On this video I will show you the 4 styles I used to swim 50 freestyle in less than 30
seconds. We will analyze the pros and cons of each style of freestyle so you can pick
the one that is best for you.
1- Pros and cons
Straight arms or windmill. Best example Florent Manaudou. 3 pros - 4 cons
None of these styles of freestyle were invented by me. I’ve just studied them by watching
olympians, my teammates and by testing them myself. I know this one doesn’t look pretty
or smooth but it has its pros.
Pro #1 - With this stroke you can achieve one of the fastest tempos. In the 50 freestyle
of London 2012, Manaudou the winner of the event, swam with this technique at a .46 tempo.
Meaning more than 2 strokes per second. He was moving his arms this fast… while pulling
a lot of water.
Pro #2 By hitting the water straight down, my brother noticed, it elevated my hips to
the surface a little, giving me a better angle to move forward.
Pro #3 It forces you to rotate more, therefore you use the core muscles more which is always
a good thing.
Con #1 - If you don’t rotate enough it will be counter productive and it will be
more dangerous for your shoulders.
Con #2 When you enter the water with your arms straight it creates a bigger splash,
which means more water surface resistance. To compensate you need more muscle power to
pull yourself forward quickly.
Con #3 You have to be strong to swim like this. Like … really strong, and have very
efficient complementary kick.
Con #4 it is more difficult to breathe with this style. This is because you are going
fast and there is a lot of water splashing all around.
Horse freestyle. Best example Kyle Chalmers. 3 pros - 3 cons
This stroke has a subtle difference for the viewer, but for the swimmer it is really noticeable.
Look at this horse first. Its front legs touch the ground almost at the same time. In fact
almost the four legs are in the ground at the same time and that gives it more power
to do a long jump. The same idea brought to swimming looks like this. This is exaggerated
of course. But this is actually how Caeleb Dressel and Kyle Chalmers swim. Those are
the fastest swimmers in the world right now in the 100. They swim with a 0.1 difference
between arms. So the “jump” that the horse does right here is when they take a breath.
It is subtle but if you consider that both arms are doing the same thing .1 is quite
a difference.
Pro #1 - Breathing is easier.
Pro #2 You get into a better rhythm. I don’t know why but once you get the hang of it you
get into a rhythm fast and it feels like it is easier to swim at a constant speed.
Pro #3 - To be honest I really just learned this technique a couple of months ago in preparation
of this video. I learned that you can use gravity when you are coming back from the
“jump” to help you rotate. It’s a similar concept to going up high in breaststroke in
order to shoot forward.
Con #1 - It’s not symmetrical. That might throw off some people.
Con #2 Your pull has to be strong and effective to do that “jump” part.
Con #3 If your kick fades you won’t be able to pull yourself forward effectively.
If you are going to try this technique, what helped me the most is doing my first stroke
with the opposite arm of the side that I breathe. So for me was doing my first stroke with the
right arm to be able to breathe to the left. It’s funny, I watch a lot of swimming videos
and haven’t seen anyone mention this type of freestyle. Probably because it doesn’t
look very pretty. But is very common among elite swimmers.
Balanced sprint or boat freestyle. Best example Cate Campbell. 3 pros 3 cons.
The elbows in the recovery are bent and the hands are close to the body. The pull is ver
symmetrical. The entry is clean. We actually made a video about this style which we will
link in the description.
Pro #1 - If you breathe every 2, 3 or 4 strokes the technique doesn’t suffer.
Pro #2 - You don’t have to be super strong.
Pro #3 - It’s easier to teach and learn.
Con #1 - You ride low on the surface so you have to breathe quickly.
Con #2 - Is’t hard to achieve a high tempo.
Con #3 - You need a super strong kick.
Arrow Freestyle. Best example Katie Ledecky. 2 pros - 3 cons
This way of swimming seems very popular among you, our audience. It looks smooth and kind
of impressive that this almost 30 year old can still go under 30 seconds with these few
movements, good job me. We will check in again in 30 years.
Pro #1 - you save a lot of leg energy with a two beat kick.
Pro #2 - It is the smoothest. Therefore, you can do less strokes.
Con #1 - You have to make up with your arms and core engagement what you save in energy
with your legs.
Con #2 - The speed is not constant. You accelerate and decelerate on every stroke. So your body
position needs to be very horizontal to not decelerate quickly.
Con #3 - If you are one of the many people who have watched our video on the arrow freestyle
and have tried it, you know that it feels great. But it is not easy to swim fast.
How should you pick your style?
There is no best way to swim freestyle. Even for me it has changed depending on the distance
that I am swimming, and other things that are in constant change like my age, my strength
and my endurance. So my advice is to learn all four styles and master the ones that feel
right because you never know when you are going to need them. Also no two styles of
freestyle are the same, you will find subtleties that you can change to make it work better
for you. For example, you can kick a little more in the arrow freestyle and you might
find that it works better for you.
Nathan Adrian swims with three different styles in the hundred. He starts with boat free,
after the turn he goes to horse freestyle and the last 10 meters he does straight arm
windmill. It is amazing to watch and it worked for him in 2012!
Whatever you choose though, keep these 6 things in mind.
2- 6 Hacks
1- Breathe quickly
On every style of freestyle, the breath needs to be quick. Put aside what you learned in
Yoga for a minute and do shallow breaths.
2- Rotate
It doesn’t matter if you are swimming arrow freestyle or horse freestyle, you need to
rotate, specially your shoulders, in order to pull better.
3- Don’t move your head
The head moves in a straight line. So even when you breathe you need to keep your head
in line.
4- Quick kicks
Make sure your kicks are small and quick on every style. On these three styles the kick
goes a little out of the surface.
5- Use your core
The core is the biggest group of muscle in your body. It doesn’t only help you to keep
a good position in the water, but also helps you rotate, kick and pull water.
6- Use fins
The main difference of each style is in the arms, so to make things easier to learn you
can use fins and feel how different each style is.
Bonus:
As you could see, the underwater kicks are a big part of every style. It doesn’t matter
if you are doing 2 or 10 dolphin kicks, they need to be fast and powerful. Practice and
perfect them.
Free freestyle workout
Here is a quick workout you can do to improve all four style of freestyle.
Giveaway
I guess because 7:01
Sorry for not posting a video in a while, we had our San Diego Swimming camp this past
February, which went great by the way! Thank you! {due to the global crisis the dates might
be postponed} and we moved to our new offices! I mean they are not this cool yet, but at
least we have a proper green screen. {special effects and chaos}
Here is the winner of the last video! Congratulations! This time We are going to giveaway one of
our brand new designed swim caps!
To participate in the giveaway you’ll need to do the same thing we did last time. Share
this video on your swim team chat, take a screen shot and send it to us via WhatsApp
to this number.
Talk to you there! Swim fast!