Straight Body Position

Question
Tom - Our 10 yr old has been diving for 1.5 years (4-5x per week). She is still having trouble getting a straight body position. She has a slight bend at the waist which creates a large splash. This happens mostly on her line-ups and roll-offs. It's not so bad on her pike dives and tuck dives when she's applying more force to her lower half. Anyway, can you provide any suggestion on how to straighten out or to get better body feedback? Thank you.

Answer
Elisa -

I think you are they same person who asked me about the inward dive your daughter is having a problem with. So I will answer this question and then give a few more suggestions about the inward I did not include in my first answer.

The answer to this question could be in her physical conditioning. Does she do the exercises it takes to have the strong body necessary for correct diving posture? Besides doing flexibility and leg strengthening exercises, one of the most important elements in having the right diving body lies in strong stomach and back muscles. She has to be doing the abdominal training exercises it takes to have the proper body alignment for any dive/entry. There are also deck drills that divers do to simulate the proper posture for correct entries. It could be that all this is being by passed in her workouts and that is the reason for her incorrect entries.

Have her lie down on her back at home on the carpet, arms over head grabbing her hands for entry.Stretch her body lengthwise and have a tight position. At the lowest part of her back, above the buttocks, is there an arched space you can slide your hand through? If so, she does not have the proper body position for a straight body entry. Have her try and push the lowest part of her back to the ground so you cannot slide your hand underneath. This is what it feels like to go through the water correctly.Now have her do the same body position lying on her stomach. Have her practice elongating her body where all of her body is flat, straight and tight. Now finally do all this standing up back against a wall.Look and see if there is a space between her ears and her biceps. If so she is not squeezing her head for entries. She needs the shoulder flexibility it takes to do this on entries. These are three things she can do at home to help her with her entries.

As in my previous answer about inwards, go to the USA Diving website and look for product # 103, Skill Development Clinic for Body Alignment and Entries.

About the inward dive, I forgot to mention how important it is to be able to do the dive in your head before you do it off the board. Ask her if she can see herself doing the dive the right way. Does she have a clear picture in her head of how to do it? If not, she most likely will not be able to do it physically. You have to do it mentally before you can do it physically. I also tell kids to think about all the things in the dive that will go right and not the things that can go wrong. Have a positive mental approach to the dive and not a negative one. Think about how good you will feel about yourself after finally doing it and that everyone will be clapping and congratulating you about a job well done !!

Hope all this helps.