“Progressive practices” help in reprogramming your brain to bury bad habits and form new neural pathways in your brain. The key is to use training aids that hep you isolate the component parts of the stroke to focus on one single action. Do this drill with flippers on and you’ll get a better “feel” for the catch. Use a snorkel as well to further the body’s feel. TAKE YOUR TIME, and you will see massive improvements in a single session. You’re welcome.

The butterfly leg action is undulating. We call it dolphin kicking or mermaid/man kicking when we teach children. It begins from the chest down, and helps propel the body through the water in streamline position. This video shows a massive sine curve and wave fo the leg action but notice how the toes are together and the ankles kick out when the downstroke is done. Also worth noting is that there is an "up-kick" and "down-kick" to the butterfly leg action. The best way to develop a feel for the leg action is to do the kick on your side. This helps build that muscle memory and wiring in the motor cortex of the brain so that you can butterfly kick with ease. Join one of my weekly seminars to share your experience and for top tips.

Breathing when swimming is one of the most common complaints when teaching adults and there are a number of reasons why you struggle to breathe. But instead of going through them all, I’m going to give you an easy fix. This drill is called 3-6-3 where you have three arm strikes followed by six kicks, while breathing to the side. This drill not only helps you balance your whole body while swimming, but allows you to align your head in the optimal streamline position to take an easy breath AND NOT GET OUT OF BREATH! Use flippers for extra propulsion and balance, it’s so much fun. Take your time and build slowly. Join me on one of my weekly seminars and share what is or isn’t working and I’ll guide you. You’re welcome!

Freestyle and front crawl are two terms that are used for the same stroke in swimming. Basically swimming on the front. But why two words for the same thing? This can be confusing but here I share the difference… Freestyle refers to the style a swimmers arms make in the recovery phase of the arm action. Because every body type and swimmer is different, the way in which the arm recovers differs. Some have a straight arm recovery, and some adopt a bent elbow recovery. Some swimmers hands are close to the body while others recover wide. With so many rules and strict regulations around competitive swimming, “freestyle” refers to the free-style of action that is allowed in competition during this phase of the arm action. In swimming front crawl, the arm action has four or five distinct phases. 1, entry. 2, catch. 3, pull/power. 4, exit and 5, recovery. Each phase lasts a fraction of a second but in dividing these up, we can start to notice them. Have a look at the video below to try and figure what I mean. Leave a comment if you have questions. Thanks for reading!

I used to dread the swim section of a triathlon. I used to breaststroke them until I became a swim coach. Now I come out in the first pack. The difference? Learning swimming technique. As a byproduct of my own journey I’ve created the swimming theory course and put it up on Skool to enable you to have a personal swim coach wherever you are in the world. Get in touch to find out more or join one of my weekly seminars here on Skool!