Freestyle Technique Help Please!

Congratulations on taking the step to improve your stoke. It can be very intimidating to video yourself and put it up for display! You look very relaxed in the water and your movements are smooth and controlled which is very nice to see. A good mantra to keep in mind is recovery=relaxed, pull=power A couple of things that I noticed. 1) You need to engage your core more when you swim. The next time you are in the pool, I want you to swim a set of 8x25s where you try to bring your belly button to your spine but don't over exaggerate it. This should feel slightly uncomfortable but not impossible. These are easy 25s where you need to dial into the feeling of having your core engaged and stable. This will promote keeping the hips more in line with the shoulders. This is also reduce your need to 'lean' on that extended arm when you breathe as your body will be more in line and closer to the surface. 2) You are over reaching out in front on your recovery. The last 10-20% or so of the hand recovery should be done underwater and involve the extension of the shoulder and the rotation of the elbow to a more vertical position. This puts the hand in a much fuller 'catch' position at the start of the stroke. Back to our set of 8x25s, focus on having your hand enter the water middle and ring fingers first, with a smooth relaxed entry and try to reach forward slightly before you start your pull. 3) You kick is a little too wide. You are compensating for being out of balance in the water (see #1) by counterbalancing yourself with a wider kick. You want to narrow that down by trying to tap the big toes together when you kick and keep your kick smaller and faster. But work on #1 first and better balance in the water will alleviate the need for a wider kick. Having a solid foundation by being balanced in the water is critical to being able to make other technical corrections and the 'flaws' that I see are driven by a lack of balance. Work on the feeling of engaging your core more when you swim and making the other corrections will become easier.

Congratulations on taking the step to improve your stoke. It can be very intimidating to video yourself and put it up for display! You look very relaxed in the water and your movements are smooth and controlled which is very nice to see. A good mantra to keep in mind is recovery=relaxed, pull=power A couple of things that I noticed. 1) You need to engage your core more when you swim. The next time you are in the pool, I want you to swim a set of 8x25s where you try to bring your belly button to your spine but don't over exaggerate it. This should feel slightly uncomfortable but not impossible. These are easy 25s where you need to dial into the feeling of having your core engaged and stable. This will promote keeping the hips more in line with the shoulders. This is also reduce your need to 'lean' on that extended arm when you breathe as your body will be more in line and closer to the surface. 2) You are over reaching out in front on your recovery. The last 10-20% or so of the hand recovery should be done underwater and involve the extension of the shoulder and the rotation of the elbow to a more vertical position. This puts the hand in a much fuller 'catch' position at the start of the stroke. Back to our set of 8x25s, focus on having your hand enter the water middle and ring fingers first, with a smooth relaxed entry and try to reach forward slightly before you start your pull. 3) You kick is a little too wide. You are compensating for being out of balance in the water (see #1) by counterbalancing yourself with a wider kick. You want to narrow that down by trying to tap the big toes together when you kick and keep your kick smaller and faster. But work on #1 first and better balance in the water will alleviate the need for a wider kick. Having a solid foundation by being balanced in the water is critical to being able to make other technical corrections and the 'flaws' that I see are driven by a lack of balance. Work on the feeling of engaging your core more when you swim and making the other corrections will become easier.