Starting out in open water swimming and front crawl.

With a massive rise in wild swimming, dipping and open water swimming we thought we’d write a little piece on improving your swimming…taking the first few steps from bobbing around in the water, bit of breaststroke or limited front crawl - to swimming front crawl…and increasing your distances.

FACE AND BREATHING : if you’ve just started in the open water, getting your face in is step one. Make sure you wear a swimming cap, you can wear 2 if it’s really cold and a decent pair of goggles. By decent, I don’t mean expensive. Everyone has a different shaped face and not all goggles will suit everyone. Sometimes it’s a case of trial and error. Also, wear ear plugs or something to stop you getting ‘surfers ear’. Best place to start is to simply take a breath, put your face in and slowly expel the air, before bringing your face out and taking another breath. You shouldn’t bring your face out and breath out. The breathing out section should be completed underwater. Repeat. Whilst swimming some people breath in and then expel the water when their face goes in quite quickly, some breath out consistently until their face comes out for another breath…it’s an individual thing.

FRONT CRAWL STROKE : once you’re comfortable breathing in the water, you can then look to put your breathing and stroke together. I’d suggest starting off by focussing on the relationship between your arm strokes and breathing and getting comfortable and efficient with this part of your stroke. In salt water or with the assistance of a wetsuit you’re nice and buoyant. So initially it’s nice and easy to take your leg kick out of the equation. Simply put your ankles together and let your legs float behind you. I say this because it’s almost impossible to focus on your arms, breathing and leg kick at the same time. It’s like trying to ride a unicycle, whilst juggling and having a conversation!

LEGS : Once you feel like you’re making progress and you’re not having to put too much thought into what you’re doing, you might then consider adding leg kick to the mix. Leg kick is one of the most difficult parts. It’s not difficult to kick your legs…it’s having an efficient kick that’s the tricky bit. When coaching 90% of the issue we try and correct are poor leg kicks. Your legs will use a lot of oxygen and if you’re not kicking efficiently you don’t get any propulsion. Which isn’t great. You’ll also be deprived of oxygen, which in turn will slow you down over distance and increases fatigue. The other issue is for runners. Leg kick is all about the flexibility in your ankles. Runners notoriously have stiff ankle and often really struggle with leg kick. Your kick should be short and sharp - with the most important bit being that your ankles should be together, with heels just breaking the surface of the water.

DISTANCE : start with short bursts and get it right over those bursts. Have regular rest intervals. Once you feel like your getting it right over shorter distances start to extend the distances that you’re swimming.

COACHING : the most cost effective way to get coaching would be to follow the advice above and once you’re swimming take yourself to see a coach. If you want to swim in the sea, have an open water swim coaching session. If you want to swim in the pool….a pool session. If you want to do both I’d complete a pool coaching session. Think about the area that’s most important to you.

You can see a coach at the very start. It’ll help but will be a little more expensive.

Your coach should give you drills to take away and practise. It’s also really helpful to know where you’re going wrong as you can then visit Youtube and look at drills to correct the issues and do your own homework. The best place to practise drills is in the pool but you won’t have the buoyancy in the pool, that you typically have in salt water/wearing a wetsuit. The salt water is also more forgiving with your stroke, so some problems won’t be as visible in the salt water, as they would in the pool. A low hip position, for example may be hidden by the buoyancy salt water provides.