Learning to Float in Water

Floating in water is one of the basic techniques that you are taught, before the actual swimming techniques or strokes. It helps to prevent you from drowning, even if you do not know swimming altogether or are still in the learning stage. Floating is also used by the swimmers to rest in-between the activities of swimming over the head or swimming long distances. If you know how to float on water, you will also be much more comfortable while playing in water or enjoying in water parks, even when you do not know the A-B-C of swimming. In the following lines, we have provided the basic instructions that will help you in learning to float in water. However, make sure to try them out, for the first time, in the presence of someone who knows swimming.

How To Float on Water

Find a place that is safe enough for floating i.e. where the water is not too deep.
Relax and let all the tensions from your muscles ease off. Tensed muscles make the body less buoyant.
Take a few deep breaths. The air in your lungs serves as a flotation device for your chest, thereby making it easy to float in water.
Go down in water and walk to the area that has waist-deep water.
Stretch your arms out in front of you and taking a deep breath, fill your lungs with air.
Now, tuck your head down and push off with your feet, till you are in a horizontal position in the water.
Bring your arms together and slowly bring them over your head, till the time you are in a streamlined position. Do not try to perform any swimming strokes at this point of time.
Remain in the position for around 5 seconds. Thereafter, stand up inside the water.
Keep on repeating, till you become perfect in the technique.
After you have mastered floating in shallow water and practiced enough, try it out in chest-deep water. However, make sure that an experienced friend or a coach is around you, when you attempt to do this for the first time.

Tips

Do not attempt to float in water on your own, even if you are doing it in waist-deep water. Always take the assistance of an instructor or a friend who knows swimming.
Make use of swimming goggles, in case the water is chest-deep. This would prevent your eyes from closing time and again, due to water going inside them.
In case you are suffering from infection or pain in the ear, it is suggested to cover the ears with clean cotton balls, to prevent water from entering them. Make sure that you take fairly big cotton balls, which cannot go deep inside the ear’s canal.
Practicing floating on water in a freestyle streamline position is perfectly suitable for beginners as well as those who are pro in swimming.
The size of an individual does not matter, when it comes to floating on water. What counts is the ratio of density between the water and the person floating on it.

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