WINTER FREESTYLE REFRESHER: PART 5: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
SIMON GRIFFITHS
Over the previous four issues, we’ve looked at the various components of front crawl: body position and balance; breathing; arms; and legs. Now we will explore how to pull it all together. Front crawl is so much better when all the parts work as a cohesive, coordinated whole.
We’ve touched on this previously. For example, we looked at the timing of the kick. You could have your feet and arms each doing their own thing but this wouldn’t be effective. It works much better if the power phase of the arm pull coincides with kick of the same foot, which also drives body rotation.
If you talk to swimmers, you’ll find that many don’t know what their legs are doing, even if they’re kicking perfectly. They’ll say that kicking just happens or it’s instinctive. But if you ask them to think about or modify their kick, they struggle and become uncoordinated. And sometimes, even though kicking feels natural, it may not be optimised. It can take the experienced eye of a good coach to spot this. However, one principle of this refresher series is to help diagnose areas for improvement in your own swimming.