the swimming issue

I have one key thing to put in this post:
http://www.swimsmooth.com/

I hope this makes me faster. I'm going to watch it for hours.

Some other things I'm learning while reading about swimming (because it is 100% my weakest leg of a triathlon AND what makes me think I cannot continue triathlon for the rest of my life):

Exhalation
I swim with my mouth open, and that's how I exhale into the water. Whenever you are swimming, you should always be exhaling into the water except when you are inhaling to the side. Mouth or nose... doesn't matter it just needs to happen. It's also supposed to be pretty strong too - not some wimpy exhalation. All though I may think I'm doing this, after breathing most people hold their breath for 1 or 2 seconds before actually starting their exhale. It's important, however to keep exhaling because it keeps you relaxed and keeps tension to a minimum while swimming. When you hold your breath, you begin to feel a build up of CO2 which makes you desperate for air, but if you are constantly getting rid of it, you don't feel that desperation (and thus you don't tense up). Tension causes swimmers to want to lift their head and ruin their body position. Similarly, having full lungs actually screws with your body's position in the water by making your chest too buoyant and your legs sink, which is not ideal for speed because it causes drag.

So how do you learn how to exhale correctly? This cool sinking exercise that I'll probably do in the near future at make everyone at the gym pool judge me so hard core (it's about 2/3 of the way down the page).

Body Roll/Rotation
This is something that I know is supposed to happen and it happens when I breathe, but isn't really being well executed when I just swim. I always try to rotate and feel super weird, probably because my hips are rotating, but not my torso. Doing this correctly allows you to use larger muscles for power and elongates your stroke. The fun thing about body roll, is that you rarely see too much and, in fact, you want as much as possible while still keeping a nice rhythm to your stroke.

My question, is how best to practice this. The answer: kicking on your side. The problem: this makes me drown. Why? Because I'm an awful swimmer. Ah, what a conundrum. But a little fix is, while swimming, thinking about pushing your chest forward and your shoulder's back. I'm going to try that first and see what happens. That being said, I'm sure I'll also give this swimming on my side thing a second chance.


Using your core
Things to think about while you're swimming (while I'm swimming... you know, whatever)
1) Stretch through your core. Think about an elastic from your rib cage to pelvis and keep it taut while swimming.
2) Tighten your butt muscles. Don't get crazy now (no squeezing the hell out of your glutes)... but apparently it helps your kicking technique too!
3) Keep good posture! Remember that thing about chest out, shoulders back? Yeah do it. Stomach in. Shoulders back. Chest out.

Those are my words of wisdom/research for the day. I stole a book from my mom called The Fit Swimmer. It will be my next endeavor today.