Howdy swim fans! Here's another episode of Whiteboard Wednesday and on today's episode we're
talking about How To Swim Perfect Freestyle! Now I truly believe that everyone and I mean everyone
can improve some element of their freestyle technique. Even the best in the world can find
different points of improvement and for this video we've broken down the core elements into
six different pieces of the stroke and we'll go through them one by one. To start it's all about
body position. Now the most important fundamental piece of swimming across all the strokes is the
concept of streamline and streamline is where your body is as narrow as possible moving through the
water so that you reduce the amount of drag that you have. Body position directly relates to this
so body position means how your body is positioned in the water and ideally you're trying to decrease
the amount of drag that you have and that's determined by two different functions. but first
is your head position. So the placement of your head and where your eyes are looking in freestyle
butterfly and breaststroke is critical. When you swim freestyle your eyes should be focused on the
bottom of the pool. It might be boring but in open water and in the pool you need to be looking down
because your head position determines the position of the rest of your body and if you think about
your head as a pivot point and a fulcrum for your body if your head is looking up, your legs will
sink and you'll create a ton of drag that'll slow you down. The second variable is your hip
position and one leads to the other so you want to think about keeping your eyes on the bottom of the
pool keeping a neutral head position that's in line with your spine and your hips will follow.
If anything you want to feel like you're swimming downhill but you don't want to feel like you're
burying your head in the water so that your hips stay up. Oftentimes if you swim with a pull buoy
something that you put between your legs to keep your legs afloat it'll feel a lot faster
and that's because you're decreasing the amount of drag that you have. What your goal is is to
do this naturally by adjusting your head position and making the water hit your head right in the
middle of your swim cap right your whole head should not be submerged only half of your face
right so you should see the top of your cap above the water but your head is in line with your spine .
The second element is the catch now obviously if you don't pull any water you're not going to go
anywhere it's great if you can decrease your drag by improving your body position so your
body is narrow but if you don't pull you're not gonna do anything so with regards to the catch
we're talking about how your fingertips enter the water and they should enter about 12 to 18
inches in front of your shoulder at a 45 degree angle to the water so we think about your arm
extending forward you're going to enter with your fingertips first your middle finger is the longest
point you hit the water at 45 degrees and then you're gonna reach and you're gonna extend. Once
your arm has extended you're gonna reach a few more inches you're gonna open up your body keep
your head looking down with your body position and you're gonna start to initiate the catch
and now the catch the most important part it's all about the EVF early vertical forearm the
EVF means as soon as you reach your fingertips are driving down to the bottom of the pool and
you're trying to get your forearm to be vertical as early as possible so that way you have a huge
paddle and you're not pulling with just your hand you're pulling with your forearm as well the early
vertical form and once you initiate that pull it's all about the pole phase so you've got the
water you're grabbing it and now you're gonna pull yourself forward as your body is rotating
to the other side and that pull phase should be a straight line from that initiated catch position
all the way through to the next stroke right so you reach out you've got the water you pull and
then you're gonna pull all the way through in a straight line that is the catch concept. Now the
third were going to talk about is rotation and I mention it when we're reaching out you're going
to rotate and the rotation of your body is by two variables similar to the body position it's your head
and your hips with the rotation it's your hips and your shoulders so if you watch a really really
good swimmer you're going to see them rotating side-to-side every time they take a stroke they're
rotating to the right to the left their head remains in line their body position their head is
neutral but they're rotating side-to-side and it's actually your hips that initiate the rotation and
your shoulders will follow it's counterintuitive because you think the shoulder is what drives the
rotation that's not correct the hips are what actually drive the rotation and your shoulders
are what follow-through so all of this should come from your core and not your upper body your upper
body is secondary you want to think about it from your core right that's your rotation it's
critical. Now the third piece that ties in all of this is breathing breathing is one of the
most difficult concepts too especially a beginner swimmer. When we're talking about breathing it's
about maintaining your head position if you think about it we have a neutral head position when
we're swimming that's great now how do I take a breath when you take a breath you're gonna rotate
onto the side and you're keeping your head in line with your spine you don't want to lift your head
up because that disrupts your body position so keep your head in line the rotation should come
as your body the breath should come as your body is rotating and it needs to be as I've just said
part of the rotation so you're not rotating your head and then you rotate your head down and then
you rotate you should have your head in line with the rest of your body as you rotate and keep one
eye in the water because if you think about it when you're taking your breath right you're on
your side and what the water line should be right in the middle of your face and as you swim as you
create this draft there's actually a pocket for you to get your air so that you won't get water
in your mouth as long as you're moving forward you can have your eyes one eye in the water and
your mouth can actually be submerged there's a pocket of air that allows you to rotate keep its
arm extended and you're gonna get that oxygen then you're gonna rotate and put your head back down in
line with the rotation to get your breath now the fifth point is kicking most beginner swimmers are
terrible at kicking and you know what that's actually a I'm gonna skip to the third point
I want you to de-emphasize the kick the kick is only fundamental if you're a more advanced
serious swimmer and this the kick is what drives your rotation if you're not a very serious elite
competitive swimmer I want you to de-emphasize the kick and when you do kick whether it's in
streamline with a kick board or in the actual stroke you're gonna think about short and fast
kicks you don't want to have a big kick that that disrupts your body position your body line
your streamline you want to have a short and fast kick and you're kicking from the hips short we're
referring to the amplitude and fast is the tempo so we think about my arms as your legs this is a
big slow kick big amplitude from here to here that's your amplitude freestyle kick flutter
kick it should be a short and fast kick and the amplitude we're talking about is less than 30
centimeters less than 12 inches from big toe to big toe it's a short fast kick even the dolphin
kick and it's from the hips meaning you're not bending your knees if my elbow is your knee
you're not been in use you're keeping your legs straight you're kicking from the hips it's a core
movement but again I want you to de-emphasize the kick you should not focus on the kick you should
focus on the body position and the catch and the rotation if you're a beginner swimmer now finally
I want us to focus on silent swimming and this is my favorite concept in all of swimming especially
in freestyle technique training especially if you are a beginner or an advanced swimmer it's
focusing on using all of your senses all of them not just the way it feels how tired you are but
all of your senses so I want you to listen to the noise you make when your hand hits the water we
talked about the catch your fingertips are what initiate the catch listen to it are you making a
lot of noise are you making a splash water bubbles that's all any fishing slide your fingers into the
water hearing listen you make you want to make less noise you shouldn't be able to hear someone
swimming if they're super efficient I want you to think about the touch right the tactile feel
that you have when you initiate right it's not just your fingertips your hands pulling
the water should feel like your arm all of your muscles being engaged the smell the aroma of the
chlorine right be aware of where you are and what's happening with your body the taste of
that chlorine what does it taste like in the water don't drink the water that's not what I'm telling
you and it the site right the visual like be aware of what you're doing but don't be afraid to close
your eyes every now and then to amplify all the other senses and finally the sense right there's
only five senses but the sixth sense is your body awareness in the water this is something that
other sports don't really have to deal with but in water it's a whole other medium it's eight hundred
times more dense than air and that's why all of these elements tie into creating the swimming
equation which we'll get into in just a second but when we're talking about silent swimming
the way to practice this at the end of a workout you have for 25 to 25 s 125 just one length of
the pool before you push off take a deep breath in smell the aroma of the chlorine be aware that
you're in the water push off the wall listen to what is happening take your first strokes
and listen and see and feel and that by having a silent stroke will make you much more efficient
because you're aware of all of the resistance that you're creating and all the propulsion that you're
generating and finally this swimming equation that I mentioned this is a little bit more technical
but when you think about the swimming equation you have your swimming time which is equal to
your underwater time plus your turn time and that is in addition to your cycle count and your stroke
rate so these elements we talked about in another video which will link in the description how to
create the swimming equation we have a whole bunch of videos on Adam PD and Caleb Dressel
and how they swim so fast using the swimming equation but this video was really focused on
how you can use these six elements to have the perfect for you and again I truly believe that
everyone no matter your skill level can improve some element of your freestyle technique this was
whiteboard Wednesday if you want more give us in the comments below we'll see you guys later bye