Hello everyone,
New guy here and fairly new to proper swimming (as in swimming with correct technique)
I have an instructor who is great and I've been taking lesson's for about four months now. I'm struggling with all strokes unfortunately but the one stroke giving me the most difficulty is freestyle :bitching:
Here are my issues:
-Not enough rotation of the torso/pulling with lats
-I tend to stick my head out of the water rather than sideways when I come up for air
-When I come up for air, I lose whatever tempo I had with my legs and I start kicking faster
-I find it hard to keep my hips up whilst kicking
I'm having a hard time piecing all the elements together. Separately I can execute each component decently, but when I put it all together, my kicking feels scurried, I'm using all arms and not enough back, when I start running out of breath I panic, etc. and it makes for very messy swimming and lots of wasted energy.
Any advice/tips/help would be greatly appreciated!
:welcome: You came to the right place. In addition to the tips above, I would recommend you have somebody shoot a video clip of your swimming and posting it here on this thread. It would help to have a visual to see exactly what you are doing, so we can provide suggestions on how to improve.
Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I am a competitive swimmer, and I have the most difficulty with freestyle technique as well! My breaststroke is way better.
What does your instructor suggest you do?
Have you tried swimming with a pull buoy to take the legs and sinking hips out of the equation? A buoy will allow you to work on rotation, breathing and pulling while also aiding in keeping your body in the proper position to the water's surface, parallel. This isn't a universal rule but at your level, I'd try to focus on keeping one eye under the water when you rotate to breathe. Also, pressing your torso down into the water a bit will help to bring up your legs and hips.
Keep at it. You seem much more concerned in improving your stroke that others on our Masters team that have been on it for years! You will keep improving with your outlook.
Yes - try to keep your head down by only having one goggle lens out of the water while keeping the other in the water to help staying flat.
Thank you both for the reply!
@scyfreestyler, my instructor tells me a lot of things. She says my issues are partly due to the fact that I'm really tight in the chest area so I'm not pulling effectively which in turn is effecting my rotation. Also my tendancy to stick my head out of the water rather than rotate my head is causing my lower body to sink.
I have used both a pull buoy as well as a kickboard to isolate kicking and stroking and I'm fairly decent at doing both separately but when I go to combine them, everything falls apart and I lose whatever form/technique I was utilizing when the movements were separate. I definitely need to work on my head placement, perhaps it's just more time with the buoy until I get the upper body movements down perfectly.
@Elaine, I could definitely use some video footage of my swimming. I'll see what I can do! At the moment, all strokes are challenging but freestyle is definitely the hardest!
Keep at it. You seem much more concerned in improving your stroke that others on our Masters team that have been on it for years! You will keep improving with your outlook.
Yes - try to keep your head down by only having one goggle lens out of the water while keeping the other in the water to help staying flat.
Thanks orca! Never thought I would get addicted to swimming but I am obsessed.
Head position is definitely causing me problems. I like the advice about keeping one lens/eye in the water, I will focus on this next time I'm in the pool.
