Learn To Swim Freestyle | A Simple Step-By-Step Guide

in this video I'm going to break the freestyle technique down into a simple step-by-step

[Music] guide freestyle also known as front crw is the most popular swimming stroke

everyone can improve their technique even the best swimmers so here we go freestyle is performed on our front face down horizontal and parallel to the surface of the water our body position

is fundamental to reducing drag as we swim through the water the aim is to be as streamlined as possible throughout one of the key areas to reducing drag is by focusing on the head position often

swimmers will lift their heads to breathe or to look down the pool ahead of them but this can cause the hips and legs to sink resulting in increased drag instead you should work on holding your

head and relax your neutral position looking down almost directly at the floor below we'll get on to the breathing aspect very shortly but first of all let's discuss the

movement of the arms the hand should enter and start the stroke in front outstretched and in line with our shoulders the aim is to pull back through the water pushing towards our

feet and there propelling us forward this starts with what we call the catch at the very front of the stroke as soon as our hand enters the water the action

is simply a slight press down with the hand with a high elbow often we like in this action to putting your arm around a barrel so that you can get your elbow up into a nice strong position done

correctly and you should feel like you have a good purchase of the water and ready to transition into the pool phase by this point the hand should be starting to come underneath the head here we're looking to have the

fingertips pointing down towards the bottom of the pool with our palms facing towards our feet you want to pull straight back directly underneath the body with a 90 to 120° flex in the elbow

now let's finish the pull phase off as your hand passes your chest and stomach you should seamlessly begin extending the arm out while still pushing against the water as the arm fully extends the

hand will be alongside the hip ready to begin the recovery phase of the stroke this starts by lifting the hand and arm out of the water led by the

elbow use this forward and outward movement of your elbow to help drive your hand forward you should aim for the hand to enter the water in with the shoulder and almost slice down into the

water just in front of your head then extend the arm out under the water before moving straight into the catch phase again of course you may be wondering how

breathing fits into all of this the key to breathing and swimming is not to hold your breath you should take a breath in and then you should slowly release and trickle it out until you're next with

freestyle we breathe to either side of the body a breath is taking one extending out and catching with one arm and extending out and starting recovery with the other this is achieved by

rotating both the head and the body to present the mouth to the air it's important you don't breathe up to the sky instead you should imagine you're trying to keep one eye in the water and

one out best practice is to breathe to either side to achieve a nice symmetrical strke this is normally performed by breathing every three Strokes however if you find your out of breath try breathing every two and then

switch p in sides every so often now for the leg kick which is just as important freestyle kick is an alternating movement of the legs up and down the movement should mostly come

from the hips rather than from the knees of course make sure you have a soft Bend in the knee so there is a slight bit of movement but make sure you're not trying to kick a football for that leg kick

movement so start from the hip extending all the way through to the flick of the ankle the kick should also be a fluid up and down movement with both the up and

down providing propulsion and finally rotation you may have noticed me mentioning this along with the breathing this is a tricky skill to master so in terms of progression I would always advise that

swimmers focus on the fundamentals first the catch the pull the kick and breathing and then add in the rotation when they're ready however once we do

start rotating you can start to use those large back muscles and essentially get more power into the stroke also gives us a little bit more reach on the catch and in turn reduces our surface

area through the water the best way to explain the rotation is that as your hand enters the water and stretches out you should rotate it onto your side facing away from that extended arm this

should be roughly somewhere between 40 to 70° then as the arm pulls down underwater start rolling around and back onto your stomach then as the arm

extends out of the back of the stroke use the hand passing your hip as a que to rotate that hip around to the other side this should be a seamless action and crucially the head shoulders and

hips should all rotate and SN well there we go that is the freestyle technique the main thing is that you focus on one thing at a time it's very hard to combine all of these together so take your time with it if you enjoyed today's

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