4. FREESTYLE SWIMMING
TECHNIQUES:
The most common and popular stroke in freestyle races is the
front crawl as this style is the fastest. For this reason, the term
freestyle is often used as a synonym for front crawl.
The front crawl requires you to flutter kick your feet while
reaching forward with alternating strokes.
Follow these 4 steps to learn how to swim and refine your front crawl swimming
technique.
5. FREESTYLE STROKE STEP BY STEP
GUIDE:
Step 1: Body Position
Keep your body flat, lie facing down in the water with your body
kept in line with the water surface.
6. FREESTYLE STROKE STEP BY STEP
GUIDE:
Step 2: Arm Movement
Your arm movement can be broken down to the simplest form consists just two
actions – the Pull and Recovery.
• Pull – with your palms facing down, pull in-line with your body with a slightly bent
elbow all the way to the side of your upper thigh. Advanced swimmers can do a S-
pull which maximizes the pulling phase.
• Recovery – with your hand close to your upper thigh, lift one arm out of the water
with a bent elbow. Reach forward over the water with a bent elbow and enter the
water with your finger tips.
7. FREESTYLE STROKE STEP BY STEP
GUIDE:
Both hands should alternate between the two movements
and be moving simultaneously.
8. FREESTYLE STROKE STEP BY STEP
GUIDE:
Step 3: Breathing Technique
Choosing a side to breathe will
depend on being right or left
handed. While your hand is
early in recovery phase, turn
your head sideways for a quick
breath (one second). The trick
is on time the roll of your
head with your arm
movement.
A very common mistakes is to lift
your head upwards instead of
turning it sideways to avoid the
water for breath. This is actually
counter-productive as it disrupts
your body positioning and causes
you to dip further into the water.
9. FREESTYLE STROKE STEP BY STEP
GUIDE:
Step 4: Leg Action
With ankles relaxed and flexible, point your toes
behind you and kick up-and-down in a
continuous motion from your thighs.
Kicking from the calves is not as effective and
a simple way to correct this is to make sure
your legs are straightened out while kicking.
11. BACKSTROKE STEP BY STEP GUIDE:
As the only swimming stroke entirely on the back, any swimmer
performing backstroke has to rely on body awareness, timing, spatial
awareness – and a little intuition goes into it as well.
12. BACKSTROKE STEP BY STEP GUIDE:
Step 1: Keep your body flat like a plank
Stay flat out. When you’re doing the
backstroke, you want your body to lie as flat on
the surface as possible.
Most people have a hard time getting their hips
to float on the surface, so they sink down a
little. Try to keep your hips as close to the
surface as possible.
13. BACKSTROKE STEP BY STEP GUIDE:
Step 2: Use a flutter kick
As soon as you’re in position, start kicking. Your legs should be
straightened, close together, and lined up below your hips. Keep
your legs straight and kick from your hips rather than from your
knees. This will give you more power and prevent you from getting
sore knees.
14. BACKSTROKE STEP BY STEP GUIDE:
Step 3: Use a long fluid arm motion
As you start to kick forward, keep your arms at your sides,
then reach one arm up in front of you pointing toward the
sky or ceiling. When your arm hits the water, bring it down
and scull outward to propel yourself forward. As you do
this, raise the other arm and perform the same motion
repeatedly.
15. BACKSTROKE STEP BY STEP GUIDE:
Step 4: Breathe once per arm cycle
Ideally, you want to breathe in as one arm leaves the water, then
breathe out as the other leaves the water. Deep, steady breathing is
important even though the backstroke allows you to breathe
whenever you want.
16. Step 5: Use the ceiling or clouds to keep yourself straight
When you’re in swimming in an indoor pool, use the ceiling to make sure
you don’t veer. When swimming outdoors, however, look to the clouds to
travel in straight line, and try keeping the sun on the same side of your
body.
BACKSTROKE STEP BY STEP GUIDE:
17. BACKSTROKE STEP BY STEP GUIDE:
Step 6: Accelerate your arm speed
With backstroke, the arms are one of
the main sources of power. To
maximize the pull, you will need to
accelerate your arms through the
water. Place your hand in the water
to begin your catch, pull your arm to
your hip as quickly as you can. As you
do so, try to feel the pull force you
onto your side. If you grip the water
well enough, it will force you to
rotate quickly and powerfully so you
speed up the rate.
18. The most fundamental aspect of the breaststroke is to
understand and learn the timing of its basic elements. If you
can remember one key mantra – pull, breathe, kick, glide –
then you’ll be off to a great start.
BREASTSTROKE SWIMMING
TECHNIQUES:
19. BREASTSTROKE STEP BY STEP GUIDE:
Step 1: The Glide Technique for Breaststroke
The glide is the beginning and ending position of the stroke cycle
and is the foundation of breaststroke swimming: your body is in a
straight line with your legs and arms extended, your face is in the
water, and your body is prone.
20. BREASTSTROKE STEP BY STEP GUIDE:
Step 2: Pulling Technique for Breaststroke
The breaststroke arm pull has four parts:
Glide, outsweep, insweep and recovery.
• Glide: Start with your arms fully extended in
front of your body with your palms pointing
down and fingertips pointing forward (the sides
of your thumbs should be touching). Hands
together in front of your chest in a praying
position with your fingertips pointing forward
away from your body. Then drive your arms
forward and fully extending your arms straight
in front of your body.
21. BREASTSTROKE STEP BY STEP GUIDE:
• Outsweep: Turn your palms slightly outward (so
your thumbs point slightly downward) and,
keeping your arms straight, sweep your arms
out to your sides until they form a “Y” shape
with your body.
• Insweep: Bend your elbows and move your
forearms down and back as you pull your hands
together in front of your chest in praying position.
This is the all-important phase of the breaststroke
pull, as it serves as the power that pulls your body
forward. This is also the phase where you lift your
head out of the water to take a breath.
• Recovery: Extend your arms forward just below
the surface to enter the glide phase, and begin
the cycle again.
22. BREASTSTROKE STEP BY STEP GUIDE:
Step 3: Kicking Technique for Breaststroke
Unlike freestyle and backstroke, the breaststroke doesn’t use a flutter kick. Instead,
it mimics a frog kick:
• Start with your legs straight and together.
• Bend your knees so they point out to the sides
while keeping your feet together. Your feet
should come in toward your torso.
• Keeping your knees where they are, separate
your feet to extend your legs straight out to a
diagonal, in a “V” shape, and then quickly
squeeze your legs together to come back to the
starting position. This step should be fast and
fluid.
23. BREASTSTROKE STEP BY STEP GUIDE:
Step 4: Breaststroke Turns
Breaststroke turns are significantly easier than the flip turns associated
with freestyle and backstroke, mostly because it doesn’t involve doing a
flip underwater.
• As you approach the wall, try to time it so that
your arms are fully extended. In competition,
both hands must touch the wall at the same
time and be at the same height.
• Swing your body and legs up underneath you,
bringing your feet to the wall, and turn your
body sideways, so you are facing back towards
the way you just swam.
• Let go of the wall and use your feet to push
off in a streamline position: arms fully
extended, squeezing your ears with your
biceps, core tight, legs straight, and ankles
together.
• Perform one full arm stroke and leg kick
under the water before rising to the surface
and taking your first stroke
25. BUTTERFLY STROKE STEP BY STEP
GUIDE:
In the beginning of the stroke, your body should
be oriented such that you rest on the breast with
your arms and legs extended into the front and
the back respectively.
26. BUTTERFLY STROKE STEP BY STEP
GUIDE:
Step 1: The Arm Movement
The butterfly stroke with regard to arm movement is a three
step procedure – the pull, the push and the recovery.
27. BUTTERFLY STROKE STEP BY STEP
GUIDE:
• The pull: At the commencement of the stroke, the
hands with palms facing outwards and a little
downwards at shoulders width, move a little down
attaining a ”Y” shape. This is referred as catching of
water. With hand aligned downwards and towards
the centre of the body and also lower than the
elbow, this arm pull trails a semi-circular path.
28. BUTTERFLY STROKE STEP BY STEP
GUIDE:
• The Push: At the start of the push, the palms are
pushed backwards beneath the body and towards the
completion of the push, the palms are at the sides of
the body. The arms are pushed only one-third of the
way to the hips to shorten the recovery as well as
breathing window. The hands move at a great pace
towards the end of the push, which also aids in
recovery. This is also referred as release.
29. BUTTERFLY STROKE STEP BY STEP
GUIDE:
• The Recovery: During recovery, the elbows being straight, the
arms sway sideways across the surface of the water and moves
to the front. Synchronous extension of the triceps and the
butterfly kick, bring the arms forwards speedily and in a
relaxed way. Extra resistance is produced in case your arms re-
enter the water too early as the arms move forward inside the
water in a direction opposite to that of swimming. Also refrain
from dropping your hips. The hands need to enter into the
water with thumbs first at a shoulders width.
30. BUTTERFLY STROKE STEP BY STEP
GUIDE:
Step 2: The Leg Movement
• The legs move in synchronization with each other. The strong up
and an average down kick moves the shoulders above the
surface of the water, followed by a strong down and up kick,
which moves the shoulders back into the water.
• The feet pointing downwards and pressed together, provide the
downward thrust to enable the feet to move up and the head
down.
31. BUTTERFLY STROKE STEP BY STEP
GUIDE:
Step 3: Breathing
• When your hands and forearms are beneath the chest, your body is
automatically lifted towards the surface of water.
• With a little more of efforts, you need to raise your head above the
water surface and breathe through the mouth.
• Then, the head again moves into the water during recovery and you
can exhale out through nose and mouth till the next inhalation.
• To excel in this stroke, you may practice to breathe every second or
third stroke.
32. BUTTERFLY STROKE STEP BY STEP
GUIDE:
Step 4: Body Movement
• The body movement is wave-like during the
butterfly stroke, administered by the core of the
body.
• The chest being pressed down, moves the hips
upwards and the posterior moves above the
surface of the water followed by a quick kick.
• During the push, the chest moves up and the
hips down at the lowest possible position.
33. BUTTERFLY STROKE STEP BY STEP
GUIDE:
Step 5: Start
• Butterfly stroke utilizes the usual start to swim. The start is
followed by a gliding phase under the water and further
the butterfly kicks.
34. BUTTERFLY STROKE STEP BY STEP
GUIDE:
Step 6: Turn and finish
• It is significant that a swimmer faces
downwards and his both hands, with
bent elbows, touching simultaneously
the wall of the pool during the turns
and finish.
• There is synchronous movement of one
hand leaving the wall and moving to
the front underwater and the legs
being moved closer and beneath the
body towards the wall. Now, the
second hand leaves the wall to move
towards the front underwater.
35. BUTTERFLY STROKE STEP BY STEP
GUIDE:
Step 6: Turn and finish
• At this point, the legs come in contact with the wall
and both hands at the front, thus accomplishing the
turns or finish.
36. THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS!
#STAY_AT_HOME
#STAY_SAFE
#SAVE_LIVES
• -Loretizo, Ianne Lae N.
