Tip of the Week: Pushing Off a Slippery Wall

January 4 , 2010

Ever been in a pool with slippery walls, where your feet just slide down whenever you are trying to start that next repeat?  Ever wonder how experienced swimmers still find a way to push off without slipping?

Here’s a couple of tips you can use to show your experienced swimming friends you know what you are doing!  First of all, every wall in a pool is going to be different (even from end-to-end or one lane to the next).  Walls with rough edges are always going to have less slippage than walls with smooth tile.  Sometimes smooth tile can be your friend as the tile edges can create small ledges that you can hook your toes over.  Even the water in the pool can play a part here.  Pools that are poorly maintained will have gunk accumulating on the walls, making them slippery.  Also, the condition of your feet and hands matters.  I frequently will rub the bottoms of my feet on something (like a tile edge on the bottom), or scratch them (sounds gross I know) to make them more abrasive.

The bottom line to pushing off walls without slipping is practice.  If you know you are pushing off a very slippery wall, you will want to start with your feet deep in the water.  If you won’t slip, you want to position your toes near the surface so you can push yourself up and out of the water for the start of every repeat.  A higher push-off increases risk of slipping, but it will be faster if you can pull it off.

View previous swimming tips.