Floating

[Oak Tree]

In the parent thread, we had this quote: If you cannot float, you cannot swim.

 

I find this to be patently untrue. There is some percentage of people who can't float, based on their muscle/fat ratio.

 

When I was a lad, I couldn't float at all. I could take a big, deep breath, stop moving, and sink to the bottom of the pool where I could sit, stand, kneel, roll over, whatever. I could stay down a long time. Repositioning my body was not going to help.

 

I therefore am inclined to find the "rest by floating" requirement to be an odd duck - something a bit on the literal impossible side for some people - like "stand up straight and be less than six feet tall" or something.

 

We generally let people move their arms a bit to help with the floating if necessary.

 

I'm presuming that's a normal interpretation, but I don't know. What do you do a boy who can't float?

[Scoutfish]

I also know this to be untrue...depending on your definition of flaot.

 

I CANNOT flot on my back. Wether it be just an oddity, uneven distribution of body fat, or some bones being unproportionatly denser than others...I cannot flot on my back.

 

Every time I try, my legs begin to sink and I begin to take on a verticle stance. No, I am relaxed. I do not have any fear of water ( although I respect it) as I have been in and around the water all my life and as my father was a Coasti and I used to run water rescue.

 

NOw, back to my floating. When my body does go verticvle in stance, I do not mean that I am fully floating with ant specific amount of my body constantly staying out of the water. Again, if I relax, my entire body will slowly dip completely underwatyer at a depth of about 5 or 6 inches between my head and the surface. At this point, I will slowly surface again , but only a few inches above teh surface. If I plan on breathing, I have to tilt my head backwards .

 

If you ever saw the old Coast Guard survival flotig methood..then you copuld see that I could do this for very long extended periods of time.

 

But I swim very well. Not on the same level as Mark Spitz or Michale Phelps by a long shot, but do hold my own.

 

But If the outcome of me earning a swimming badge or certification was dependant on floating, then I wouldn't pass...which is obviously a FLAWED process as it turns out, I swim very well.(This message has been edited by scoutfish)

[ScoutNut]

Personally, I can not NOT float.

 

I can not sit in a pool, or hot tub without something to weigh me down, or hold on to. If I relax at all, I automatically rise to the surface. I have been told it has something to do with fat ratios.

 

This does not mean that I will float completely horizontally. My feet are naturally heavier and seem to sink somewhat. Not enough however to pull the rest of me down.

[shortridge]

I was just reflecting on this today at the swimming pool helping my daughter try to float. I'm like Scoutfish. I've never been able to "properly" float. I always end up with my legs in a vertical position, my arms out at the sides and my head and shoulders out of the water, tilted back. I never sank, passed all the swimmer's tests, earned Lifesaving MB - but neither could my whole body ever float on or near the surface.

[packsaddle]

I just sank, not like a rock but only a little slower. And I'd keep sinking too, if I didn't start moving to stay 'up'. I felt like a failure that I couldn't float. It still doesn't work.

[Eagle92]

Yep some folks cannot float. I know this for a fact as my partner in lifeguarding class was a guy who weighed in the 280-300# range, was 6'9", and wad an extremely low body fat percentage as he was the head wrestling coach at a local HS. Needless to say doign any of the rescues with him was a major PITB.

[CalicoPenn]

"I've never been able to "properly" float. I always end up with my legs in a vertical position, my arms out at the sides and my head and shoulders out of the water, tilted back."

 

Ummm - sounds like a "proper" float to me. Back when I went through the Red Cross Water Safety Instructor's school, this was considered the ideal resting back float. Indeed, what's being described is pretty darn similar to an iceberg. About 10% of an iceberg's mass is above water, the other 90% is under water, but icebergs are still floating, aren't they? If you were struggling to keep your legs in a horizontal position, then you weren't resting.

 

There were people who would sink a few inches under the water - but most of the time, if you could get them to arch their back just so, they would float just like Shortridge. In those rare instances when they couldn't, we would still call it a float because the person stopped sinking. Floating doesn't neccessarily mean like a cork. Something wholly suspended in water without touching the ground could still be considered floating.

 

I think if you're using a counselor or a person signing off on rank requirements that uses a definition of floating that is so rigid that it doesn't take into account the way a body naturally behaves in the water, then it's time to find a new counselor.

[Oak Tree]

I agree, Calico. Some people think of "float" and imagine someone with their toes, their tummy, and their face out of the water. In fact, a good float can easily be just a couple inches of face that includes your mouth. Now that I've added some body fat in my adult life, I can easily float.

 

As a teenager, though, I could not float by any definition. I did not suspend a few inches below the surface. I sank. The only way I stopped sinking was by hitting bottom or by adding some upward force with my arms or legs.

[Eagle707]

I'm the one who originally posted that so I'll take a moment to defend my comments. I should have been careful not to use an absolute. I am one of those people with very little body fat but, curiously, I cannot sink (it makes being a mock victim difficult ).

 

I posted that comment on a thread where we were discussing a Scout who was afraid of swimming. The point I was actually trying to make was that many people cannot float because they tense up from fear and then sink. In this case, you need to get them floating as the first step in making them comfortable in the water. What I should have said was "make sure he's water-adjusted before you make him start swimming." These people are whom I was referring to, not to those who are gifted with more density and muscle mass.

 

Does the comment make more sense now?(This message has been edited by Eagle707)

[Twocubdad]

Finally, a physical skill where we chubby kids have an advantate. Life is good.

 

On average human beings are slighly positively bouyant and if floating like a cork will settle in with the waterline just above their eyebrows. Unfortunately, this doesn't do much for breathing.

 

Through the years as a WSI and teaching hundreds of kids to swim, I never saw anyone who was truely negatively bouyant. Usually, holding a good, deep breath is enough added bouyancy to get you above water. The trick is getting to the point that the few percent of your body above water includes your mouth and/or nose. That's a skill which just about everyone can learn. You all know the drill -- head back, arch your back, hold your breath -- almost always works, but for some folks a little fluttering of the hands and feet is required. I'm okay with that.

 

I don't think "resting" requires being perfectly still. If the boat sinks and I'm swimming to shore, I don't think anyone will mind if I flutter my feet a bit while taking a break.

 

I'm just back from camp, so I missed the parent thread. But a question: Is this a real issue or just an academic discussion? Are kids being turned down for "swimmer" because they move a little while back floating? If so I'd have a conversation with the aquatics director. If they can't float on their back even with a little propulsion, they need more instruction.

[shortridge]

Interesting. I was always told by the folks doing the swim tests that I should be working to float more of my body on the surface. I passed the tests, but was left with the impression that floating one's entire body on the surface was the "proper" way to go about it.(This message has been edited by shortridge)

[Beavah]

Yah, interestin'.

 

If I remember what my old buddy Archimedes used to say (yah, yah, as the lad's say I'm old enough to remember ancient Greece... Or is it grease....)... Yeh float if yeh weigh less than the amount of water you displace. Or in other words, yeh float if your total density (mass/volume) is less than water (1kg/liter).

 

Now if yeh read da popular claptrap online, everyone talks about muscle to fat ratio, eh? Because fat has a density of about .91 and muscle about 1.04 (compared to water with a density of one). Yah, and I suppose it's true that if you're really fat that will help. But in my experience workin' with kids yeh don't really run into this, eh? Da differences between muscle and fat density are too small for it to matter much.

 

What really drives floatin' is bone (density of around 2.5 or more!). Bone makes yeh sink. To balance out bone yeh have empty spaces. Three in particular, eh? Chest/lungs, hollow organs (stomach, etc.), and head (sinuses and other open spaces, eh? Not because you're an airhead;)).

 

So there's three things that matter for kids. Two yeh have control of. The first is how much they're willing to let their head go under water. More is better, since da empty spaces are more on the face side than the back, eh? Second is relaxation. When yeh tense up your chest and stomach muscles in particular yeh squeeze the hollow organ spaces down. Cold water can be an issue, because yeh naturally tense up and shiver. Really good muscle tone doesn't help. Yah, and I guess there's a third which is technique... gettin' em to inflate and submerge those hollow parts, eh?

 

What yeh don't have control of is da bone to volume ratio, eh? Depends on lots of stuff like lung capacity and torso length and bone size. I was always a floater even though I was a skinny lad, probably because I have a long body and short legs and relatively narrow bones .

 

Beavah's

 

Third thing yeh have control of is technique, of course. Da more yeh can get 'em to fill

[Oak Tree]

Twocub, I asked the question from an academic point of view in the sense that I'm not aware of someone who failed. As someone who occasionally watches swim tests in the troop, though, I was curious as to how much instruction people would give to Scouts to hold still. We had one Scout last time who was pretty much treading water and we tried to get him to stop moving anywhere near that much.

 

When I was in the water, it didn't matter how deeply I tried to suck in air, I could not get enough to make my body buoyant. I could stay on the bottom a long time with all that air. It was kind of a fun "pool trick" to do. I remember my dad getting mad at me once because he had started to worry that I'd drowned. As a father now, I sympathize.

 

Eagle707 - yes, the comment makes perfect sense. The mechanism, I guess, is that when people are tense, they don't take in much air, and hence they sink. Once they relax and breathe more deeply, they are ok. I think that's exactly right. Wasn't meaning to contradict that sense of what you were saying - just happened to hit one of my pet topics.

 

I didn't really feel "gifted" with more muscle mass - I was quite skinny (very low body fat), and didn't have a lot of upper body strength, but I had substantial thigh and calf muscles.

 

 

[prairie]

Related to Beavah's post, the water presure around the lungs pushes in and a novice swimmer won't be thinking about trying to alway keep their lungs as inflated as posable and the cold of the water is no help at all. I wonder how much easier it would be to start swimming in warm salt water. Iv

e even been tempted to menton to a sinker that swim trunks made from Scuba diving wet suit materal would be a real help.

A modified breathing cycle of holding air with short exhale and re-inhale will help.

 

Most of my life I have been a floater but the three years in the Army while not really a sinker I found it far harder to float in a comfortable way, sadly now I float so well I could take a nap.

(This message has been edited by prairie)

[SSScout]

In my Scout carreer, I have been taught/experienced three different phenomena in this vein:

1) Boys that sink no matter what. As they get older, they tend to float easier, more Archimedian stuff. "Eureka!"

 

2) Different "drown proofing" techniques, all of which depend on being able to float at the surface and NOT sink to the bottom of the pool without motive effort. The type I was taught is to take a breath, and relax with your head/face in the water, arms relaxed at the surface, legs hanging down as they will. About every 20 or 30 seconds, you stroke down with your arms, kick easily and breath out. As you raise up alittle, you raise your head, take a breath and then relax and resume the float position. Wait another 15 or 20 seconds and repeat. The trick is the relaxing part, the reserving of energy and slow breaths.

 

3) This is the trick to try for kids that "cannot float". Try this in kids stand up deep water. An adult stands next to the learner. The learner should take a DEEP breath, raise their arms over their head, and lay back onto the adult's hand.

. The adult holds the learner up, gently, with a hand in the small of the learners back. Holding the arms over the head helps balance the leg weight and tends to open the chest up max. I have seen even "sinkers" able to float nose out of the water in this position. Sometimes.