WINTER FREESTYLE REFRESHER: PART 1 – BREATHING FOR FRONT CRAWL
How to identify areas for improvement and work out what to do
Acommon path to improve your swimming is to work with a teacher or a coach. An expert pair of eyes can quickly spot things you can work on to swim further and faster and with less effort. But not everyone has access to these services. The alternative is to try to teach yourself. It’s harder to do it alone but you can identify areas for improvement and make changes. Our aim with this series is to help you improve your powers of selfobservation and assessment so you can determine what you need to do to become a better swimmer.
To improve your swimming, you need three things:
• A good idea of what you are aiming for
• An understanding of where you are now
• A way to make the changes needed to get you from where you are to where you want to be Swimming isn’t complicated. To go faster, you just need to reduce drag or increase propulsion – or preferably do both at the same time. However, the movement pattens to do this are not natural. Mastering them and coordinating the different parts of the body takes time and practice. Building the muscular strength and endurance to increase and sustain power takes hours of training. Unfortunately, you can’t just watch a fast swimmer, try to copy what they do, and expect to go faster. There are too many things to think about.