Swim Stroke

Like learning any skill, swimming is best learnt under an instructor who can break it down and tell you where you need to improve.  Once you are taught to streamline your body (correct body alignment) the correct kicking technique can be added and then the arm stroke can be practiced.  “It is useful to get the technique sussed from the start so that you are not expanding excess energy with insufficient technique,” notes Tanya Cates, fitness and health educator and associate Lecturer at La Trobe University.

Check out swim training at your local pool, but in the meantime here are some tips to get started:

• There are four recognized competitive swimming strokes: freestyle, backstroke, butterfly and breaststroke
• Triathletes use the front crawl or freestyle
• Freestyle swimmers use alternate right and left rotations along the long axis of the body – imagine being skewered on a spit.  “Good swimmers spend more time on their sides than on their front,” says Rushton
• Top freestyle swimmers have two, four or six-beat kicks.  A six-beat kicker is someone who has three complete kicks (up and down) on each leg during one complete cycle of two arms (Stroke cycle)
• You should use the number of kicks that allow your legs to stay near the surface,” advised Rushton. “If your legs naturally float near the surface you may be ok with a two-beat kick (one up and one down on each leg for each stroke cycle) but if you’re a ‘sinker’ you’ll probably get better results with more kicks.”
• Breathe once every stroke cycle or, in other words, every two arm strokes – right and left.  That way you’ll ensure you have oxygen to continue swimming at a good pace.
• Always breathe in and out through your mouth.
• You’ll feel more comfortable turning your head to breath to one particular side so try both in training and tend to stick to the one which is easiest,’ recommends Rushton.  During a race, however, you’ll want to know what’s going on around you so include regular breathing to your wrong side as well.”

Breaking it down

Clive Rushton, Director of Coaching for Swimming New Zealand has broken down the body position and technique basics so you can swim like a star!

Head: Think ‘high hips, low head’. Make sure your hips are as near to the water surface as possible.

Legs: A weak kick means the legs and hips sink low in the water causing drag.  A strong kick – not a kick that creates lots of splash rather small, fast and rhythmic kicks – keeps the legs and hips near the surface and allows the arms to pull the body through the water with less effort.

Feel: develop ‘feel’ by increasing your sensitivity to the water and gaining awareness of hand position and movement.  To get this ‘feel’, try standing in the shallow end and make whirlpools by moving your hands from side to side in a fast alternating, in-and-out sweeping motion.  On the in-sweep, the palms should face slightly inwards, and on the out-sweep, face them slightly outwards.

A good tip is to keep the hand and forearm in a straight line and only work the movement from the elbow down – keep the upper arm and shoulder steady.  Propulsion: The hands and arm are the levers, which enable you to propel through the water.  Great swimmers put their hands in the water, feel for a solid ‘catch’ or ‘purchase’ on the water, and then lever their body past their hands, they do not pull their hands past their body.

Acceleration: The front, or early part of the stroke, should be performed slowly and with gentle pressure.  As each stroke progresses, more speed and pressure should be applied in order to maintain maximum propulsion – purchase, power, progress.

Flexibility: Great swimmers are very flexible, enabling them to use their hand and forearm for propulsion.  Recreational swimmers tend to suffer from ‘dropped elbow’.  Try swimming with hands clenched in a fist so the propulsion had to be produced by the firearm.  To master this, try swimming while holding a tennis ball in each hand – a great training and technique trick that makes for a tough workout.

SHE magazine November 05