Tips To Help You Learn Freestyle From Swim Smooth. Beginner freestylers. Freestyle is a fantastic stroke to be able to swim... Front Crawl is often used to describe Freestyle in the UK - it's exactly the same thing. Why do we call it Freestyle at Swim Smooth? When you are competent at the stroke it's easy, fluid, smooth and fast. If you only swim breast stroke at the moment you'll find it feels completely different - freestyle is much more flowing. You know how awkward it is if you try and walk really quickly? Freestyle is like breaking into a run – it's a great feeling! Learning freestyle presents some challenges, the most obvious of which is how to adapt to breathing in a face down position. Many novice freestylers have some anxiety about putting their faces in the water whilst swimming. Don't worry, that's entirely normal. Every year we work with hundreds of swimmers who want to learn the freestyle stroke and meet these challenges. Here are our top 5 tips to help you learn freestyle: Tip 1. Get help from a Swimming . We call them a swimming . They can remind you of what you need to be doing and they can point out where you are making good progress with your stroke technique. They can also hold you in specific positions whilst you get a feel for them. We have written an article for freestyle swimmers who want to be a buddy and help their friends or relatives learn to swim the stroke. See Help Someone Learn Freestyle. Tip 2. Develop A Feel For The Water. Water is an alien environment to us; something we're not used to. Start off by simply learning how your body moves and feels in the water – it's so important. At first you don't even need to try and float. Sculling in shallow water. Think about using your hands like paddles. Push against the water and feel the pressure on your palms - this is the beginning of something called 'feel for the water' that is very important to swimming technique. As you get used to this, try crouching down in the water and let it take some of your weight, all the time continuing to move your hands and arms. Do this for about 5 minutes. Even when you are moving on to learning the freestyle action we recommend you start every session with this exercise. We much prefer using a pool that is nice and warm for novice swimmers, a cold pool can add to feelings of anxiety. Tip 3. Blow Bubbles. Practise your exhalation technique when standing in chest deep water. Produced with an elite swim coach and. When it comes to teaching swimming lessons, there are some basic guidelines that every experienced swim instructor follows. We've updated our policy regarding how we treat and protect data that is collected and used from our websites. This site also uses cookies which are necessary to its. Here are our top 5 tips to help you learn freestyle: Tip 1. Get help from a Swimming How Can I Lose Weight Healthy Way How to Lose Weight Fast Water Aerobic Exercise: Lose Weight with Aqua Aerobics. Haven't exercised for a while? That's okay because aqua aerobics is for everyone no matter your age or. Not many people know this, but the most important skill in freestyle is to be able to exhale freely into the water. Most people instinctively hold their breath when their face is in the water. This will make the stroke much tougher. When you are swimming freestyle all exhalation should be into the water, so when you turn your head to breathe you only need to inhale. This is the secret of breathing in freestyle. Holding your breath adds to feelings of anxiety and makes you more stressed. GQ joins Integra to learn how to lose weight fast with the aim of establishing healthy habits that will keep our weight off for good. Instead, develop a new habit of exhaling into the water – this will relax you, just like breathing techniques in yoga. Let the water take your weight - if you sink that's a good thing! Start in the shallow end and practise putting your face in the water and simply hum through your mouth or nose to create a long steady stream of bubbles. Best Weight Lifting Exercises To Burn Fat How to Lose Weight Fast Feel like you are sighing. As you get used to this you can develop things by crouching or sitting down to sink lower into the water. A buddy can be useful here to give you some support. If you become so relaxed that you start to feel yourself sinking this is great thing – it shows that you are building a good degree of confidence in the water. Keep working on this skill – the habit and technique of exhaling into the water is very important. Tip 4. Break Things Down Into Manageable Chunks. Attempting to perform the full freestyle stroke without any preparation is a recipe for failure. The key to learning the stroke is to break things down into small manageable chunks. In swimming coaching we do something called 'drills'. A drill is an exercise that allows you to practise one part of swimming technique without the difficulty of doing it all at once. Drills sometimes exaggerate a movement so that you can get a feel for it. Here are some drills we recommend you practise to develop your stroke technique. Kick on your front and just focus on exhalation.- Kicking on your front. With your arms stretched out in front of you and hands placed one on top of the other, kick down the pool. Start with your head out of the water the whole time. When you can do this, move on to putting your face down in to the water between breaths – make sure you are blowing bubbles into the water! Lie on your side with the lower arm out in front of you. Practise moving your top arm over and placing it into the . Keep your forearm and hand totally relaxed and lead the movement from your elbow. Back in the water, kick down the length again, this time on your side with the lower arm out in front and the top arm resting by your side. Start with your face out of the water all the time. As you get used to this, try putting your face in the water between breaths – look at the bottom and blow out continuously into the water. If you have fins (see tip 5) perform this exercise with them on. Use these drills to work on different aspects of your technique before attempting the full stroke. Even Olympic swimmers work on drills to improve and maintain their stroke technique. Drills can be fun and they break up the monotony of swimming lengths. Include them in every swimming session you do! Tip 5. Use Fins. Using fins to work on your stroke isn't cheating. We recommend you invest in some swimming flippers (called 'fins' in swimming). These are smaller and more flexible than scuba diving flippers. If you are buying fins, we recommend you get something mid- length and floppy, like these Finis Floating Fins. Many of the fundamentals of freestyle swimming can be learnt more effectively with a little bit of extra propulsion from wearing fins. Use the fins to perform some of the drills and techniques we outlined in tip 4. Wear the fins for specific exercises, not all the time. Warm up at the beginning of a session and warm down at the end of a session without them. Some people believe that using fins in your swim training is cheating, we don't. Used in the right way for the right things they are a powerful tool to help you learn to swim. Next Steps. You might be interested in our Learn To Swim Freestyle DVD Program. The program uses a 1. It's packed with advice for yourself and if you have a buddy there's advice at each step for your buddy too - to help them help you. Can you really learn freestyle from a DVD? Actually, we guarantee it! If you follow the DVD Program and fail to learn the freestyle stroke then contact us and we'll refund you. Simple as that. The Swim Smooth Blog. You might also like to sign up to our blog called Feel For The Water. You'll get regular emails from us with hints, tips and technique advice to improve your swimming and give you access to even more free material and video that is not available on the main site. As your joining gift we'll send you the very cool Mr Smooth Free Console application for your computer - see what a great freestyle technique looks like! In addition you will also get advanced notice of Swim Smooth Clinic dates before they are announced or advertised. We won't ever hand your email address over to any other company and we won't spam you with lots of marketing BS. You can unsubscribe from the list at any time. Receive the Mr Smooth application as your free joining gift: Learn to Swim Freestyle With Swim Smooth – You Can Do It! The Best Exercises to Swim the Butterfly. The butterfly is a difficult swimming stroke to master; it requires synchronization between two main parts of your body, your arms and legs. A strong dolphin kick and the strength of your upper body are required to propel and pull your body through the water in an undulating manner. If either part of your stroke is weak, the best exercises you can perform are those that can help strengthen and improve in the area needing attention. The dolphin kick is a whip- like movement of the body from the chest to the toes. Your legs are held together and move up and down simultaneously. One of the best exercises for strengthening and perfecting your kicking technique is to swim several lengths of a pool in different positions without the arm movement. Practice the kick by swimming one length of the pool with your arms extended above you head, hands together and head below the surface of the water. With your arms in the same position, repeat the exercise on your right side, on your back and then on your left side. Swim fins can be used to reduce the intensity of the exercise. For a more balanced dolphin kick, Katie Arnold, USA Swimming National Team coach fellow, recommends performing the vertical dolphin kick exercise. Start in deep water, cross your arms across your chest and practice quick, fast up- and- down kicks to keep your head above the water. Your body remains vertical with no forward or backward movement. Arnold recommends performing the exercise for 3. As your technique becomes perfected, lift your hands out of the water, keep your elbows bent below the water and repeat the exercise for 2. Bob Bowman, coach of the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, recommends that advanced swimmers use weights while performing this exercise; it helps to build strength, kicking speed and power. Practice the pull- and- push motion of your arms without the kick. You will need a pull buoy for the exercise. This is a foam devise you hold between your thighs to keep your legs up as you swim. The pull part of the arm movement is when your arms reach forward into the water, move out toward the sides, catch the water and pull the water downward in a semicircle fashion toward the center of your body. The push part of the stroke is when your palms push the water back from under to alongside your body. Concentrate on only the pull and push of the stroke and perform this exercise for four lengths of the pool. Rest and repeat. Arm strength can improve by focusing on one arm at a time. You will need to use a kickboard and a pair of fins for this exercise. Start the exercise face down in the water with both hands holding the kickboard at arm's length. Release the board with your right arm, exhale and practice the pull- and- push movement of your arm. During the push part of the stroke lift your head to take a breath and kick. Return your arm out in front of your head to start the next right- arm stroke. Perform the stroke for 5. To make the exercise more difficult, do not use a kickboard; just keep the stationary arm straight in front of your body. If you are having breathing difficulties, wear a mask and snorkel.
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