Should women swim differently than men?

If we were to divide all the swimmers in the world into boxes, the first logical division would be women - men. A lot of the advice you can find about swimming with Lifeguard Class is very often based on the great swimmers of history. But these great swimmers are men in many cases, so we can ask ourselves whether women benefit from these general tips. If not, what else should the women do?

Women:

- Are slightly less strong than men, but much more agile

- Are leaner, with short arms relative to their length 

- Have smaller hands and feet

- Have wider hips

- Have better buoyancy (their legs are higher in the water)

- Have more finesse and less tendency to swim on strength

Some of those differences are a disadvantage for swimming, but others are an advantage.

Every aspect has an influence on the swimming performance, but in general we can say that these cancel each other out, because in the age groups in triathlon and swimming we find that the women swim about as fast as the men - Girl Power !

With the above list of differences in mind, let's take a look at some aspects of swimming technique and find out where the "standard" advice falls short for the women:

Leg Movement and Propulsion

A lot of ladies like the traditional kick sets, and in many cases they are much better at it than the men. How did that happen?

First of all, women are naturally much more flexible in the ankles, knees and hips and this makes it easier to extend the feet further and push the water back during the leg kick (and thus provide thrust).

The slightly wider hips make it a bit easier for the ladies to turn their feet in during the leg kick and that is better for a stronger propulsion.

The standard advice sometimes given to age-group triathletes and swimmers is not to put too much effort into getting thrust out of the legs, but it's a little different with women. The women do benefit from developing a good leg kick for distance swimming.

The thrust you get will not only increase the tempo, but it also ensures that the legs are slightly higher (=less resistance) and, if done correctly, it is also not very tiring to do.

Head position

You hear it over and over: "Look straight down to get your legs a little higher in the water" . From a previous blog about the main position ( read the blog here ), we know that this is not always good advice, but especially for women it is the wrong advice in many cases.

In general, women have much better buoyancy with their legs much more horizontal in the water compared to the men. This is partly due to their better leg movement, but also to their lower lung capacity (less buoyancy at the level of the chest) and fat that is piled lower in the body compared to the men.

If you are already well positioned in the water, trying to look straight down will cause a loss of stability in the water. With a wetsuit, this problem will become even worse, as the buoyancy of the wetsuit is added.

Try to keep your head a little higher in the water, ladies! You already have a good position in the water and that will certainly be maintained, but you will also be much more stable in the water and you have more opportunities to develop a good catch. And it will give you an even better overview in open water too with Lifeguard Class USA.

Stroke length a stroke frequency

A well-known exercise in the pool .... with as few strokes as possible to the other side of the pool. With the aim: less than 40 strokes (at 50m) or 16 strokes (at 25m). Who hasn't tried that yet?

Women are in many cases not good at this and that leads to disappointment.

Those goals are usually set after looking at the known swimmers and if they do it must be good for everyone...

The problem is that the swimmers are usually "giants" (Pieter Timers = 2m, Michael Phelps = 1 .93, Ian Thorpe = 1.96) with a huge wingspan (arms length) and a weight of 90-100 kg, while the ladies are generally around 1m60-1m65 with a weight of 55-65 kg.

Do you really think you can have the same stroke length as those mastodons?

If you're a woman who falls into the height and weight category listed above, you'll be much better off with a shorter stroke length with a slightly higher stroke rate. The good news is that the downsides of shorter stroke length/higher stroke rate are negligible and it's an ideal way to swim in open water, by the way: