Water is a thick atmosphere to swim in and its main objective in life is to slow us down which is why every move we make in the water and our bodies position is crucial. There are many aspects to efficient swimming but we’re going to break down the three most important ones.
1. Look where you are and not where you’re going. Set your head so that your nose is pointing to the bottom of the pool or ocean or lake, whichever body of water you find yourself in. Looking down will help (not guarantee) your body get more parallel to the surface of the water and create a more hydrodynamic position. See a good position below.
2. Eliminate any crossover with your hands. If your hands enter the water or travel across the centerline of the body than you’ll want to consciously keep them separated by 4-6 inches. Two drills which are great to correct this are one arm drill and catch up drill. If you commit to doing these drills in every session you’ll see improvement quickly. See below for what good hand position looks like.
3. Use paddles!! Get a pair of paddles and start swimming. Swim slow, swim fast, swim long, swim short! Just swim with paddles to build swimming specific strength and to improve your feel for the catch and pull phase of the swim stroke.
Coach Lee Zohlman has over twenty years of swimming/triathlon coaching experience with all level athletes and is available for individual and group lessons. Email him at [email protected].