1. Sign up for swimming lessons or invest in personalized lessons with a coach

Swimming is a very specific and highly demanding form of locomotion from a technical point of view. An overweight and out of shape former swimmer will easily be able to outperform a physically fit person who does not have an efficient swimming technique. Swimming many meters/minutes essentially helps those swimmers who already have an efficient swimming technique, but it can be counterproductive for those who swim with many technical flaws as they will end up memorizing and consolidating a wrong and inefficient motor pattern. Small corrections can have a huge impact on swimming technique by lowering energy consumption for the same swimming speed and making it possible to increase the duration/time limit for the same speed.

2. Film yourself swimming in and out of the water 

If you have been taking swimming lessons for some time but want to improve even further, look for a club/or a coach that provides this service. A kinematic analysis of the different phases of the stroke, kick, breathing and body position allows an experienced coach to diagnose the main technical errors and define an action plan aimed at the detected errors.

3. Focus your attention

Now that you have an assessment of your swimming technique, take it easy! Don’t try to correct every error detected every time you go to the pool. The result of an assessment can be information overload for you. Direct your attention to a particular aspect of your stroke. You shouldn’t do too many different exercises when you want to improve a particular aspect. At this stage, guidance from an experienced trainer is essential in identifying priority corrections.

4. Give yourself time

Changing an already consolidated motor pattern is possible but requires a lot of focus, effort (sweat), physical and mental energy. Repetition is essential and it takes time to improve. It will depend on several personal factors but you should expect, on average, at least 4 to 6 weeks of goal-directed work before you see improvements. In some cases it may happen sooner and in others it may take even longer depending on the athlete and the type of technical difficulty to be corrected.

5. Discover the swimming style that suits you

Some less experienced coaches ask athletes to replicate the swimming technique of Elite swimmers in general or a very good swimmer in particular. That doesn’t make sense and could lead you to a dead end! Coaches must individualize prescription acording to the athletess physical fitness. For example, the technical pattern of freestyle swimming traditionally taught in swimming schools has prerequisites for it to be executed, namely in terms of the specific strength and flexibility required. That is, for someone to swim with an aerial recovery of the upper limbs with a low hand close to the body/water, it is necessary to have high levels of mobility in the scapulohumeral joint and the ability to relax this part of the body while the opposite upper limb grips and pulls water to generate propulsion. An experienced coach will act in two ways: out of the water, he should first try to improve the mobility of the athlete’s shoulders and try to transfer these gains to swimming; If this is not feasible, the coach must adjust the athlete’s swimming technique, finding a compromise between the athlete’s physical and technical condition that allows him to obtain the best performance, that is, helping the athlete to find his personal swimming style. If you are a triathlete, having an aerial recovery with a slightly higher hand trajectory can help you in open water situations with a lot of waves and where the proximity between swimmers promotes a lot of physical contact.

Stronger Together,
Rodolfo Lourenço 03/06/2024