Front Crawl Top Swim Tips

[Source: Tri-Rudy newsletter]

by Tom Anzai
www.swimottawa.com

"Top 5 Swim Stroke Mistakes...And How To Avoid Them“

After forty years of competitions both as a swimmer and a coach, I've seen just about every stroke possible as have my fellow colleagues who have been around the sport for several decades. I'm still amazed to see an unique swim technique I haven't seen before, however, I'm pretty sure the participant couldn't care less and is happy as a lark to be able to move in the water. To be honest, I'm still learning and trying out technique drills myself that seemed void in my youth (I don't think I was a good listener back then perhaps :-). Anyway, here's my top 5 front crawl swim strokes that I continually see and what you can do to fix them:


1. Excessive head lift when breathing. Lifting your head causes your lower body to sink and results in more turbulence. Do key rotation drills to make sure you look at the landscape sideways. Try it the next time you're at the pool by turning your head directly sideways. Does the landscape perspective seem odd? Chances are you are lifting your head to see more upright.

2. Forced breathing. If you get out of breath and you're in reasonable shape, then inefficient breathing is the culprit. You have to learn to slowly exhale air completely out of your lungs before you draw new air in on the breathing cycle. If you don't, you'll be attempting to both exhale and inhale when you breath causing laboured inefficiencies. To some progressive breathing drills while stationary and move to kicking with a board with your face in the water, then to experimenting with exhalation techniques to determine which is best for you.

3. Swinging arm recovery. Your arm is a pretty heavy limb. Imagine its dead weight as it swings wildly while recovering over the water. The only forces that can stop the swinging motion are two-fold: first, is your muscles to redirect your arms path, and second, is the force of the water as you counter correct it. Your muscles require energy as water is 800% denser than air. The two together will cause you to slow down over time. Use drills to relax the forearm and hand and minimize the path from the exit point (your hips) to the entry point (before you rotate to reach forward).

4. Cross-over underwater catch. The swinging arm recovery above often leads your arm passing your body's centerline as it strokes underwater. A no-no in swimming as that will result in lateral movement. We need to pull water directly behind us in order to continually move forward in a streamline fashion. Use drills to learn how to lock 'n load your hand entry by efficiently catching the water through the power phase through to the finish phase.

5. Inconsistent to no kick. Let's face it. Wet suits make you buoyant so you don't have to kick as much. But, let's be clear. You still have to kick to help drive your hips to initiate the pull. And, don't leave your feet to drag behind you like a pair of dumb bells. Use wall, vertical, dry land, and kick drills (with and without a board) to learn how to boil the water. Watch the next triathlon or open water swim. Are the leaders kicking? Absolutely.

6. OK, I snuck in a #6. Avoidance of other swim strokes. I sometimes hear triathletes stating that they only want to practice front crawl as that's what they only do in a race. One of the stronger recommendations I have is to become a real swimmer by learning the other strokes and treat it as excellent cross-training, particularly backstroke as it a long-axis cousin to the front crawl. It also uses muscles that are specific to the stroke that you cannot develop in any other way. By doing other strokes, it also prevents repetitive stress injuries and opens up a whole new awareness of feel for the water. Do progressive drills if you can't do the whole stroke. Work with the kick first and gradually incorporate the arms. You don't have to be proficient in those strokes...but if you do manage to do a resemblance of the butterfly than you can consider yourself a real swimmer :)

Freestyle Breathing

[Source: East Coast Cycos newsletter, in Tri-Rudy newsletter, December 16/09]

Developing a good breathing technique is perhaps the biggest challenge for beginner and intermediate swimmers. Problems with breathing can easily knock on into other parts of the stroke. For instance, breathing can cause scissor kicks, poor body position, cross-overs and lop sided strokes.

Many swimmers have a problem with their stroke that is related to their breathing without realising that their breathing is the cause of the problem.

Below we're going to take a quick look at good breathing technique and common problems. We'll also give you 7 tips to improve your breathing, try them even if you don't think you have a breathing problem - you may be surprised!

Exhale strongly into the water between breaths.

Tip 1. Focus on Your Exhalation Not Your Inhalation

The most common problem swimmers have with their breathing is not exhaling under the water. If you exhale under the water between breaths you only have to inhale when you go to breathe. This makes things much easier. It also relaxes you and helps greatly with bilateral breathing.

This is so important and can make a massive difference to your swimming.

We're hot on this - check out our key article on exhalation: You Know Your Problem, You Keep It All In!

Tip 2. When you're not breathing, keep your head still

In between breaths, hold your head still in one position. Don't roll it around as your body rotates - this will make you dizzy and will really hurt your co-ordination!

If you've think you roll your head, concentrate on looking at one point on the bottom of the pool. Only turn your head to breathe. This will feel a little strange at first but should quickly start to feel much nicer. You'll find you feel much more coordinated with the rest of your stroke too.

If you're struggling to co-ordinate holding your head still - try this visualisation. Imagine a half-full glass of champagne is sitting on the top of your head and you've got to keep it very still or it'll spill! Sometimes thinking of it like that can do the trick.

You can practise at the shallow end or on dry land by bending forwards at the waist and performing pretend strokes while holding your head still.

Tip 3. Breathe Into The pocket - Your Bow Wave Is Your friend

When you move through water you create a 'bow wave' with your head and body, just like a boat does. The shape of the bow wave means the water level drops along the side of the swimmer's face.

Breathe into the trough or 'pocket'.

This creates a trough either side of your head and body that is beneath the surface level of the pool - so there's air lower than you might expect there to be.

Breathe into this trough and you don't have to lift your head to inhale.

Sometimes swimmers call this 'breathing into the pocket' as it feels like there's a pocket of air there by your head.

You don't have to swim fast to create a bow wave, even swimming slowly creates a decent pocket for you to breathe into.

Many swimmers don't realise the bow wave is there and try and lift or over-rotate their head to take a breath. That's a big mistake, as we'll explain in tip 4.

Tip 4. don't lift Your head

Don't lift your head when you breathe!

The problem with lifting your head to breathe is that your body acts like a see-saw and your legs sink. This adds lots of extra drag.

With the trough or pocket of air by your head you don't have to lift your head up to breathe. To breathe into the trough you just have to rotate your head a little without lifting it. If you try and lift your head you disturb the bow wave, reducing the trough. Also, when lifting your head you tend to breathe too far forwards - and try and breathing over the high front of the bow wave.

So, lifting your head disturbs the bow wave - it's a vicious circle. Instead of doing this, trust the pocket to be there and keep your head low.

Look at the shape of the bow wave. Don't lift your head and try and breathe on the peak of it.
Instead, breathe into this pocket.

If you are struggling to find the pocket, a good drill to practise is to swim with fins (flippers) in a superman position - one arm out in front of you and the other resting by your hip. Kick gently on the side of your lead arm and look down at the bottom of the pool. When you are ready to breathe, simply rotate your head slightly to find the pocket and breathe. Don't hurry this, kicking with the fins will keep your moving forward so you can feel the pocket with your mouth.

Tip 5. Don't Over Rotate Your Head

A similar problem to lifting your head is rotating it too far - so you are looking upwards instead of to the side when you breathe.


Over-rotating your head and breathing to the sky effects you balance and often causes scissor kicks.

This is bad technique because it causes your body to over-rotate onto your side and cause a loss of balance. To support yourself you tend to cross-over with your lead hand creating a banana shape with your body. This causes you to snake down the pool from one side to the other. A scissor kick is also very likely.

To correct this, you need to get used to breathing into the trough. Use the kick on the side drill we suggested in tip 4 and when you breathe try and keep your lower goggle in the water so you have one eye below the water and one above.

If you are struggling to do this, swim in one of the side lanes of the pool and have someone walk on the edge of the pool beside you and ask them to keep their feet about level with your shoulders. As you swim and turn to breathe, look at their feet square on.

If you develop a stiff neck whilst swimming, it's very likely you are either lifting or over-rotating your head to breathe. This puts great strain on your neck muscles. Improve your breathing technique and the stiffness should quickly go away.

Tip 6. A lack of Body Rotation Could be hurting your breathing

Good body rotation is a massive help to your breathing. That's because once you have rotated you don't have to turn your head much further to breathe. If you are struggling to breathe, perhaps to one side, poor body rotation could be your problem.

Tip 7. Learn to Breathe Bilaterally

Here at Swim Smooth we believe that learning to breathe bilaterally is an investment that will pay you back every swim for the rest of your life. That's because it helps develop a symmetrical stroke which will make you cut straighter through the water.

If you only breathe to one side it's very likely your rotation will be poor to your non-breathing side and you won't swim in a straight line. We've seen these problem time and time again with swimmers who only breathe to one side.

Catch and pull

[Source: East Coast Cycos newsletter in Tri-Rudy newsletter, December 10/09]

How to go about (and how not to go about) improving your feel for the water - a much misunderstood subject.

Does your stroke need more oomph? Do you lack propulsion? Long to get a better hold and feel for the water?

Everyone would love a better catch and pull. Not only will it make you faster, it will also make you more efficient. This is because a poor catch and pull wastes a lot of energy - get it right and you will swim at the same speed much more easily.

The single biggest difference between a normal swimmer and an elite swimmer is a vastly superior catch and pull. So why isn't everyone working on this secret of the freestyle stroke? Perhaps because it is the most misunderstood thing in swimming.

Many swimmers ignore their catch either unaware of how important it is or unsure of how to improve it. Others are going about trying to improve it the wrong way.

So what does that elusive great catch look like? More importantly, what does it feel like? In the article below we're going find out, starting out with some common misconceptions about the catch.

Misconceptions

Let's dispel some common misconceptions about the catch you might have heard:

"When you get it right, you feel like you've got a massive grasp on the water, feeling a huge amount of resistance with each pull."


A good catch and pull drives you forward with less effort, not more.

INCORRECT. A good catch will have you caressing the water, locking on and pressing the water back behind you. Contrast this to what most swimmers do - pressing the water down at the front of the stroke rather than back. Pressing water down creates a lot of pressure on the palm because you are changing the direction of the water flow (from towards you to downwards). When you start to pull the water back behind you - helping it on its way - you could well feel less pressure on the palm.

"You need to make your stroke as long as physically possible for your catch to be efficient."



INCORRECT. In fact the opposite is true. In our experience when swimmers try and make their stroke as long as possible they normally over-reach at the front of their stroke. This is very hard to do without dropping the wrist and elbow. Dropping the wrist shows the palm of the hand forwards - into the water flow towards you. When you do this you feel pressure on the palm from the flow and most swimmers mistake this for a good catch. Ironically, dropping the wrist and elbow is one of the worst things you can do for your catch. We'll explain more below.

When you're swimming, don't try and over-reach at the front of the stroke. It's better to have slightly less reach and a vastly better catch. It'll make things more efficient and more rhythmic too.

You should pull through like you're describing an ‘S-Pull shape' under the body.


There are few things worse for your shoulders than thumb first hand entry.

INCORRECT. In centuries past, swimmers were taught to enter into the water thumb-first, then press out, sweep back in, and then finally back out as their hands swept past their thighs. This would make an S-shape. It was believed that doing this would increase the length of your stroke as you were moving your hand on a longer pull-pathway under the body than if you pulled straight through. However, the benefits of doing this have since been disproved - it does not offer any advantage in propulsion versus a straight pull (see below), in fact it is slower.

Perhaps the greatest danger of an S shaped pull is that entering thumb-first is one of the leading causes of shoulder injury and pain. We suggest you avoid thumb-first entry like the plague.

OK, that was Swim Smooth's guide on how NOT to catch and pull, so how should I be doing it instead?

The Correct Catch And Pull

1. ENTRY

As your hand enters into the water, take care to make sure it does so finger-tips first, lengthening forward in front of the same shoulder with the middle finger pointing the way to the far end of the pool.

Avoid crossing over the centre line, this is critical to keeping a high elbow catch and pull through later on.

2. EXTENSION

As you reach forward with good body roll (roll being essential here), make sure you do so with the palm of the hand looking at the bottom of the pool, but with the finger tips angled slightly down.

This should be flexed from the wrist (not from the knuckles) we need to keep you palm flat and open, fingers closed loosely together.

Avoid "putting the brakes on" by dropping the wrist and pushing forward (you'd be surprised how many swimmers do this!)

3. INITIAL CATCH

At full reach and without dropping your elbow, feel like you are tipping your finger-tips over the front of a barrel (again flexing at the wrist), which will start the catch.

At the same time start bending the elbow and pressing back on the water with the forearm in a near-vertical position.

This is what keeping your elbows high on the catch is all about.

A memorable way to think about this action whilst you are swimming is to visualise a smiley face drawn on the palm of your hand. As you start the catch, tip your finger tips down and show that smiley face on your palm to the wall you just left. This is like locking your hand in place, effectively feeling-the-water.

You will now be pressing the water back behind you rather than pushing it down.

4. PULL THROUGH

Concentrate your efforts on simply pressing water back behind you with the palm of your hand still looking back behind you.

Combined with good rotation, this pull through will lead to an efficient long stroke, but one that is not overly long.

Good job!


Summary

When you get the catch and pull through right it feels like a smooth flowing action, it feels easy but still gives you lots of propulsion. You will have an awareness that you are using your larger pectoral and latissmus dorsi muscles (pecs and lats) to drive and time the movement.

Work on improving your catch and pull through by avoiding the pitfalls and using the tips we described above.

One reason the catch and pull is tricky to get right is that it's a chain of events. If one of the early movements is wrong (e.g. dropping the elbow and/or wrist) this then disrupts the water flow and knocks on into the other movements - disrupting the catch. Further to that, it's not easy to see what you are doing as you catch and pull as the actions are normally out of your line of sight.

A Useful Tool To Develop Your Catch

PT Paddles are a great tool to help you develop your catch. Unlike a normal paddle, they are designed to remove the grip and propulsion from your hand as you use them.

This allows you to focus on that bent elbow catch and pull to develop propulsion from the forearm. When you remove them and add your hands back in, your catch and pull will have developed more propulsion. Sweet.

PT Paddles - a very different sort of paddle. Great for your catch.