Articles and Videos
Coupling Motions: A Powerful Swimming Technique You Might Not Have Heard of Before
Coupling motions are part of our everyday lives and help us move faster, but we don’t think about them much. These motions by themselves generate no propulsion. But when they’re coupled or timed with a propulsive force, they act to make t...
If You Can Do This You Might Be A Natural Breaststroker
Most good breaststrokers have an anatomical commonality: They stand with their toes pointed out. Not necessarily in opposite directions, although many can do that on demand. For the straight-footed or pigeon-toed, things are different. The key differ...
This Skill Can Help You Become a Better Swimmer
Swimming is a difficult sport to master and to pick up again. If you haven’t been in the water for a while, you probably feel like you have some catching up to do. If you’ve come to swimming from a different sport and are using it to cros...
This Children’s Song Can Help You Swim Faster
A swimmer’s drag profile is the area that faces resistance from the water when the swimmer is trying to move. A larger drag profile means more water pushing against the swimmer, which creates more resistance and decreases speed. Shrinking the d...
Three Drills to Improve Your Breaststroke Timing
The most difficult aspect of breaststroke to master is the timing. Even the most skilled swimmers in the world struggle with this from time to time. It’s something that many athletes feel they lose over the course of a long season or career. Do...
Breathing Easy to the Side on Butterfly
The strength and precise timing butterfly requires might make it the most difficult stroke to master, especially for Masters swimmers who are learning how to swim later in life. Masters swimmers have a range of abilities, ages, and body types, and so...
Kick Your Kick into Shape
When it’s time for a kick set, many of us grab a kickboard and get kicking—that’s usually my modus operandi anyway. But is kicking with kickboards the safest way for us to get our kicks in? “From a postural perspective, using...
What Your Pull Buoy Can Teach You
Who doesn’t love a nice, long freestyle pull set? You don’t have to kick, and you can concentrate on your stroke. It’s almost meditative. But you should pay close attention because your pull buoy can teach you a lot about all of you...
The Right and Wrong Time to Have High Elbows on Freestyle
The term “high elbow” has been used over and over again by coaches, but they’ve sometimes focused on the wrong time swimmers should have high elbows. I’ve been guilty of this. It’s time to move beyond this concept. Let&r...
Watch Out for These Trouble Areas in Your Breaststroke and Butterfly
The double-arm recoveries of breaststroke and butterfly produce built-in gaps in arm propulsion, and the breaststroke kick features a nonpropulsive recovery phase. Our challenge is to ensure that no additional dead spots sneak into these st...
