5 Mistakes of Freestyle Swimming

Freestyle (Front Crawl) was the fastest among all the other strokes. In the recent Tokyo Olympic 2020, the top swim speed was recorded at 1.78m/s by Dressel from USA.

How to Swim Freestyle?

Let’s look at the 5 most common mistakes of Freestyle Swimming.

Freestyle Mistake #1- Improper Kicking

The flutter kicking of freestyle contribute to forward propulsion if properly done. Kicking by using the hips and keep the knee and ankle relax will be the best practice. Often people tend to kick by bending their knee too much and causes lot of water splashes in the water and not moving forward due to increase in water drag by the leg bending action.

Freestyle Mistake #2- Body Not Streamline

Upper body and lower body are not connected in a straight line. The spinal muscles need to lock and connect the upper and lower body together when swimming freestyle. Another word, keep your body posture straight all the time to minimize drag.

Freestyle Mistake #3- Improper Breathing

Improper breathing can cause the swimmers to feel tired and exhausted therefore losing concentration on the swimming stroke and thus bad habits are formed. Inhale and exhale has to be in sync with the arm movement.

Freestyle Mistake #4- Wrong Pull-Push Technique

The pull and push technique of arm movement in the water is not there. Or sometimes you could be executing your “Push” in the water too early. Too early “Push” in the water may harm your shoulder blade and cause injury. Remember that the Pull and Push function of the arm are using different form of arm muscles.

Freestyle Mistake #5- Not Relaxed

Remember to stay relax at all times. Tense body tend to be heavy and stiff movement of limb thus prevent you from executing the strokes gracefully. Stay relax make you lighter and you float better.