Here’s the first three steps you need to take to swim better freestyle.

1. Constant Kick – You don’t need to have a super kick to be a fast freestyler. In fact, the fastest freestyle girl I coach barely kicks at all. Kick is used for body position and balance more than propulsion in triathlons. Your kicks should be small and continuous. To improve your kick you can:

• Practice vertical kick – Kick in an upright position in deep water, arms crossed at the chest.
• Use fins – Wearing fins for kick is a great way to get better if you feel you’re not getting any power from your legs.
• Stretch your ankles – 3 sets of ankle stretches for 20-30 seconds before you train or race will do wonders for your kick.

2. Shark fin drill – A great drill for practising body position and arm recovery. Kick on your side, one arm out in front with your head facing the down. Bring your opposite arm along your side keeping the arm relaxed and bent. Once you reach the point just before you’d normally enter, draw the hand back alongside the body.

3. Stroke and rotation drill (a.k.a 6 kicks / 1 stroke changeover drill) – Similar to shark fin drill except this time instead of drawing the arm back to the body, you’ll follow through and complete a stroke. After the stroke, perform 6 kicks then take another stroke. Continue until you reach the end of the pool.

Kevin covers all these steps in more detail in his new membership program. It’s only only open for a few more hours as of writing this until he shuts down registration because he has a whole new bunch of people who he’s working with. Check it out if you like through the link below.

Grab Tri Swim Secrets here (closes midnight, May 20th)

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When I was a little kid, sculling was one of the the first things I was taught after I’d learnt the basics of floating, kicking and breathing. At the time, it felt like sculling wasn’t a beneficial exercise and I was never told why we did it. After 12 years, I finally discovered why it’s such an important drill to do, especially in the week leading up to a race.

Before an important race or competition, swimmers will taper for 5-10 days. Tapering means to reduce the volume of training so the body can rest and recover in order to perform at it’s peak. When swimmers taper they become prone to losing the ‘feel’ of the water because they have gotten so used to swimmer regularly. As they taper they swim less and their body can find it difficult to ‘remember’ the correct technique. Sculling is the solution to this.

‘Front scull’ is the most common sculling technique. It is performed on the front with the swimmer facing the bottom of the pool. The swimmer should put their arms in front of their head and scull in and out with their hand and forearm in a sweeping motion. The hands should be bent downwards slightly at the wrist in order for the swimmer to move forward. The upper arm should remain still while the forearm is moving side to side. During the out sweep the thumbs should be facing down and during the in sweep the thumbs should be facing up. Depending on a swimmers ability, they may want to do this drill with fins if they are a beginner. Amateurs should do the drill without fins and more advanced swimmers should use a pull buoy to isolate the arms.

Sculling is important because allows the swimmer to become familiar with the initial catch position of the stroke they are practising for. In ‘front scull’, the sculling is performed at the initial ‘catch’ position of the freestyle, butterfly and breaststroke strokes. By getting the initial catch correct in these strokes, it sets up the swimmer for a powerful pull through and helps overall with their stroke.

Practising sculling in training and leading up to a competition can help a swimmer maintain the all important ‘feel’ for the water. ‘Front scull’ helps a swimmer practice the correct position for the initial catch in freestyle, butterfly and breaststroke. This is vitally important so the swimmer can develop power in their stroke. Sculling is a simple drill to perform which if practiced for a few minutes each training session, can greatly improve a swimmers ‘feel’ for the water.

There are two keys to correct kicking technique in swimming. Swimmers must point their feet down (pointing in the opposite direction to where they want to go) and they must turn their feet and big toe inwards. Most swimmers will get the first point correct without being shown because it happens naturally during the kick, however the second point is something which needs to be learned.

By pointing the feet and big toes inwards (towards the centre line of the body) it increases the area of the feet which is used to generate propulsion and it increases the ankle flex of swimmer during the kicking motion (without needing to increase your ankle flexibility!). The feet and legs should remain ‘relaxed’ throughout the kick as this helps with leg flexibility.

Swimmers who are able to understand and apply the principle of turning the feet inwards will experience a much more powerful kick in each of the four competitive strokes. It may appear too simple an answer to the kicking problems which so many swimmers experience, but it is the first step to correcting kicking in swimming.

Entry drill is a good drill for swimmers who are just starting out and working on their technique. Single arm freestyle is a much harder drill so most people will need to wear fins (flippers) to do it right. Remember that a drill done 99% right is the same as a drill done 100% wrong.

The best advice I can give for improving your swimming is to SLOW DOWN when doing drills. Take them at a steady pace, focus on doing the key elements 100% right.

I can promise you that if you learn the correct technique through drills, and you practice the fundamentals over and over and over, your swimming will change dramatically.

Here are the two videos we posted on Youtube.