1- Demo:
The next part of the video is very important to reduce the risk of getting injured and
to learn to swim faster.
2- Do not do this!:
Straight arm
While in our swimming camps the most common problem is pulling with a straight arm.
This is not only wrong, but dangerous for your shoulders.
So try bending your elbow while swimming.
This will help you swim in a smaller tube which will reduce stress on the shoulder joints.
Remember that for all these problems we have drills and exercises to help you fix them
in the 5th section of this video.
No rotation
This is the second most common problem, the lack of rotation.
In backstroke you need to rotate a lot in order to have a better position to pull water
with bigger muscles and to move faster.
Make sure your head doesn’t move though or you’ll be swimming in zigzag.
Crossing hands
Speaking of Zig Zag, the third most common problem is entering with your hands passed
the middle line of your body.
This is very hard to correct since it feels like you are entering with your hands correctly
and you can’t see them.
But if you are swimming in zig zag or bumping into the lane lines chances are you have this
problem.
Bending the knees or hips
If you are not moving very fast, it might be because your kick is stopping you instead
of helping you.
We have seen people actually move the wrong way while just kicking on their back.
You need to make sure your knees are straight while going down and have a slight bend while
going up.
Try to keep a narrow kick like the one we talked about in our last video on freestyle.
And very importantly make sure your hips are straight and as close to the surface as possible.
Wrong synchronization
When you mastered the 4 points above, then you can focus on moving the arms and legs
at the right time.
When you pull with your right arm your left leg must be kicking forward.
You do two more little kicks to adjust and then kick forward with your right leg while
your left arm is pulling.
What if you have mastered all this and you want to swim faster?
What if you want to break 30 seconds in the 50 meters.
3- Easy to learn; hard to master:
Learning backstroke is easy because you have your nose and mouth out of the water.
So you can start learning to swim backstroke like this.
Here at skills n talents we call this bacon swimming.
But going from this to this can be quite challenging.
If you want to swim under 30 seconds you need to do these four things right besides swimming
backstroke correctly.
1- As you saw me do, you need to swim at least half of it underwater, doing dolphin kicks.
Don’t worry we will go over some exercises to help you swim underwater dolphin kicks
on the next section.
2- You’ll also need to have a great break out, meaning the transition between dolphin
kicks and backstroke.
3- You’ll need a fast flip turn.
4- You’ll need a good backstroke start.
4- Breaking :30
1- What is a good dolphin kick?
Good dolphin kicks are actually faster than backstroke swimming.
They require a lot of practice and core strength.
But keep these 3 things in mind to make your journey easier:
A- Use a nose plug or your upper lip to keep you from exhaling all your air and from water
getting into your nose.
B- Keep your big toes touching at all times.
If that is a problem, you can get a stretch band and wrap it around your ankles to practice.
C- Kick forwards and backwards with almost the same intensity.
Remember that in a race it is allowed to do dolphins kicks for 15 meters after each turn
or after the start.
There is usually a different color disk to help you identify where the 15 meters is.
2- What is a good breakout?
A good breakout is when you don’t waist any time transitioning from underwaters to
backstroke.
Remember that when you do the first stroke your other arm must remain in the streamline
position.
Keep in mind that to do a good breakout you need to transition close to the surface and
don’t have to come up at a sharp angle.
3- What is a good flip-turn?
This flip turn is hard to get it right because you need to know exactly how many strokes
you do from the flags to before you turn.
Remember that the rules allow for the last stroke to be a freestyle stroke.
Also you may continue kicking if you are too far apart from the wall.
Don’t slow down before the turn and push deep so you can do your dolphin kicks.
4- What is a good backstroke start?
The backstroke starts have been changing these last years.
Now the FINA rules allow for a wedge that helps swimmers push higher and farther, essentially
doing backwards dive.
The optimal initial position is slightly different for everyone as you can see here.
But nowadays everyone starts with almost their whole body outside the water, except for their
feet.
This is faster because by being up like this you only have to focus on pushing backwards
and not up and back like before the wedge.
Arch your back and try to enter with your whole body in a small circle.
5- Do these:
These 17 exercises are some of my favorite backstroke exercises that will help you swim
faster no matter what your level of swimming is.
We will divide them in water drills and dry-land exercises.
Dry-land
The best exercise, in my opinion, to improve your underwater dolphin kicks, besides doing
dolphin kicks is this one.
Without using your arms or legs rotate to be in a hollow rock position and then in a
superman position.
Do that a few times to get a workout.
This is another great core exercise.
Try swinging while hanging from a bar.
You’ll use your back muscles here and front core muscles here.
If that is too easy try doing toes to bar.
And don’t try this…
Doing pull ups is also a great way to increase your pulling strength.
To make it harder try going slowly on the way down.
Or if you want to go a little more extreme try this.
If you want to improve your backstroke start explosiveness try this
To swim backstroke fast, You’ll need to shoot your arms back quickly
Try this with a stretch band.
This is a cool exercise to practice that initial position of the backstroke start.
I saw this idea on instagram but couldn’t find the original author.
To strengthen the core further try passing a med ball from your hands to your feet.
Water drills
To solve the straight arm problem let’s do this.
Kick slowly and only bend your elbows to do a super short stroke.
Do that with both arms.
To help you rotate more let’s kick fast and use your core and the kick to rotate your
shoulders.
To get a better idea of where your hands are, let’s kick with one arm up and the other
down while you are slightly tilted to one side.
Putting a stretch band around your ankles is not only good to practice the dolphin kicks
but to practice the narrow kicks in backstroke.
To get the strokes and the kicks right do just one stroke and one kick at a time.
Then stop or glide for 3 seconds and continue with another stroke.
You can also do the one arm backstroke with rotation trying to keep your head still.
To do great dolphin kicks try practicing on the surface first.
Then try doing 7 dolphin kicks after the push and try to get farther and farther each time.
To practice the breakout do around 6 to 7 dolphin kicks followed quickly by three fast
strokes.
Practicing the flip turns is straight forward just start from behind the flags and try to
land in a good position to push off.
The backstroke starts are a little trickier to practice if you don’t have the wedge.
Sometimes when the edge of the pool is at water level you can practice by doing an illegal
start by putting your toes above the edge, just keep in mind you cannot do this in a
race.
The reason this is an exhausting stroke is that to go fast you have to do as many effective
fast underwater kicks as possible within the rules because it is the fastest part of the
stroke.
That is tough specially for your legs.
So if you want to become a great backstroke swimmer make sure you build your legs endurance
as much as possible, and build your technique point by point.
It’s not hard to learn it just requires work and watching this video again.
I know I need to build more leg endurance since I couldn’t break a minute in the 100
backstroke and my legs were burning!
6- Giveaway:
If all of this kind of makes sense but seems complicated.
And if you really want to improve your swimming technique, I am sure we can help you in person
in one of our swimming camps.
Your age is not an important factor in our swimming camps because technique is for everyone
and all ages.
So, If you are interested please go to this link to find out more about the camps.
Here is the winner of the last video!
This time We are going to giveaway one of our 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!