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How to learn freestyle swimming – 5 Quick Tips

What is freestyle swimming?

The term ‘freestyle stroke’ is sometimes used as a synonym for ‘front crawl’. Freestyle  is the fastest swimming stroke. It is now the most common stroke used in freestyle competitions. Freestyle can train multiple muscles and is a very good cardio exercise. Yes, better than running actually 😉

Step 1: Gliding

First step, you need to learn how to glide  as it’s the basic of all styles. Put your head in the water, then jump forward. Keep your head down while you glide. The most important thing is learning how to relax while you are at it.

Step 2: Kicking

After you are gliding, you start to kick. How you do the freestyle kick is essential to prevent you from sinking and to keep the balance. So how do we do the kick ? You kick from hips and thighs. The most common mistake beginners do is bending the knees to kick. You will find this is not only inefficient but also wastes a lot of your energy. Repeat after me “kick from the hips and thighs”. The rest of the joints move while you kick. For example, the knees and ankles. Lastly, you make sure your toes are not pointing to the floor while you kick because when your toes point down to the floor, it will drag you back the in reverse direction.

Step 3: Stroking

We start to do the strokes after we glide and kick. Let’s break it down to two parts of each stroke. Push and Recovery. 

(i) Push –  My recommendation is that you start with the straight arms because it’s easy to control the direction. You can start the left or right arm whichever you are used to. The key here is to make sure that the point where you start to stroke and the point where you end the push should be a straight line. The straight line ensures your push is efficient and your direction is forward. 

(ii) Recovery – After you push back, you finish  your push under the water. We then do the recovery, moving  your armpit forward to the front and the rest of the arm goes along. Easy, right?

Step 4: Change Breathe

For beginners, here is the sequence that you should remember:

Breath out – turn the head – stroke – breath in – turn the head back.

No matter which side you change the breath. You want to make sure that you exhale enough air out so that you can inhale. So before you turn your head, you exhale the air. Turning your head first then you move your arm. This gives you a wider window to inhale. Be conscious that you open your mouth while your mouth and nose are out of the water. That is, observe where the water level is so that you know when to open the mouth. Many people just open their mouths by feeling. It’s so easy to let the water in the mouths. After you inhale enough air, you close your mouth and turn your head back. 

Step 5: Put Everything Together

Let’s put everything together and coordinate. You glide first and start to kick once you feel yourself floating. You can start to do the stroke after a few seconds you kick. Don’t stroke like a treadmill. After you stoke one arm, you wait a few seconds while you keep kicking. You do another stroke after you wait a few seconds because you want to balance your body first to do the next stroke. It’s also important for the beginners to change their breaths.  Change your breath every two strokes.

There you go, your guide to freestyle swimming is done.

Be patient if you learn the freestyle from scratch.  Enjoy swimming!

Contributor:

Vic Chen (Certified Personal Swimming Coach with 10 years of coaching experience)

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Learn To Swim With Vic – Swimming Coach With 10 Years Experience

We interviewed Vic recently, an experienced swimming coach on BookingStoreHK platform with more than 500 students taught in Hong Kong. We asked him some of the common questions that people have when learning to swim and threw some of our own to help people understand what to expect when hiring a swimming coach. Interview details below.

  1. Where did you learn to swim?

I learned how to swim when I was in college.I chose the PE class to learn swimming. I also asked my classmates to teach me how to swim. But what really made me a good swimmer was that I learned from the coaches in the swimming school when I was training to be a swimming coach. 

  1. What do you like most about swimming?

Swimming is like meditation for me when I can really focus on my motions. Strokes after strokes, breathing after another, I feel peace and joy when I swim. 

  1. How do you train for swimming?

I focus on every movement when I swim. I watch my strokes and correct every movement when I find anything wrong. Also, sometimes I would record my swimming with the help of others and review it later.

  1. How can beginners learn to swim?

In my opinion, beginners should find a coach because people who swim well don’t really know how to teach. Then, the beginners can practice step by step to get familiar with the techniques. 

  1. What is the one advice that you want to give to everyone who wants to learn swimming?

Don’t be afraid of water. Water supports you, just keep practicing. 

  1. What is the most common mistake that people make when learning to swim?

People tend to think too much and are impatient. I think they should be more patient and don’t put too much pressure on themselves.

  1. What is the most common question people ask you when training?

How soon I can swim or how soon I can swim freestyle or breaststroke. As I said, a lot of them are quite impatient. 

  1. When do you suggest people should hire a swimming coach? Day 1 when they get into the pool or after some time when they get used to the pool?

I suggest that if possible, as soon as you start to learn swimming because if you develop bad habits when you start to swim, it’s really hard and time consuming to change.

  1. Your biggest challenge when teaching people to swim?

Impatience because people are too rushed to learn swim and skip some steps

  1. How long does it take for people to move from surviving in water to mastering it?

It really depends,everyone is different. I can only say that on average, people can learn how to swim in 8 – 10 sessions, but to be able to master swimming, it takes years.

  1. Is swimming the best workout? What are your thoughts?

Swimming is one of the best workouts because it can help you out of gravity and it’s whole body movement. You will have the least injury while swimming. You don’t feel sweaty when you are in the water.  

  1. Your favourite swimming style?

Freestyle.

To book swimming classes with Vic, check out his BookingStoreHK listing for more details

The Right Way To Learn Swimming Fast

Whether you are starting your swimming journey or you would like to take your basic swimming skills to the next level, I have a few pointers that will help you to improve your swimming. 

I have taught more than 1000 hours of swimming and there are some basic things that people get wrong most of the time leading to frustration. Once they understand the three basic requirements to learn swimming, it becomes much easier for them to go on and master it. 

What’s your reason to learn swimming?

This is the first question I ask my students. This gives me an idea about their motivation level and how much encouragement I need to provide to help them. People learn swimming for different reasons such as they don’t know how or they want to improve their skills. Maybe your physiologist suggested that you to swim to ease your back pain or the pressure on the knees. I have also seen couples learn swimming to enjoy going to the beach together. Often one of the partners likes to go to the beach but the other ones doesn’t know how to swim and it makes them little apprehensive to go to the beach. 

Regular gym goers also enjoy swimming as it is an excellent cardio exercise and works on multiple muscles at a time. Whatever be the reason. Make sure you are learning swimming for the right reasons, so you can pursue it for a long time.

Manage your expectations

You need to have the right expectation if you want to learn swimming even if you want to be able to just move forward in the water. Why do I say you need to manage your expectations? I have had a few students who wanted to learn how to swim in one hour. I tried to teach everything in an hour but it turned out there were too many things to remember. You need to have patience and just like any other sports you need a lot of practice sessions.

Perseverance

This is one virtue that will help no matter what you are trying to learn. Research has shown that perseverance and consistency can help a long way in learning a new skill.
Remember learning swimming is like learning to ride a bicycle. Once you learn it you will never forget. But the difference is that swimming requires more techniques to be able to swim. Many elderlies come to learn swimming because the doctors suggested them to. You can imagine that if you put more effort to learn swimming step by step now, you wouldn’t be forced to swim in your 60s when the doctor tells you so.

Conclusion

Learning swimming can be easy or hard based on the factors mentioned. Also, you can interpret these listed in order of importance. If you have right motivation, you can overcome any obstacle you may encounter in your way. This principle is applicable to all aspects of your life. I’m not giving life lessons here but I have seen this happen across various aspects of my life and those around me.

Keep swimming 🙂

Contributor

Vic Chen (Certified Personal Swimming Coach with 10 years of coaching experience)

5 Tips for Swimming Breaststroke

Pic Credit: SpeedoUSA

Breaststroke is one of the easiest swimming forms to master. So whether you are a beginner learning how to swim or you already know swimming but want to better your form and swim farther with ease, these 5 simple tips will help you master it. BookingStoreHK swimming coach Vic Chen breaks it down for you.

Glide after you kick

Remember the first moves when you learn how to swim. One of them is gliding. Don’t rush to do the strokes after you kick. You want to utilize the power from your kicks. So, glide for one second after you kick.

Kick after your head is in the water and arms are straight

Some people kick while their heads are out of water. You may not notice that your body is actually vertical. You kick when you change your breath. You are basically wasting most of the power. So kick after you change your breath and put your head in the water.

Your head doesn’t need to be that high to get the air

You sometimes see people lift their heads so high to change their breaths when they swim breaststroke. They sink after they do so. You know how gravity works, the higher your head is, the deeper you sink. So, try not to lift your head so high to change your breath.

Breathing naturally

You don’t need to take a deep breath to swim. So practice to inhale and exhale normally as you go jogging.

Look at the bottom while you swim.

Have you looked at the front while you swim breaststroke ? And while doing so, have you noticed your legs are always sinking?  The point here is trying to make your body as flat as possible. I’m not telling you not to look at the front, but look at the bottom 90 degrees most of the time. You just peep at front just in case there is someone in front and you won’t hit him or her.

Leave your comments below if you have any specific questions regarding swimming breaststroke.