6 Tips and Tricks for Better Swimming
Swimming is a fun and effective way to switch up your workout with a low-impact workout. But, it can be challenging to learn. Getting in the pool for some is intimidating, but we want to break down those barriers. Follow along as we give you tips for better swimming. You’ll find out that you don’t need to be intimidated at all. So, read along.
Swimming for Exercise
First, let’s talk about swimming as a workout. Exercises like running and plyometrics—while fantastic—are hard on your joints. These workouts are beloved, and some folks do these high-impact exercises every day, but it is essential to mix low-impact exercises into your routine to help protect your joints and give them a much-needed rest. Swimming does just that. In fact, it is almost no-impact and offers a calorie busting, and challenging workout.
1 | Plan Your Routine
Write this tip down. It can positively impact your workday, your personal life, and any workout you do—plan. When you hop into the pool, it can be hard to come up with a way to execute your exercise. You might not feel like freestyle swimming, and—if you’re anything like us—you’ll just kind of float around and call it a day. So, go after your workout with a plan. Check out our advice on how to start lap swimming and how you can craft a fantastic swimming workout.
2 | Correct Arm Stroke
When swimming, the first thing you will learn is the appropriate stroke. For freestyle swimming, you need to catch water (and a lot of it) to propel yourself through the pool. Instead of bending your elbow down towards the bottom of the pool, you will want to bend it in the opposite way, facing the ceiling of the pool room or sky. It should be like you are scooping the water with your forearm facing downward and then pulling your arm all of the way up. You also need to reach as far as you can. If you are not reaching your arms all of the way forward, you will need to work that much harder to get to the end of the pool. So stretch out as far as you can, get your fingers into the pool first and then scoop down.
3 | Correct Your Breathing
Another mistake that makes swimming much harder is lifting your head to breathe. When you do this, your body dips down deeper into the water, exhausting your muscles and making your swim workout more difficult, less efficient, and slower than it needs to be. But, we have a better swimming technique. Instead, breathe to the side of your body every few strokes, switching from one side to another. By breathing to the side rather than lifting your head, your body remains in the same, plank-like position and allows you to move fluidly through your stroke. Learning proper breathing techniques will help you swim further, faster, and with more efficiency.
4 | Leg Position
Now that you have those tips covered, you need to keep your kicks small. It may feel powerful to bend your legs and do these large and powerful kicks, but bent legs and massive movements only make swimming harder. You want to keep your legs—and body in general—as straight as possible, with a little bend in the knee, and a small flutter more than a kick.
5 | Keep Yourself Parallel To The Pool Floor
You will be able to cut through the water faster if you keep your body straight from head to toe. It is a lot harder to do swim training when your legs are deeper in the water than the top half of your body or vice versa. So, think about engaging your core, and keeping your body parallel to the pool floor. This simple trick will decrease drag and help you to get through your swim sessions more quickly.
6 | Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff
Swimming is difficult. Learning perfect form, picking up speed, and swimming more laps takes time. When you end your training early or don’t perform how you would like to—let it go. It is perfectly perfect to be a beginner and to take your time to learn how to do something correctly. It’s fine to make progress for a while and then slip-up. The most important thing is to get up and keep trying and keep pushing yourself to be better at gym swimming.
If you would like to work on your swimming skills, check out our Chuze gyms with pools below.
California:
Garden Grove, Rancho Cucamonga, Corona, Anaheim, Cudahy, San Bernardino
Colorado:
Broomfield, South Monaco, Englewood, Highlands Ranch, Littleton, Thornton, Westminster