I got a few comments on that last post about muscle density. I also got a little heat when I wrote this post about black folks and swimming. I have since shied away from the muscle density issue.

But I have lingering questions. Why did Cullen Jones mention not being able to float? Why did my parents, who resembled Jack Sprat and his wife have such different experiences in the water. My mother, who was morbidly obese, floated so well she could barely keep her feet on the bottom of the pool. My father, much leaner, sank like a bar bell. It always seemed more like a bone issue than a muscle issue.

A while back, I mentioned the lady in the beauty shop who said that tenseness has something to do with a lack of buoyancy. There’s something to that.

Actual inability to float is very rare. We all have different levels of buoyancy, related to fat, muscle, and lung size. You can affect the lung capacity by being tense or relaxed. So, if you have fear of the water, you can actually affect your buoyancy!

I think we get on a slippery slope when we try to categorize all black people as the same. I mentioned my parents earlier, both of whom were black. They obviously didn’t have the same body types. Maybe muscle density played a part in my father’s buoyancy problem, but having almost drowned myself trying to save him, I can safely say that he struggled with tensing up in fear while trying to tread water.

I wonder if we can put this muscle density theory to rest with the simple word, fear?