How Open Water Swimmers Can Improve Their Sighting

Sighting is a critical skill all open water swimmers need to learn. In open water, well beyond the reach of lane lines, black lines, and walls, sighting—raising your head to see where you are—helps you swim efficiently and stay safe.

But learning how to sight takes time.

The biggest challenge with sighting is preventing your legs from dropping when you pick your head up to see in front of you. The more your hips and legs sink, the more that wrecks good body position and the more it will slow you down.

Here are some guidelines for when and how to sight most effectively.

• Pick a point. Sighting effectively starts with picking a point, whether that’s the next turn buoy on a racecourse or a shoreside landmark that approximates where you need to go to return to your towel and clothes. To sight, select a fixed object to aim for, such as a building or a tree, and then swim as straight a line as you can to that point.
• Take a peek. Ideally, sighting works best when you take tiny snapshots of the water in front of you frequently and then adjust your swimming angle based on what you’ve seen. Some swimmers sight two or three times very quickly in succession and then swim for a bit before repeating that activity. Some swimmers take a slightly longer glance. Either approach can work well; it’s all about what feels comfortable for you and what fits the local conditions.
• Separate your breath. In most cases, it’s best if you separate the act of breathing from sighting. This allows you to keep the bottom half of your face in the water while sighting, which is less likely to disrupt your body line and cause drag. Lifting your head just a bit so that you can see above the water line in front of you and then putting your head back down quickly as a common technique called crocodile or alligator eyes.
• Sight regularly. If you don’t have a kayak or guide boat alongside you that you can see each time you take a breath, you’ll likely have to sight more frequently.
  
  If you’re in a race and efficiency is your main concern, aim to sight more frequently-—about every eight to 10 strokes. If you’re out for a leisurely training swim and not worried about whether you cover a few extra yards, you can space out your sighting more, but you’ll still need to look up regularly to check for any obstacles that may have surfaced ahead while you had your face in the water.
  
  You’ll develop a rhythm for sighting over time. Be willing to adjust that frequency depending on conditions and potential hazards you may encounter.
• Push yourself up. As you’re stroking along and you decide it’s time to peek, push down a little harder in the catch phase of your stroke. This will help propel your upper body a little higher in the water. At the same time, increase your kick strength to keep your feet at the surface. You may need to arch your back a bit to maintain good body position. The first few times you do this, it’ll probably feel awkward, but over time, you’ll get the hang of it. Again, practice is your friend.
• Practice often. You can practice sighting in a pool just as easily as you can in open water. During your next pool training session, consider adding a sighting drill where you make sure to sight twice during each length of a 100 for a set of 4 x 100s. In the calmer, more controlled environment of the pool, you’ll be able to get the hang of what the body position should feel like. You can then transfer those skills to open water.
• Adjust to conditions. In a calm lake, sighting should feel like what you’ve practiced in a pool. In rougher or ocean conditions, you’ll have to modify your sighting technique to look up higher to clear any waves or rollers. In those conditions, you’ll want to minimize the number of times you sight, as it’s more likely your body position will falter. But sighting can also help you see oncoming traffic, other swimmers, or other obstacles, so find a frequency that makes sense for the situation and stick with it.

For swimmers who are new to open water, sighting can seem like a daunting skill to perfect when just plain old regular breathing in rough water can sometimes be a challenge. But with time, you’ll learn this key skill to make for a safer and more efficient open water swim.