How to optimize your swimming stroke for maximum performance

What does it take to execute an efficient swimming stroke?

I already talked about the importance of the right swimming technique for your overall swimming performance in contrary to strength which has almost nothing to do with fast and efficient swimming. To help you dig further into this topic here is a short video instruction from Carey Kepler which I found excellent and very helpful. You can find her website at http://boundless-energy.com. She will help you to understand this important topic of doing the swimming stroke correctly.

Carey set up a series of those videos regarding triathlon training on youtube.com so make sure you check out all of them after you finished this article.

We will talk about breathing in detail in another article.

Breaking down the Stroke into its elements

I want you to take a closer look at the basic components of a well executed freestyle swimming stroke.

Entry Point

The stroke starts with your thumb and your index finger entering the water first followed by your hand slicing into the water at a approx. 45-degree angle. Your hand should enter the water a few inches to a foot in front of each shoulder. Not in front of your head! This is a very common mistake novices tend to made. Avoid it like plaque as it is going to make your body roll to much and degrade the power of your stroke.

Once your hand is in the water start to roll your body downward to the same side and simply extend your hand in front as far as you can. Stretch yourself as if you're reaching for something that is just beyond your grasp.

"Catching"

You are now entering the second phase which is catching or grabbing of the water with your hand. Avoid another mistake almost every novice is doing and that is to tear your hand inefficiently through the water. Catch the water instead so you can pull yourself forward in a strong and efficient manner.

Pull

This is probably the most important part of your propulsion. Apply power from your hips by rotating them as you pull yourself through the water with your hand and your forearm. Don't swim separated with body extremities. Swim holistic and use your arms as kind of extended paddles that are driven from your hips. Now, I realize that this sounds pretty nice and is much easier to grasp than to do. It takes lots of regular practice to become really good at performing an excellent swimming stroke.

It's not a good idea to allow your elbow to drop in the water or to pull through the water before your hand. It will reduce your power distinctly. Your hands should travel beneath your body in about a 90-degree angle between biceps and forearm. Your elbow remains straight during the extension phase, it then forms a 90-degree angle beneath your body, and finally straightens out again when your hand passes your hip during the pull. Your hand leaves the water in the middle of your thigh, not earlier. As your hand travels along the body you should gradually accelerate the speed of it. Reach the full power as your hand passes your belly button.

If you simply accelerate your hand during the pull you are doing great. That avoids the common problem of loosing grip with the water and tearing through it. Picture yourself travelling with your body over your arms and hands. While your arms are moved separately - if they were moved together you would be shaping an hourglass. Your hands would almost touch when closing your stomach and then departing of each other again (the common "S shape").

The final phase

When you're getting tired you will usually sacrifice this important part of your stroke: The push. That happens even to the world's best swimmers. They simply shorten their strokes and pull their hands out of the water way too early at their waist rather than at their upper thigh. Finish your stroke with a strong push phase and let your hand leave the water. The elbow of your arm that is moving forward should be high.

Congratulations! You're almost done.

Now is your chance to recover a little bit and let the blood flow back into your arm. For best recovery keep attention that your elbow is always higher than your hand. Relax your muscles. You may even want to extend your hand a bit before it reenters the water and you start the whole process all over.

When do you have to start the whole sequence again? When your arm that is moving forward almost touches your extended arm in front of you. Not earlier! When I did this mistake in the beginning it cost me nearly 3-5 minutes on a short distance race of 1.5 km (about 1 mile). And 3-5 minutes is a heck of a lot of time in a race.

That's it, the key points of a well performed swimming stroke. Feel free to practice it until you get sick of it and then go on and practice even more. Yes, it will require some efforts. But it will pay off vastly like nothing else you can do for your swimming workouts. If you master the technique - you master the swimming portion of triathlon.

Return from Swimming Stroke to Swimming

Return from Swimming Stroke to Triathlon Adventures