How to Swim Freestyle

[Music Playing] Speaker: One of the most important things is the body rotation. With the body rotation, you can extend and reach and you are going to pull and as you roll your body, you are going to pull farther back. See I am holding my body; move as in long strong strokes. Now with the breathing. Swimming, swimming, and when you breathe, you are just going to lay your head here, just turn your head, and keep it right running along with the water, and just breathe and bring it right back over. You don't want to pull yourself out of the water because if you happen to be pulled out, your legs go down, and eventually, your legs go down, you slow down and you are drowned. [Music Playing] The hips, you are going to be rotating. In freestyle, you are not going back and forth; you are going side to side. And you got to pretend just like a pole, going through your head, down through your body, out. So all you are doing is turning on that pole. If someone hits you, you just spin on that pole. You are not going to go back and forth and all those craziness; you are just on that pole. And you are going to be kicking. So it's the rotation. Your hips turn this way, hips turn that way. [Music Playing] On backstroke, this is what you have got to do. You got to bring it all back, let it into the water and pump it, pump it with your arm, not just your hands. You are going to pump it with your whole arm, and whoosh, just pull it down, and by then, your arm is up here. So boom, boom. And what's my body doing? Rotating. It's not like -- [Music Playing] Now just like how it's all in every stroke, it's about hit motion whether it's side to side in freestyle and backstroke, or up and down in butterfly and breaststroke, there is also sailing by the hands. In swimming, people think a lot of time that it's all about pulling water with your hands. Well, it's actually you have a whole arm to pull water with. And the most important part is to feel the pressure here and here. So in freestyle you are not just pulling with your hands, you are not just feeling the water here, you got to feel it all here. And that's not just something that you can do without thinking about, you got to think about it in your head. And all these things, the hip motion, the pulling, the breathing, you got to take it one at a time. You can't say, okay, I am going to do everything perfect and all that. No, you have to perfect one thing and then move on the next. That's why you got to be in the water all the time, not just when you are in swim practice, but morning, night, afternoon, but you don't want to do much also, you will get tired, even though you can't really get tired because swimming is very natural to mankind. So when you are swimming, you don't want to just pull with your hand, you want to incorporate the arms. So you want to make the cut motion all here and you will feel against your forearm, swoosh, and that's just how much more you will be going forward, because the more water you push, the more you go forward. And it's the same for breaststroke, you are not just pulling with your hands, you are not just pulling here, you are not feeling it here, you are feeling with your whole arm, swoosh and you got to bring it up, boom. And in butterfly, the same thing, you are feeling it all here, you got to feel it, you got to think about and say I am all feeling it. If you are not, you got to pull little bit different. Try to cup it all more, it's all about cupping like sculling, this is the way to practice. There is much more I will show you, but it's too complicated to show you out here, maybe that's made in one of the coachings. And in backstroke, the same thing, you are just going to pull through a little bit with your hand because you are not going to pull water with that, you are going to lose. You are going to be pulling all fast and say, why has this guy has gone passed me? Why? You are going to lose, you got to pull, cup your whole arm, swoosh, swoosh, swoosh. [Music Playing] Your feet, if I do in slow motion your feet are going to be like that. Now look at my legs, they don't bend. Sometimes people kick like this, that's bad, it's wrong. Because every time you pull back, you are swirling yourself down because you are pulling the water. So remember, when you are swimming, even when you are racing you can't bend your legs, alright. You got to think the whole time, what can I be doing to make myself a little faster. So, your legs are going to be straight and kick like this, and go as fast as like this. That's also a good way to practice, when you are at home, when you are anywhere, you need to sit down and practice ticking your legs, and go faster and faster and faster. And after a while, it will just become natural, you only have to think about it when you race. Ready? Speaker: Yeah. This is the bad kick, hugging the kick board. This is the good kick not hugging the kick board. [Music Playing]