How to Do a Back Dive Straight (201A)

The back dive straight is a dive of patience and body awareness. Done well it's absolutely beautiful — clean lines, controlled position, effortless. Done poorly it's a lot of distance and very little height. The difference comes down to what you do on the board, and then how you adjust while you're in the air.

Watch the Full Breakdown

What You'll Learn

• Fix #1: Stop sitting on the start — knees over toes, hips stay on top
• Fix #2: Stop rolling your head and shoulders — eyes on a fixed point, arms circle while shoulders stay still
• Fix #3: Learn how to pop your toes — the lower body is what drives this dive

Fix #1: Don't Sit on the Start

Sitting on the start — where your hips drop back and you push yourself away from the board — is the most common early-stage mistake, and it never fully goes away. You have to actively fix it because where you sit on the start is literally where the dive goes.

The fix: let your knees go over your toes as you squat. Most people resist this because it feels like they'll fall, but that's exactly the position that keeps your hips stacked on top of your ankles. If you sit back, your chest comes forward to compensate, your alignment breaks, and you push away from the board. Keep the knees forward, the chest upright, and the hips directly over the feet (as much as you can). It takes practice and some guts to stay in that position, but it's the foundation of everything else on this dive.

Fix #2: Head and Shoulder Position

Rolling your head back or rolling your shoulders is effectively the same problem: you're pushing yourself away from the board before you've finished getting everything you can out of the takeoff. Both of these things combined with sitting on the start will send you flying backward with no control.

The fix for the head: pick a spot on the board — the fulcrum, the center, the Duraflex emblem between the bolts at the tip — and keep your eyes glued to it until your body physically gets in the way. As long as you're looking at the board, your head can't go back.

The fix for the shoulders: practice the arm circle drill on the side of the pool. One arm at a time: arm up at 12 o'clock, add force as it swings down to 6, then relax the shoulder completely and let the momentum bring it back up. The goal is for your shoulder to barely move while the arm just rotates. People roll their shoulders because they're muscling the arms up — but the secret is that relaxing at 6 o'clock actually gets the arms up faster. Add force on the way down. Relax on the way up. That's it.

Fix #3: Learn to Pop Your Toes

Back dive straight and reverse dive straight are lower body dives more than anything else. When the board is ready to push you away, you initiate the rotation by popping your toes forward. On a back dive pike you do this naturally because you have to bring the toes up to the hands — on a straight dive you have to do it while keeping the body rigid, and that's harder.

There's no shortcut here. You're going to pop too hard and go over. You're going to pop too soft and go short. Over time you'll find the range where you can make adjustments in the air. That's the goal — a consistent enough start that the in-air corrections are small.

In-Air Adjustments

Once the takeoff is dialed in, the art of this dive lives in these adjustments:

Head position: Look down at your toes off the takeoff. Watch them come up. That tells you how fast you're rotating and how far you have to go. If you're not rotating fast enough, let the head drop back slightly earlier to add rotation. If you're going fast enough, stay looking at your toes longer to show off the flat position at the peak.

Finding flat: The peak of the dive is where you want your best lines. Looking at your toes on the way up lets you feel where your body is in space — you can adjust your glutes, core, and back to find the cleanest flat position possible. Arms out to the side slightly (a little behind the back is fine and can look elegant), not out in front where it looks tense.

When to close: Most people close their arms too soon and give away the position. Wait until you're well past horizontal — closer to vertical — before bringing the arms in for the entry. If you close early, it shows that you're rushing. If you close later and fast, it shows control. On 3M you have more time to play with. On 1M you'll need to move a little sooner. But the principle is the same: show the position, then close.

Entry: Check out the dedicated back and reverse entry video for the full breakdown on knee saves and alignment. The short version: squeeze hard, shrug up, swim fast, and engage the hamstrings to keep those legs from flopping over at the end.