Its all in the legs

Swimming the freestyle, that is.


I have been trying to learn to swim the front crawl stroke properly these few months and my wife S has been pointing out my fatal error of which I have no means to improve -- I cannot float. If you do not know how to swim the freestyle and have attempted it, you will probably experience the same sinking and lung-bursting agony as I, and the harder you propel yourselves with your hands, instead of going faster, you merely sink faster.

Where do you sink first then...yes...the legs.

Let's analyse.

Suppose you push off from the wall of the pool with your arms in front of you. With the momentum of the push, you will be able to glide, and as you get slower and slower, your legs will drop. Why is this?

The only natural float we have as humans are in the lungs, so to push our legs up, we have to kick -- in freestyle, the kick is normally referred to as the flutter kick.

This was how I learnt the flutter kick.

- Use a kick board and kick. Sounds easy? I couldn't reach one-third of the pool without my legs sinking when I started.
- Stablise the body when kicking. Your hips should not be swinging wildly as you kick. (This point is very important and cannot be over emphasised)
- Try putting it together with your arm-stroke once you are sufficiently proficient.