Swimming is triathlon’s most technically challenging discipline but by breaking down your freestyle swimming technique, you can transform your front crawl to swim faster, stronger and more efficiently.
Freestyle swimming technique is undoubtedly the element of triathlon that the majority of triathletes struggle with the most. It’s hardly a surprise – the finely tuned control, power and flexibility needed for a great freestyle stroke is hard to ingrain, especially as an adult. Nevertheless, there are key aspects of the freestyle swimming technique that once mastered, will see your front crawl improve and reduce the likelihood of injuries.
Mastering your front crawl technique in the pool will get you ready to swim in the open water and swim faster in your next triathlon event.
When it comes to changing elements of your stroke, focusing on one at a time will help reinforce correct freestyle swimming technique without becoming overwhelmed by trying to reinvent your stroke completely.
Article Contents
Body position
Trying to achieve the ideal horizontal freestyle swimming position is one of the trickiest elements of the whole stoke. Strong – and heavy – legs from cycling and running often sink lower than the rest of the body, creating huge amounts of drag as well as negatively affecting arm technique.
Fixing your body position will come from a combination of a powerful kick and strong stroke mechanics, but there are other things you can do to help right away.
What to focus on
While swimming, concentrate on pressing your chest down into the water to achieve a sensation of ‘swimming downhill’. Countering the raised chest that’s caused by heavy legs helps lever the hips and legs up into a more neutral position. You should feel your heels breaking the surface of the water more regularly as you do this.
You can also experiment with how far ahead you’re looking. Rather than focusing on the floor of the pool a few metres in front of you, some athletes find that tucking the chin under a little more and looking only just ahead of directly below the head also helps to create a more horizontal alignment.
Head positioning
Consider the prow of a ship – you would probably want it to be in a fixed position rather than flexing side to side or twisting one way or another. The same is true of your head when swimming – it’s your leading edge through the propulsive part of the stroke, so keeping the head as static as possible helps to minimise drag and maximise efficiency.
What to focus on
Adopt a neutral neck position, looking at the floor of the pool a few metres ahead of you. Then imagine that your head must stay fixed in this position regardless of the arm motions and body rotation going on around it.
Using a swimming snorkel is a great way to practise this without the interruption of having to turn the head to breathe. But of course, you will have to do this when you swim normally, so the aim is to get back to your central head position as quickly as possible.
Rotation
Good rotation allows maximum stroke length, minimise drag and make breathing easier. Too little rotation and you’ll limit your reach at the start of each stroke, too much rotation and you’ll have to waste energy getting back to the central, neutral position at the end of each stroke.
The key to rotation is that the whole body rotates together, your shoulders, hips, knees and ankles moving in unison around the central axis as you swim. If you watch swimmers with poor rotation, you’ll often see that a powerful arm stroke creates a fishtailing effect, the hips, knees and ankles waving from side to side.
There’s no specific amount of rotation you should aim for – and it’s pretty hard to tell while you’re swimming without a coach or video analysis – but as a starting point, aim for about 45-degrees. You’re also likely to rotate a little more on a breathing stroke.
What to focus on
Concentrating on getting the shoulders, hips, knees and ankles moving in sympathy with no dead spots is essential. Engaging your abdominal muscles while you swim will give a more rigid core, making that wholistic rotation easier. Think about the shoulders, hips, knees and ankles moving in sympathy with no dead spots – imagining you’re on a skewer being turned from side to side from behind can help you visualise the compact, centralised movement we’re trying to achieve. Rotation should feel quite gentle and natural rather than a side-to-side whipping sensation, which again promotes fishtailing.
A great drill to improve feel for your rotation is to place a kickboard vertically between your thighs. As you rotate, the kickboard will resist the water, giving you a better sense of how much you’re rotating. Doing sets with a pull buoy can also help improve alignment, the lack of kicking increasing awareness of your body position as a whole.
When it comes to exactly how much you should rotate, start with around 45-degrees and then consciously add more or less rotation to your stroke until you feel like you’re achieving a comfortable rhythm and efficient stroke.
Hand entry
Entering the water with your hand in the right place sets up your whole stroke and will define whether it’s strong, powerful and effective or loose and inefficient.
Take a sneaky look in your local pool and you’re bound to see some swimmers whose hands enter right in front of their heads or even cross well beyond the centreline. From here, the hand and arm can’t pull straight back – there are a head and body in the way – so the arm has to sweep out to the side, losing power and purchase on the water, usually before sweeping back in an ‘s’ shape, losing power and purchase on the other side of the arm. All this is exactly what we’re trying to avoid.
What to focus on
Think about your spearing the water with your hand in line with your shoulders. Your palm and fingers should be slightly pointed down, wrist above knuckles, elbow above the wrist as you rotate into the action to maximise reach.
If you normally swim with a narrower stroke, this can feel like your arms are uncomfortably wide to begin with but persevere and you’ll be rewarded with a more efficient stroke and fewer shoulder niggles.
Swimming with paddles attached to only your middle finger will give you a good sense of how your hand entry is progressing. Go in at a poor angle and the paddle is likely to twist to the side, allowing you to correct your stroke.
The catch
Freestyle swimming is all about pushing as much water as possible with each arm stroke to propel yourself through the water, so making sure that you’re catching that water as early as possible is essential.
The catch should immediately follow your hand entering the water at shoulder width. The aim is to keep the elbow high – always higher than the wrist – and then pivot the hand and forearm so they’re perpendicular to the bottom of the pool to create the largest surface area possible to catch as much water as you can.
What to focus on
Start by pointing your fingers towards the bottom of the pool, then imagine hooking your wrist and forearm over a barrel, creating a lever with your elbow to push against with the forearm at 90 degrees, initiating the power producing phase of the stroke.
Sculling drills are great for feeling the way your hands and forearms press against the water during the catch. You can then take this increased sensitivity into your normal swimming to focus on improving your catch.
The pull
With your arm in the high elbow position, you can push firmly against the water to propel yourself forward. Traditionally, the freestyle stroke involves pulling all the way back until the hand is in line with the thigh, the last portion of the stroke completing a motion similar to a tricep press.
You will often see strong swimmers who’ve been in the water their whole lives using this technique to great effect. If you look at pro triathlon, however, the length tends to be much shorter with the pull phase ending as the wrist passes under the elbow and the 90-degree forearm position is lost – usually between the bottom of the ribs and the hips. This is because more power is created in this first part of the stroke, so having a shorter stroke with an increased number of strokes per minute can generate more power for many swimmers.
What to focus on
The trick with the pull is to stop the elbow dropping, which saps the majority of power from the stroke. So, continue to imagine you’re pushing hard against the barrel, its buoyancy keeping your elbow high while allowing your body to rotate outwards a little to retain the 90-degree forearm position for as long as possible.
Doing doggy paddle is a great way to put emphasis on the pull phase of the stroke, your body’s angle creating more drag so you can really feel when you’re pulling yourself over the barrels!
The recovery
Whether you finish your stroke down towards your knees or pull your hand out of the water closer to your ribs, the recovery should be as relaxed as its name implies. Muscling through this phase of the stroke wastes energy and can even throw you off balance, creating a movement you’ll have to correct.
What to focus on
Elbow bent, lift your hand from the water with the wrist completely relaxed. Keep this limp position until your hand passes your head, then straighten up, ready to spear the water again. A great drill to promote a relaxed recovery is the fingertip drag. Here, your hand doesn’t actually leave the water at all, instead, you trail your fingertips along the surface until the normal point of hand entry at the front of the stroke. This necessitates a lightness of touch that discourages punching through the air.
Breathing
When breathing during freestyle swimming, the aim is to cause as little disruption as possible to your stroke. Lifting the head too much, taking too long to breathe or over-rotating can cause imbalances that will slow you down. It’s also very common to see less experienced swimmers holding their breath without realising – causing tension in the body and meaning they have to work on getting air out as well as in when turning the head on a breathing stroke. To make breathing as economical as possible we need to empty the lungs while the face is underwater and employ a controlled, compact swivel of the head when an in-breath is needed.
When it comes to taking air back in, you can breathe to the same side every two strokes or bilaterally every three strokes. If you look at fast swimmers, they will create a bow wave around their heads as they swim, which pushes water out the way to create a pocket of air around the head. With this in mind, the best time to breathe is as you engage the most propulsive part of your stroke right after the catch. It might take a while to find your natural breathing rhythm, but with practise, it should become comfortable and eventually second-nature.
What to focus on
Breathing out while the face is underwater is key to good freestyle swimming technique. Blowing out a steady stream of bubbles on a slow ‘one-two’ count between in breaths if you’re breathing every two strokes or, unsurprisingly, ‘one-two-three’ for bilateral breathers should clear your lungs and avoid unwanted tension.
This then leaves you ready for an in-breath. As your forearm moves into the catch position, turn your head to the same side, lifting your head as little as possible from the water for your mouth to clear the surface and looking a few paces ahead down the pool rather than backwards. Take a breath and then get your head back to the central neutral position as quickly as possible.
Kicking
Kicking is almost a complete stroke discipline in itself and something that new swimmers tend to find difficult due to the combination of solid technique to generate lift and propulsion in the water and rhythm and balance for stroke efficiency.
What to focus on
Kicking from the hips, rather than the knees, is key to good freestyle swimming technique. The knees and ankles should be relaxed and not locked out, allowing them a little flick as the upper legs move up and down. Some athletes find it useful to feel the inside of the thighs to brush together while others do the same with their big toes to keep shape throughout the kick and avoid the legs spreading.
When it comes to rhythm, this is something that’s best found naturally. By experimenting with different leg-kick speeds, you’ll find a beat that works in harmony with your arm stroke – the two working together to give a balanced, efficient and powerful stroke.
Doing kicking drills is a great way to build strength in your legs and an opportunity to really focus on correct technique. Kicking on the front with arms outstretched and hands overlapped gives a very close approximation of your position when swimming. Meanwhile, kicking with fins increases resistance and feel for the water, helping to improve technique and strength.
Freestyle swimming technique – the bottom line
Mastering freestyle swimming is incredibly difficult. Good technique and muscle memory trump fitness. There’s no doubt that feedback from a coach, video analysis or even a fellow swimmer will help fast track your progression, but a lot of it simply comes down to concentration and applying yourself.
Don’t get disheartened if things don’t improve right away – there are plenty of extremely fit pro triathletes who swim hour upon hour each week, yet never achieve the speed and grace of pure swimmers. It takes a lot of effort to make improvements, so to keep things as simple as possible, tackle one element at a time until each part of the technique is amalgamated into your natural stroke.
