Building Blocks of Swimming

In the this article we will cover
 
1. Streamlining and its importance
2. Pressure points and body position
3. Breathing
4. Side Kicking as it relates to body rotation

Both Freestyle and Backstroke are referred to as Long Axis strokes and this image is useful when we swim.

1 - STREAMLINING

Streamlining is such an important part of swimming. 

Every skill and stroke in swimming involves minimising resistance as much as possible.  Some strokes such as Butterfly and Breaststroke trade off good streamlining for greater power.

In all strokes, we aim to swim as horizontally as possible to reduce water resistance also known as drag.  Drag is increased by poor technique.   Breaststroke is the most resistant of all strokes because the arms and legs stay underwater and make wide movements. 

However, drag is also increased by poor body position in the other strokes.

The single most important skill for swimmers to learn is the art of streamlining off every start (whether it is from a dive or a push) and from every turn.  To see the effect of drag on your body, try the following streamlining variations.  When you do this, concentrate on how the water feels as it flows around your body.  Feel which parts of your body are feeling the greatest amounts of pressure or drag.  Some will be obvious, others may be more subtle or softer to feel.

In a 50m race in a 25 metre pool, your streamlines can account for up to 50% of the race.  The momentum that you get from your dive can carry you out for 15 metres, and off your turn for 10 metres (15m +10m = 25m), hence we place the utmost importance on it.  When races are won or lost by hundredths of a second, every detail counts.  If you DON”T streamline perfectly, you are effectively giving away time to your opponents.

However, you will always perform your WORST habits in a race, particularly when you are under stress and fatigue.  The only way you will ever do it perfectly in a race is if you practice it perfectly all the time in training until it becomes such an ingrained habit that you don’t need to think about it.

For perfect streamlining on all dives, turns and pushoffs, try to make your body as long and thin as possible.  In learn to swim lessons we call it a torpedo. 

Ensure that;
• your body is completely straight and stiff from your fingers through to your toes.
• one hand is placed on top of the other with the weakest hand on top
• the thumb of the top hand should wrap around the outside of the bottom hand so the hands don’t break apart
• arms are locked at the elbow
• the head is positioned between the arms with the ears being squeezed by the biceps.  No daylight should show between the arms and the ears.
• ankles are together and toes are pointed.
• shoulders are shrugged upward in an effort to touch your ears.  This makes you even thinner.

A useful image is to think of your body as a long thin pencil with the tip sharpened into a point (your middle fingers). 
When you streamline off the wall in Backstroke you must make exactly the same shape which we call an ‘upside down torpedo’.
Top swimmers streamline deep under water until they are ready to take their first stroke because, surprisingly, it is FASTER.  Pushing off on the surface will slow you down because of all the rough water on top.  Underneath, the water is very still, so there is less drag to slow you down.

Once you have streamlined off the wall in the perfect position, you will be traveling quite fast (assuming you pushed very hard - the harder the better!).  Allow your body to glide until you feel it start to slow down.  (Good swimmers aim to glide past the Backstroke flags before they take their first stroke).  The moment BEFORE you start to feel your body slow, begin to do very fast powerful dolphin kicks (usually between 4 and 6), and then change to very fast flutter kicking if you are doing Freestyle or Backstroke.  Butterfly kick is the fastest kick of all if done well and it helps to maintain the speed that you got from your pushoff.  If you are NOT very proficient at dolphin kick, you are best to stick to flutter kicking.
Keep your head locked between your arms and gently angle up toward the surface as you start your kicks.  If you rise too steeply, again, you will increase drag.  When your head is near the surface, you pull with your strongest arm to make your breakout stroke.  As its name suggests, this stroke will pop you above the water and now you are ready to resume your normal stroke.

A simple few key words to help you remember the sequence is;

Push; glide; 4 fly kicks; flutter; breakout and swim.

Memorise this word sequence and make sure your actions match the words every time you streamline.
An advanced drill is to do the above sequence, not taking the first breath until after the fourth Freestyle stroke has been taken.  Top international swimmers hold their breath on every dive and turn for at least this amount time.

Streamlining is equally important in diving.  In fact a good racing dive is simply a perfect streamline, so knowing one will help the other.  When you dive, the word sequence then is exactly the same.

Once a basic dive has been mastered, you will be shown how to do a racing dive. 
 
Thought for Today:

“Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.”

(Bill Sweetenham – Past National Youth Coach of Australia; Currently National Coach U.K.)

2- Pressure Points

The following drills can be used concurrently for both head and body position

 Pressure point drill – dry land.  It is probably worth mentioning here as well that your head position should be quite low in Freestyle almost submerging your head and having a slight sensation of swimming ‘downhill’.  This is quite a new development in swimming and is not widely known.  Your coach will show you 2 pressure points – one on your forehead between your eyes and the other on your breastbone.  You should aim to ‘press’ these 2 points with equal pressure, downward.  The result will be that your body will float better (think about what happens when you try to push a ball underwater – the water tries to push it back up – your body acts similarly because your lungs act in much the same way as the ball).

 Pressure Points – Face down float with arms at legs.  When head/ body position is correct, begin kicking.  When this can be performed correctly add in the arm action, all the whilst maintaining correct form.

 Then, use the “Push; Glide; Kick; Swim” sequence used in streamlining drills, but with hands by the sides to develop short repetition sets with the focus on maintaining head /body position.

 Repeat the above, but with hands extended in their streamline.

 The same can be applied to backstroke with similar drills

3 – Breathing

Breathing patterns vary according to the stroke being swum or the distances being raced or covered in training.  Also, swimmers will find their natural rhythm with breathing.  It is generally accepted that bilateral breathing, as long as the stroke is symmetrical is best, because over a lifetime it helps the swimmer build a better-balanced and more symmetrical stroke. 

Breathing unilaterally can also, over a lifetime, develop muscle imbalances and contribute to soft tissue injuries.  However, if the swimmer is not breathing properly in the first place, they will be using energy needlessly that could be directed into other aspects of their stroke.  It is surprising how many swimmers – even good swimmers, don’t inhale or exhale properly.   

• It may seem obvious, but swimmers have to breathe through their mouths.  As land based animals we are conditioned to breathe through our noses.  Learners will often try to inhale through their nose.

• The breath in should always be quick and short, but the breath out is always longer than the breath in.  At the end of the exhale, there should be a forceful puff or explosion using the abdominal muscles, to rid the lungs of any remaining stale air, prior to inhaling.  Try this.  Holding your hand in front of your mouth, breathe in on the first count and out for the next 4 counts.  On the last count, (number 5) explode any remaining air and inhale quickly on number one in the next cycle.  Repeat this cycle of 5 counts over and over until it becomes rhythmic.  Feel your breath on your hand as you do this.  Direct your attention to what you are feeling throughout.  ie you should notice the exhale is one continuous stream of air from the mouth.  On number 5, you should feel the stomach push the air out.   The important point is that you should be able to control the outflow of air.  Some swimmers in fact hold their breath as they swim, only exhaling as they turn for the next breath.  This is OK for a 50 metre sprint where you want to race with minimum breaths, but even so, as stale air pressure builds, it is advisable to release some of the pent up pressure rather than holding it all in.  Actually, holding the breath can be quite dangerous, particularly in older adults, not only from the buildup of carbon dioxide, but also because breath holding increases blood pressure.  Anybody with high blood pressure, or older adults, should be discouraged from any breath holding activities often known as hypoxic training.

• The breath in should be quick, but deep.  Most people will take a deep breath by raising their shoulders and trying to expand their ribcage or intercostals muscles.  However, if combined with diaphragmatic breathing as used by opera singers, the breath will be more relaxed, easier and fuller.  Try this exercise lying down.  In a relaxed position with both hands on your abdomen, feel your breath in and out.  Every now and then take a deep breath, but imagine that your lungs are expanding outward into your back and the floor, and that the air is flowing downward into your stomach.  Your hands should feel your abdomen rising or expanding, not sinking.  Don’t allow your shoulders to rise upward toward your ears.  This is a sure sign that you are breathing incorrectly.

• Take both of these ideas into the pool as you swim Freestyle.   Imagine your are inhaling the air deep down into your stomach and back, then control the outflow for either 2, 3 or 4 strokes, remembering that final puff out as you turn to breathe.

Not only is the technique of breathing is important, but so too is the exact timing of the breath. If it is out of time, the whole stroke can become unbalanced.  Many swimmers try to breathe too long, or turn their head back into the water too early, or simply turn at the wrong time.  Also when the head is in the perfect position breathing, one goggle will be under water and one above.

The photo below shows the perfect head position of the 100m World Record holder in Freestyle Pieter Van Den Hoogenband.  Notice how he breathes into the bow wave caused by the side of his face.  It almost looks as if he is breathing under the water level.  Althpugh this camera angle is a bit misleading, when viewed from the side, you should be able to draw a straight, perfectly horizontal line through the swimmers body when he is turned on his side to breathe if his head is in the correct position.

 

We will be covering the TIMING of the breathing in another article.

Another good exercise to try is to practice on the kickboard.  As you can see from the above picture, it’s important that the head is in a NEUTRAL position where the neck muscles can relax.  Your head weighs about the same as a bowling ball, so holding it at anything other than a neutral position will use energy unnecessarily as well as risk long term damage, perhaps pain.  For this reason I discourage swimmers to breath to the side when using a kickboard – it sets the head at an unnatural angle. Breathing to the front can also incur a risk to swimmers with neck related problems, but if you have none of those, it is the preferred method of breathing. Those with problem necks will need to hold the board with only one hand and use body rotation to the side, OR don’t use a board at all. 

When you do breathe a useful image is to imagine a birthday cake with candles and pretend you are blowing out the candles before inhaling for the next breath.  This ensures your lungs get rid of any stale air so the next breath is all fresh air.  Many swimmers accumulate stale air in their lungs and feel increasingly more puffed, then they try to inhale deeper to compensate with each successive breath.  If you have exhaled properly, the breath in should be short and not too deep.

Thought for Today:

We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence then is not an act but a habit.

4 - Freestyle Skills and Drills

In training you will be asked to do a variety of stroke drills that help you to improve your technique.  A stroke drill is when you isolate a small part of your stroke and practice just that bit, to let you focus on and improve that part only.  It then gets integrated into your whole stroke.  You will need to know what these drills are, why you should do them (what you are trying to achieve by doing them) as well as how to swim them perfectly.

Practicing badly or incorrectly will only develop bad habits and when you are feeling tired, you will always revert back to your worst habits.  Once bad habits are established, it is very hard to change, so it is easier if we learn things correctly from the outset.  Try to perform all your drills well, and pay particular attention to the small details.  In the end, these are what separate the good swimmers from the great swimmers.

Drills must be learnt at slow speeds first, but once they can be performed well, the coach may ask you to try them at faster speeds.  The drills are sequential and it is important that they are perfected before moving on to the next.  Stroke faults will be increasingly magnified the further into the sequence you get if not corrected.  You can think of each drill (or the foundations of the strokes) like the links in a chain.  If one link is weak the entire chain risks breaking or damage. 

Depending on how well you can do these will depend on whether you learn the next sequence of drills, or leave them until later.  Up until now our focus has been on the hand/arm recovery.  This is the part of the stroke above the water, when the hand travels forward from the back (where it exits down by your mid thigh), to the entry point (in line with your shoulder).

Most of your strokes can be segmented or divided into the following parts.
1. Arm recovery
2. Hand entry
3. Catch
4. Pull
5. Transition
6. Push
7. Hand Exit

It is almost impossible to get the sequence correct if the recovery is incorrect.  The recovery sets up the hand entry, which in turn sets up the ‘catch’ at the front of the stroke.  Therefore, great attention should be spent on getting the recovery as close to perfect, before attempting to correct the underwater pull. 

In the H2O programme, you will be expected to demonstrate the following drills with control and balance.  This requires a good solid kick.  The kick is a bit like the foundations of a building.  If the foundation is weak or out of alignment, the building will have structural faults.  This could result in the building collapsing.  The swimmer will also be weaker, possibly with muscle imbalances and could develop injuries as a result.  Practice all drills firstly with kickboard and fins, then fins only and finally with no equipment at all.

SIDE KICK:

This is one of the most important drills you can learn and will also help your backstroke.  You will probably have learnt it with a board, but you should also be able to do it equally as well without.

This is a fundamental drill that teaches body rotation and the correct breathing position.  It will also show up any weakness in kicking.  Good swimmers have a great kick to drive them forward.  The kick is also important for balance and stability.  The entire body must lie on the side with feet kicking from side to side.  If done correctly, the feet will not break the surface.  The lower arm will be extended in front and is called the steering arm.  Wherever you point the steering arm, the body will follow.  The head will lie with the lower ear lying against the upper part of the steering arm.  One goggle should be below the water, while the other is above, giving you a ‘split’ view.  The mouth should be curled slightly around so it remains above the water.  If the head is in the correct position, the water will divide the face roughly in half and the eyes will look to the side.  The body should remain perfectly straight, i.e. we should be able to draw a straight ( and horizontal) line from the tips of the fingers, through the length of the body, down to the toes.  You will need to be able to do this perfectly- kicking to whichever side you lie on.

In these 2 drawings, the swimmer’s face is turned slightly upward rather than sideways.  This is acceptable, however the hand resting on the leg should be rotated so that the palm faces upward.  This is called Position number One. 

Note the following points. 
• The feet are kicking sideways.  If the swimmer has rotated enough, the shoulders will lie perpendicular to the water; the belly button, hips, knees and ankles will also be facing sideways.  If the feet are splashing or breaking the surface, it is an indication that the lower body at least has not rotated enough.  The belly button will probably be facing toward the pool bottom instead.
• The ear is resting on the upper arm. (Neutral head position)
• One goggle is underwater while the other is above.  The swimmer should be aware of what he/she is seeing.  They should have a ‘split’ screen’ vision.
• Aim for a straight line from the tips of the fingers to the tips of the toes.
• The outstretched arm or steering arm is held completely still and floats just below the surface.  Control of the steering arm is crucial to the catch phase of the stroke.

SIX – KICK BREATH:

This drill teaches swimmers to rotate irrespective of their head position and, to the same degree on both sides.  Most swimmers will naturally rotate somewhat when they take a breath.  However, when they are not breathing, many will tend to lie flat in the water.  This drill specifically targets body rotation during the non-breathing (or blowing) phase.  It is important that the side rotation does not alter at all.  

The drill begins exactly as above, but the swimmers face will be turned sideways to breath for 6 kicks, then turn to blow bubbles looking toward the pool bottom for 6 kicks.  The drill continues alternating 6 kicks with side breath and 6 kicks blowing.  The important point is to keep the shoulder, hips and feet rotated sideways throughout.

Author Anita Iossifidis ©