guide you for a couple strokes, if there's a tree you see out of the corner of your eye part of the way it's another visual touch point. When there's truly nothing taking a sneak peak isn't a bad idea but it needs to be occasional.
posted by mce at 9:46 AM on June 30, 2023 [4 favorites]

Try to discern whether one arm is stronger and pulling you askew. My coach told me that's why I can't do backstroke in a straight line.
posted by jgirl at 10:07 AM on June 30, 2023

Better technique, yes. Once you nail your technique you can count the strokes it takes to get across the pool. For most people with good technique, it's pretty consistent. When I was younger and in better shape, this was how I did it, and eventually I got a sense of "...it's been long enough that the wall should be there...now." It is easier if you are concentrating on swimming and not your other thoughts.
posted by blnkfrnk at 10:19 AM on June 30, 2023

I learned to swim in an outdoor pool and mostly managed to swim straight lines by choosing a point at my *origin* that I needed to keep my legs in a straight line with/toes pointing at. This involved looking down that way on occasion so I could correct. Not sure if it's quite as good in a natural body of water as it was in a pool with marked lines though.

(I was always praised for my technique on my backstroke, which was my strongest stroke by a long shot at one point but everyone does have a stronger arm and leg that skews things; while you learn to compensate to even up, having that starting mark will help)
posted by urbanlenny at 12:19 PM on June 30, 2023

Best answer: Chin and eyes down straight, look past your toes, and find a point to align yourself with a lane line. It may be easier to pick a side and swim next to the lane line instead of trying to stay in the middle. Most swimmers practice in a counterclockwise circle with multiple people in the lane, so I got used to having the left lane line next to me on the left side (I swam competitively and/or played water polo year-round from the age of eight to twenty-two).

Notwithstanding the above, try to keep your head still. Watch a competent backstroker, and their head stays pretty still with everything that's going on around them. If you can keep your head still with the back/top of your head going towards the wall, you'll likely stop weaving around.

Backstroke, done well, relies heavily on the kick, which is fairly rapid, more so than freestyle, in which the kick is often more tied to the stroke. If you develop a consistent kick (you can practice on your back in a streamline with no arms), which you can keep straight and then build your strokes off of, you will likely have a more consistent and straight backstroke.
posted by bitdamaged at 3:16 PM on June 30, 2023 [2 favorites]

Open water swimmers deal with this more like they're boating than you would in a pool. Pick a landmark and aim for it, check every 30-60s (I got less turned around if I could tip my head backwards instead of lifting it up).

Read about 'sighting' in open water swimming. Understanding the teq in rough water will help you in less demanding circumstances (ie racing in an outdoor pool).

Wear good goggles and enjoy the view!
posted by esoteric things at 7:57 PM on July 3, 2023