How to Swim: Basic Backstroke

Dan Kutler: Hi! My name is Dan Kutler and I am going to show you how to swim the Basic Backstroke.

Male Speaker: Unlike the other strokes where we started off learning about the arms and how to move them, I think it be easier for you learn how to move your legs in backstroke and just sort of get that out of the way. Basically the backstroke kick is the same as the freestyle kick, only it's on your back. You can see that I am doing here.

So again as mentioned in the freestyle segment, start the - the kick starts at your hips and flows down each leg like a wave keeping the knees and ankles loose. And unlike freestyle where I said, there should be more of an overlap of the stroke, the backstroke actually has a kind of windmill like action. Where when one arm is at one end, the other is at the completely opposite during the action.

So lets breakdown the three parts. The catch - grabbing on to the water or going to pull it, pass this, catch, pull, catch, pull, catch, pull and this is the recovery. Recovery, catch, pull. So this drill, the single-arm backstroke drill is kind of a easy way to begin to approach the backstroke, I mean what it helps you do basically is --- first get comfortable being on your back and just focusing on one arm at a time. So as you can see I am doing here.

Its just make sure that you keep your head back, you feel balanced, keep those legs relaxed, starting at the hip with a wave traveling down your leg, keeping the knees and ankles loose. Just try to keep a balance and let one arm pull you down the pool. And once you feel comfortable with one arm, you may want to just try switching to the other arm, right in the middle of the lap and then you will be very close to being ready to swim backstroke. In fact all you have to do with this point is pull it all together.

So the three main things to choose of think of about when you began learning backstroke or keeping your head back, in fact as I look at my head in this shot, I would say keep your head back even more. Don't be afraid to let the water and kind of flow right over the top of your face. Rotate those arms one after the other and just keep relaxed flutter kick where your knees and ankles are loose. And that's pretty much it. The rest is just trial and error.

Dan Kutler: Alright. So that's basically how to swim the backstroke. Now that we know all those three strokes, lets move on to the most difficult of all the four strokes the Butterfly.



Transcription by: Scribe4you Transcription Services