Learning Freestyle (or Front Crawl)

Description

Swimming on your front, pulling with an alternate, overarm recovery and a pull-push arm stroke and with an alternating leg kick. Breathing to the side.

Basic Problems

• Lifting your head
• Lifting your feet
• Breathing too much

1. Lifting the head to breathe:

Let's review one of Newton's Laws of Physics. "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." If you lift your head to breathe, what is going to happen to your feet? They are going to ( stink! Whoops! ) SINK! Look at the graphic above. See how the swimmer has rolled his head to the side to take a breath, but not lifted his head out of the water. This is exactly how it should look!


2. Lifting the feet to kick:

Your instructor tells you to get your feet up. You think the instructor must know, so you start to kick "up." What happens when you kick "up," is you bend your knee. When you bend your knee, the action causes the leg to pull water forwards, pulling you backwards! Let's talk to Newton again. "Sir Isaac. What can I do to get my feet up when I'm swimming?" His answer: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Now where have I heard that before? If you want to get your feet up, kick "DOWN." If you want your feet to sink, kick up!

Now, there are two ways to learn how to make your kick efficient. The easy way for the instructor is to give you a kickboard and to say "practise kicking for a few weeks, and we'll have a look at it then." This is the only way to teach kids how to kick because they don't listen anyway and their coordination is coming along slowly and you want them to use a few calories. The second way to learn how to make your kick more efficient (works better with adults) is to teach them how to kick properly. Tips: Concentrate on the stretch right down to the toenails. Knees tight, but not rigid. Ankles as loose as possible. Toes pointed like a ballerina. Alternate pushing toes down about 4 inches toward the bottom of the pool (then relax that foot, while the other pushes). Rate is about 2 to 6 kicks per stroke. Allow a little roll. If your feet are coming out of the water, then you are kicking up. Your propulsion by kicking air is zero.

Last comment on Front Crawl kick. In a normal Front Crawl stroke the maximum propulsion you could expect from a flutter kick is 10%. What then would be the MAXIMUM energy you should put into your flutter kick in front crawl? Yes! 10%. More than that and you are wasting energy. Tip: Try to reduce your flutter kick energy to about 5% of your energy output during Front Crawl and see what happens.


3. Breathing too much:

The most common problem in learning to swim Front Crawl is NOT breathing. The problem is breathing too much! At most per breath in Front Crawl you will need a mouthful of air and not a lungful of air. The first correction for breathing problems is to take tiny breaths.

Taking tiny breaths doesn't require you to keep your head out of the water. When you head stays in the water, your feet don't sink. When your feet don't sink, they become more propulsive and it becomes easier to breathe. You see, the answer to all of your Front Crawl mistakes is a tiny one.

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