Tricks to help you engage your "core" in Freestyle

Does anyone have any hints, tips, tricks, or drills to help swimmers engage their core while swimming freestyle (or any stroke for that matter)? :afraid: Thanks!!
  • Former Member
    Former Member
    Suck your belly button to your spine and dolphin kick off the walls.
  • Flex while swimming!
  • A team mate who coaches age-groupers told me to do the 6 kick in the skater position drill and switch. It seems to helllp if you concentrate at the body shift from side to side.
  • Former Member
    Former Member
    Not sure if it's the sort of answer you're looking for but anyway... YouTube- Free Style - Lawn Mower And a little experiment here YouTube- Unanchored Body Rotation Note. I recorded both clips very quickly without having worked on the message first. I refer, in the first clip, as this being a 'little exercise' a 'dry land exercise'. But in fact, I don't think it is. It's more an experiment. In order to make it even more productive, more Free Style stroke specifics should be added (e.g. EVF pulling and the like). The purpose of this first experiment is to draw a parallel so that less skilled swimmers fully understand the importance of using the Core as part of this important Body Rotation aspect. The second experiment shows that it ain't even necessary to be anchored in order to rotate freely in the water. Not sure if it can be considered as an exercise or a drill as well. For now, I'd rather call it an experiment.
  • What does it mean that there are so few responses to the OP's question? Let me play devil's advocate for a moment: If we can't say what it is that makes us engage our core when we swim, what makes us think that we're actually doing it?
  • Former Member
    Former Member
    These are not tips or drills, just sort of focal points I use from my personal experience. 1) focus on extending the arm to the front until you feel some stretch in your lats, then make your catch and focus on starting your pull with your lats rather than your deltoids. For me there is also a feeling of the two arms being locked together such that the forward arm is pulling back and the recovering arm is moving forward as one unit. They talk about this in the youtube popov video. If I feel my deltoids are getting tired it usually because I have stopped the full extension and start of pull as described above. I can't say that I've ever felt my lats get tired or sore though, I think that's because my lats are never the weakest link in the kinetic chain. 2) If I swim really super slow I find I need to think a bit about keeping a rigid core and a full extension or else I lose the straight and streamlined as an arrow feeling with my hips and legs moving around. 3) Bill Boomer uses the phrase "hide your ribs" when talking about engaging your core muscles to maintain good body position in backstroke and I find that works for me. For the drill that you are already doing, try concentrating on extending the forward arm until your lats stretch and then begin the catch and the recovery at the same time to see if you can get that feel of the two arms working as one. Pausing my stroke at the point of full extension and the other arm at my waist is one of my favorite drills but for people with a different timing it might not work. Boomer called that position the "reset position" for freestyle and noted that if you put a glide in at that position the stroke should be restarted with the first movement being the back hand starting the recovery rather than the forward hand starting the catch. I haven't done a particularly good job of describing this stuff but I hope that if you just play around with it a bit you'll hit on and recognize what at least some aspects of core engagement feel like.
  • Good point philoswimmer! I will re-phrase: I need drills or tricks to help me engage my lats when I swim. I feel like I am using the small shoulder and chest muscles too much. My lats never hurt or feel tired. I've been working with a 6 beat kick in the skater position followed by a roll to repeat on the other side. This drill seems easy and I don't feel much transfer to my stroke. Should my lats be tired after a 4,000 lcm workout of all freestyle? It seems like they should. I am confused:badday:
  • Lindsay, I've had Bill Boomer tell me the third tip, and I think it works pretty well. I think you're spot on. The way I think about it is that the idea is to move your hip bones towards your ribs, getting your spine completely straight (stand against a wall or lie on the floor to get "the position" about right). I've also found this position hard to hold onto for an entire practice. You're flexing your large core muscles, and this takes energy. I really think it is a faster way to swim, certainly an easier way to swim faster, but it is not an easier way to swim, at least for me. My heart rate is higher at the end of fairly easy sets if I do this, though I take one to two fewer strokes per lap. It almost feels like you are making your body into a Frisbee, curling down the leading and trailing edges of your torso. Of course you are not actually doing that, it just seems like it.
  • Good point philoswimmer! I will re-phrase: I need drills or tricks to help me engage my lats when I swim. I feel like I am using the small shoulder and chest muscles too much. My lats never hurt or feel tired. I've been working with a 6 beat kick in the skater position followed by a roll to repeat on the other side. This drill seems easy and I don't feel much transfer to my stroke. Should my lats be tired after a 4,000 lcm workout of all freestyle? It seems like they should. I am confused:badday: I didn't mean to criticize your wording of your question, but rather all of us who think that using the core is the key to good swimming. If we can't say how to do it, then the claim that we're doing it starts to seem a bit questionable. But again, I was just being provocative in the hopes of eliciting more feedback for you. I am far from an expert, but: Have you had someone watch your stroke to see if your body roll transfers to your regular stroke -- not just when you are focused on it, but all the way through that 4000 LCM workout? That would seem to me to be the key to engaging those lats.
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