TECHNIQUE
I hear quite a lot of swimmers say they think gliding when swimming is a bad thing. But what does ‘gliding’ actually mean? The Oxford Dictionary defines it like this: “Pass from one place to another or change position by smooth continuous movement, esp.without effort or difficulty or perceptible means of locomotion”. That doesn’t sound so bad does it?
When we push off the wall in a pool, we definitely like to glide to ride the momentum created by the push-off and then ‘break out’ into our stroke before we start decelerating. So for starts and turns gliding is generally recognised as a good thing.