Backstroke Body Position and Rotation: The Complete Guide

Establishing Comfort in the Water

The foundation of swimming backstroke well, as it is with the three other competitive strokes, is gaining a sense of comfort in the water. You should be able to float effectively in any position without feeling as if you’re in a constant struggle just to stay at the surface of the water. Although different swimmers float differently in terms of their position on the surface, all swimmers should be able to rest comfortably on the surface of the water without much effort.

If you’re not comfortable in the water, you’re going to feel unstable and uneasy. And if you feel unstable and uneasy, you’re going to do what you can to find stability. That usually means using your arms and legs in the form of small sculling and kicking actions. This is a problem because your arms and legs aren’t particularly effective for creating stability and comfort. Worse still: If your arms and legs are busy creating stability, they’re not going to be propelling you down the pool.

Establishing comfort in the water is all about your lungs. Your lungs provide the flotation that allows you to stay at the surface of the water. Without the air in your lungs, you’d have a much harder time swimming effectively.

The problem is that many swimmers can’t feel how their lungs support them in the water. Learning how to feel that support is foundational for establishing comfort in the water.

Once you gain a baseline sense of comfort in the water, establishing an effective backstroke body position becomes much easier. And learning to use your lungs is important for establishing an effective body position in backstroke. When you can do so with minimal effort, all your energy can then be devoted to establishing speed rather than just staying afloat.

Establishing Upper-Body Alignment

To establish a great body position, your entire body should be horizontal on the surface of the water. Your lungs hold your body at the surface of the water and serve as the fulcrum, or middle, of a seesaw. Your hips and legs are on one side of the seesaw and your head and shoulders on the other.

The most common problem for swimmers is that their legs ride lower in the water. Because your legs are long and relatively heavy, they tend to sink. Although addressing your legs directly is important, it's also a direct reflection of your head position. To help raise your legs, lower the opposite side of the seesaw by lowering your head and shoulders in the water. This helps bring your legs and hips up to the surface. You want a head position that makes keeping your hips and legs at the surface as easy as possible.

Some swimmers may need to keep their head position low, perhaps to the point where water may occasionally flow over their face. Some swimmers can find this very uncomfortable at first, which is one reason why they swim with their head held relatively high. Just as putting your face in the water is uncomfortable at first, yet becomes comfortable with some practice, so too does having a lower head position in backstroke.

Some swimmers mistakenly press down with their head and the back of their shoulders by arching their back. Although their head position might be low, they've actually created an ineffective body alignment.

Think about the bottom of a boat. It's rounded to reduce resistance. When you arch your back, you're doing the opposite. If you tend to arch your back, actively round your back by thinking about creating the shape of a boat with your back or by drawing your bellybutton to your spine.

Establishing Lower-Body Alignment

Swimming with your head in an ideal position is important for creating an effective body position. It's only part of the process of staying as horizontal as possible on the surface of the water, however. You can also get your lower body in on the action.

You can learn to lift your legs up to the surface of the water using the muscles of your torso. Because your legs are heavy and tend to sink, use all your options to keep them at the surface.

Lifting your legs is only going to be effective if you have a point of stability to lift from. What's that point of stability? You guessed it: your lungs. That's another reason it's so important to learn to create stability from your lungs.

The challenge is learning to create enough tension to lift your legs without creating so much tension as to immobilize your legs. Your legs need to be free to move while you're kicking. This is a skill that needs to be experienced and practiced to be fully understood. Fortunately, there are floating drills you can practice that allow you to learn these key skills.

Finding the Right Alignment in the Water

A few principles govern your movement through the water, but there's also a lot of variation in how you can swim backstroke effectively. That's because there are a lot of variations in swimmers. They differ in height, weight, limb length, bone density, and many other dimensions. You are structurally different than your lanemates.

Although some of these differences are small, others are likely large. That means the best alignment for you might be quite different than the best alignment for someone else. The hard part is that it's not necessarily obvious what the best alignment is going to be for each person. Fortunately, there are strategies you can use to find the best alignment for you.

Practicing various floating exercises helps you learn how to keep your legs and feet at the surface of the water. You'll discover what you need to do to stay aligned and stay level at the surface of the water. You'll learn which muscles you need to use, how much tension you need to create, and how to manage that as you begin to add movement.

Remember that your head position is also critical for a great body position. Your goal is to find the best head position for you, which is going to be determined by your structure.

The best way to find your correct alignment is to use a lot of different head positions. Swim some 25s with a very high head position and others with a very low position.

By exposing yourself to many options, you'll let your brain sample a variety, and sooner than later, you'll gravitate toward what works best for you. This is a conscious process. Pay attention to what works best for you.

Delaying Your Rotation

One of the biggest misconceptions about backstroke is that your rotation should be constant, even, and smooth. A great backstroke rotation gets delayed during your pull and then occurs aggressively and quickly. It's quite different than the rotation used in freestyle.

Your shoulder range of motion is limited, particularly if you try to move your arm behind your body. But if you're swimming on your back, the only way to get your arm in the water is to move it behind your body.

Most swimmers don't have the range of motion to do that, and even if they did, that's not a strong position to pull with. Pulling from a weak position means a less powerful pull, which means less speed.

That's why you want to stay rotated throughout your pull. Your arms can get into the water without placing your shoulders in compromised positions. This allows you to overcome the range-of-motion limitations in your shoulder and execute a strong and powerful pull.

So rather than rotating constantly, delay your rotation until you complete your pull and then quickly rotate to the other side. You'll have a stronger pull and happier shoulders. It's not necessarily about rotating a lot; it's more about rotating at the right time.

Delaying your rotation to enhance your pull also allows for a more effective arm recovery. If your pulling shoulder is down for longer, your recovering shoulder is going to be up for longer. That makes recovering your arm over the surface of the water a lot easier. Lift straight up the shoulder of your pulling arm, and your arm recovers effortlessly over the surface of the water.

Aggressively Rotating Your Shoulders

Staying rotated throughout your pull to overcome the limitations of your shoulder range of motion and maximize your pull is important. Although doing so solves one problem, it can also create a new one.

If you delay your rotation until you finish your pull and you need to be rotated to the other side of your body to start your pull with your other arm, your rotation is going to have to be really fast. This can be difficult to do by simply twisting your body from side to side. Fortunately, there is a solution.

Your arms should be recovered straight over the water because of the momentum that produces. You can use that momentum to help rotate your body from side to side. When your arm comes down toward the surface of the water, that momentum naturally shifts your body to the opposite side.

This momentum building is going to be a lot more effective when you recover your arms aggressively and you don't attempt to slow them down as they enter the water. Move them quickly because it'll help drive your arm into the water, which helps drive your shoulder into the water, rotating your body from one side to the other. Rather than just actively trying to move your body from one side to the other, simply let the momentum of your recovering arm do a lot of the work for you. When it's coupled with your attempt to rotate, your rotation is going to happen with more speed and less effort.