How to Swim

How to swim:

Sounds ridiculous right? When you meet someone who can’t swim your initial reaction is always “excuse me, come again?” The reality is that most people can tread water, do the back stroke, breast stroke, and freestyle pretty well. At one point or another we have all jumped in the water for a nice relaxing swim. But the real question is how is your technique? When I first started swimming long distance, I thought to myself, “OK this is going to be a piece of cake, I have been swimming my whole life. I quickly came to realize that was certainly not the case. I became winded quickly, breathing became difficult and I felt very uncomfortable. Suddenly, swimming lost its relaxing appeal. So how can we better our technique to improve our stamina, speed and overall appeal? 

First in order is to understand the correct form. Let’s focus on the placement of your head. Your neck and upper back muscles need to be relaxed. The more you’re able to relax these two muscles the more comfortable you will feel. As you are facing parallel to the bottom of the pool, lake, ocean etc. your head should be cocked forward around 45 degrees. The more your head is tucked against your chest, the more resistance you will feel. Additionally, tucking your head in may alter your body position. On the contrary it is important not to face your head too far up as you will create unwanted tension which will tighten up your neck and back muscles. 

Now let’s focus on your stroke. It is imperative to extend your arm to its maximum length during each stroke. To create maximum extension you must reach out as far as possible and then extend your shoulder as well. The shoulder extension may give you an additional 4 or 5 inches of reach. 

Now that we have our head aligned and our reach capabilities in order, it is time to focus on body rotation. To facilitate your shoulder extension you must tilt your body slightly towards the side that you are stroking with. For instance as you extend your right arm and shoulder, you need to also tilt your body slightly to the right as your left hand exits the water. As you tilt your body with each stroke, your entire side should be submerged in the water so your rib cage is now parallel with the floor temporarily. Then as you extend with your left arm, you must alter your position 120 degrees so that your left rib cage is now perpendicular with the floor. This may sound difficult but it actually makes swimming a lot easier and enjoyable as you are no longer compromising your body motion. This motion is perfectly natural and actually helps you move across the water. In other words, think of a pig being turned on an axis as it cooks over a fire. That is how your body should be moving but don’t worry there is no fire involved, just water!

And finally learn how to kick! I still find myself compromising the kick by either not moving my legs at all or kicking at a very slow awkward pace. As you are swimming you may think it is easier not to kick because it gets tiring but I swear its not! By not kicking your body has difficulty staying afloat as well as staying in the right direction. The kick completes the entire motion. If you learn how to kick at a consistent pace it will help you stay straight, move faster and complete your freestyle swim perfectly.

On paper this all sounds easy I am sure. But in all honesty, I am still trying to figure out how to control my entire motion as well. It is incredibly difficult and takes stern focus and repetition. So get out there and try it our. Practice makes perfect folks! 

If you want to see for yourself, watch this video on Michael Phelps aka Human Fish!