Articles and Videos
Why Butterflyers Should Do the One-Two-One Drill
Butterfly can be the most exhausting stroke to swim, and it takes many swimmers of lot of practice to learn the proper timing. Practicing it, however, can be exhausting. Once you’re worn out, your stroke will start to fall apart, at which point you’re practicing bad technique—that’s never a good thing.
Learn to Swim Freestyle With This Drill Progression
Freestyle swimming technique can be difficult to master, and it takes a lot of practice to find the right body alignment, catch, and arm movements to swim fast. This drill progression can help. Work on these drills in progression regularly to solidify your muscle memory for faster freestyle.
Dryland Exercises that Power Up Your Swimming Turns
When you push off the wall, that’s the fastest you’ll ever move in swimming. Learning to capitalize on this for a strong push-off is a key way to post faster times in any event you’re racing.
Four Exercises to Alleviate Hip Pain
Terry (not her real name) was out for her usual weekend open water swim when her hip suddenly tightened up.
Why You Need to Buddy Up for a Sustainable Swimming Habit
It’s often said you should never swim alone, and while that’s typically intended as a safety mantra, there are other reasons that finding a partner or group to train with can help you build a more sustainable swimming habit. Here are four key ways that buddying up can improve your ability, fitness, enjoinment, and commitment to swimming.
What Muscles Are Used in a Swimming Workout?
Exercise is good for your body in many ways, but one of its biggest benefits comes from how it strengthens muscles. In fact, swimming just might be the best exercise for building strength throughout your entire body because it’s low-impact—meaning there’s less stress on your joints—while offering consistent resistance from the water.
4 Must-Do In-Water Stretching Drills for Swimmers
Staying flexibile is a critical skill for swimmers because it improves streamlining, stroke mechanics, and resistance to injury. But staying flexible as we age isn’t always easy.
Make Your Freestyle More Efficient by Doing This Drill
If you watch an aerial view of elite swimmers, you’ll notice that they always have a hand or arm out in front of their heads. This is called front-quadrant swimming, and the best of the best use it because it lengthens your body and helps with stroke timing.
Try This Drill to Improve Your Freestyle Technique
Do you feel as though your freestyle has stagnated, even though you’ve been getting stronger with dryland training? Are you putting forth a lot of effort but not getting very far?
How to Swim Freestyle Without Getting Tired
Have you ever wondered how some triathletes and open water swimmers seem to be able to just keep swimming forever? If you’ve wanted to learn how to duplicate their skills without getting tired, then this drill is for you.
Swim Breaststroke Better With This Fun, Simple Drill Progression
Drill progressions can help you master aspects of technique step by step. Each stage of a progression helps break down the stroke and gives you a cumulative understanding of how your body should be moving at a given point in the stroke cycle. Once you put it all together, your stroke will improve.
Try This Freestyle Drill to Swim Like an Olympian
We can learn a lot from the drills that the pros use. The Popov drill is named after legendary Russian sprinter Alexander Popov and is perfect for developing your length, balance, control, and rotation.
Perfect Your Breaststroke Timing With This Drill
Breaststroke is sometimes referred to as more art than science. As with dancers, breaststrokers are said to be “born not made.” Indeed, both breaststroke and dancing require a sense of timing that can be elusive for some.
Fix Your Backstroke By Doing This Drill
There are aspects of backstroke technique that, if performed poorly, affect your ability to swim the stroke efficiently. Poor alignment means you’ll wiggle down the lane, and a poor catch means that you won’t have good power for your propulsion.
USMS Elects Officers and Honors Members at 2025 Annual Meeting
U.S. Masters Swimming elected officers to its Board of Directors and honored many deserving volunteers and coaches with awards at its 2025 annual meeting.
The Best Open Water Swimming Buoy Turn
Tight buoy turns in open water races are critical to maintaining momentum around the course. But they can be challenging to master, as many of us slow down to find the buoy, get around it, and then get back up to racing speed.
Try This Drill to Fix Your Butterfly and Breaststroke
The butterfly–breaststroke combo drill might seem odd, but these two short-axis strokes have a history together; butterfly began evolving from breaststroke in the 1930s. Combining them in drill form leverages that shared origin story and can help you correct timing problems.
Try This Drill to Fix Your Backstroke Technique
If you’re struggling with how to swim backstroke, this technique drill will help you. It focuses on stroke timing and will help fix common backstroke mistakes of shoulder and body rotation. Mix this into your swimming workout in the pool and see how your backstroke improves and becomes faster, as a quicker rotation leads to a more powerful stroke.
2 Must-Do Dryland Exercises for Your Swimming Starts and Turns
These two exercises can help you get more power off your starts and walls.
