Great swimming technique doesn’t come naturally to most people. Most people are doing the incorrect thing because they haven’t been taught how to achieve great swimming technique. Do you feel like you’re trying much harder than you should be? Do you ever find yourself exhausted after only a few laps? Does it feel like you’re fighting against the water?
Here are 3 important tips to remember when it comes to achieving excellent swimming technique which will help you break those bad habits once and for all:
1. Keep your body long – Swimming technique must always be kept long, with the swimmer extending their arms, head and shoulders forward while keeping their legs, feet and hips streamlined behind them. The longer your body is kept throughout the stroke, the faster your body will travel through the water. Picture your body as a thin, long yacht gliding through the water and not a big, wide barge which uses enormous amounts of energy to move forward.
2. Treat the water as your friend, don’t fight it – Often swimmers will thrash about in the water in an attempt to pull themselves through it at all costs. They will be splashing, kicking and fighting against the water in an effort to go faster. Good swimmers will use the water as their friend by allowing the natural buoyancy of their body in the water to sit high and streamlined in the water. Rather than pulling hard against the water, power in swimming comes from smooth and efficient movements.
3. Relax your muscles, relax your breathing – A tense swimmer is like a broomstick trying to bend. The key to great swimming technique to be able to relax both your muscles and your breathing. Our body’s natural instinct is to tense up our muscles to pull and kick faster, but in reality this slows us down. Unfortunately this is what slows a swimmer down in the water. Relax and let your body glide through the water for efficient and effective swimming. And it’s a whole lot easier once you get it right!
Swimming with great technique shouldn’t be a struggle. Reduce your frontal resistance by keeping the body long and streamlined like a torpedo throughout the stroke. Work with the water by using it’s buoyancy to your advantage and most importantly relax to go faster, don’t tense up. Follow these simple tips and you will be well on your way to swimming with excellent technique
Most of us are taught that to become a better swimmer we must train harder and train for longer. This was true 20 years ago when not a great deal was understood about how we move in the water. The reality is swimmers of all abilities (especially beginners) need to focus on the correct technique more than anything else. Thrashing out lap after lap doesn’t make a person faster. The key is in reducing the amount of drag. This is where huge leaps of improvement are found.
Here is a list of five tips to help you swim like an Olympian:
1. Don’t train to get fit, train to achieve perfect technique: Everyone must start out by first getting technique right, and then progressing on to improving fitness. If you’re focus isn’t on swimming with correct technique from the beginning, any training you do will not help you for the long-term.
2. Find a coach or mentor: An unwritten law of swimming is ‘whatever it feels like you’re doing in the water, you’re probably doing the exact opposite’. The quickest way to get better at swimming is to have a qualified person give you feedback on your technique. Coaches can be found locally or found online. Many online coaches can give you feedback on your technique if you email a video of yourself to them.
3. Educate yourself: Just like a doctor studies medicine to become a good doctor, to become good at swimming you must study it also. It is much cheaper than a college education though! To achieve correct technique you need to watch the DVD’s, read the books and buy the programs which teach it.
4. Find a training partner: Training with a partner or a group of people makes swimming a lot more enjoyable. It also increase how hard you train and how far you swim because time will go by much quicker. It has been proven that running with another person increases your pace by 18% compared to when you run alone. I’m sure it is no different when in the pool. Find someone who is faster and fitter than you, as this will help you rise to their level rather than take the easy road.
5. Never quit: Becoming a good swimmer doesn’t happen overnight. It can take a few weeks to really change your technique, and many months to see a noticeable improvement in your fitness. The key is to be consistent and train regularly. If you train for 3 days in a row and then take a week off, you can’t expect to see results. You must be consistent with it and always focus on practicing the right technique.
