Rotate Your Way to Freestyle Ease!
Happy Holidays, Folks!
Is your New Year's resolution to keep improving your swimming? Well you've come to the right place! Hopefully everyone is having a great finish to their 2022. With only a few days left of the year, let's close things out on a great note with our freestyle progressions. Last week, we spent our time getting into rhythm with good
freestyle breathing technique, which will admittedly take further practice than just the week that has lapsed since our last post. Just keep working at it as we continue to build! This week, we're rounding out all our "trunk-based motion" with rotation!
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The most important takeaway with this post should be that freestyle is not swum in a stagnant or "square" plane. If we swim with a flat orientation - with our chests facing the bottom of the pool - we tend to put a good deal of pressure on our shoulders during the recovery phase. In addition, we don't get the same amount of reach, thus limiting the effectiveness of our stroke. On top of this, the breathing motion is far more uncomfortable when having to crane your neck to breathe, as opposed to a more comfortable rotation (as the breathing video aptly highlights).
Streamlining and working an
efficient kick have taught us how to compress ourselves into a straight, and now we look to learn how to rotate around that axis.
Fact of the week
: Freestyle is not linear. It is, perhaps in the sense of absolute momentum. However, the rotation action supplies much of the momentum aid that we experience during our swimming, while also making for a much more comfortable stroke. Use the drills in the video to help build your rotational comfort and ultimately to help you build a more fluid freestyle. The next sections of the freestyle series will be focused on implementing the arms into our body position, so make sure to practice the fundamentals before then! Stay tuned and keep up with us on
Youtube!
How does my child move up? Come to every swim class, bring your progress report, earn those stickers, and ask your child's instructor or location's deck manager if you have questions.
How do I move up? Attend as many of your classes as possible, communicate with your instructor on your struggles, goals, and where you're at in our curriculum. We also have many adults who purchase a gym membership to 24 Hour Fitness or LA Fitness while they are taking lessons so they can practice 2-3 times between classes.
Breathe comfortably knowing you're improving! Glad your swimmer is learning to swim with us!
The Sigma Team
Other Sigma Swim School and Stroke School important links:
- BAND - Never miss a notification about your swim/stroke classes or other important and urgent information. Register and find your Sigma location.
- Equipment: All Groups
- Questions? Lessons@sigmaswimming.org (youth lessons); Adults@sigmaswimming.org (adult lessons); Swim@sigmaswimming.org (swim team and masters swimming)
