Have you ever wondered how you can manage to swim faster for front crawl?
So how do you utilise the power of the pull phase in front crawl to swim faster?
A great swimmer said this to me last year… "Turn your arms over faster and push more water back behind you"
This simple theory does work, but you need to have other things in place first. Speeding your arms up a lot won't necessarily make you faster, as you'll reach a critical point where you'll start slipping more through the water, and lose the catch phase, or your purchase on the water.
Increasing your distance per stroke, and trying to swim slightly faster, whilst increasing your stroke rate is called Swim Golf, or SWOLF for short. Try doing this over 4x50 metres and reducing the total of your strokes and time over each 50m. The more you can bend your elbow, (ideally close to 100 degrees) whilst keeping your upper arm high in the water, and then by visualising reaching over a barrel or ball, the greater the body of water you'll be able to pull yourself over, and therefore push behind you. Maintaining a slightly higher than normal stroke rate without losing your feel for the water and you'll start seeing your threshold pacing and swim times reducing, which we all want!
Learn more and join our Front Crawl Video Analysis Clinic on Sunday 14th January 2018, at Cranleigh in Surrey!
With our expert coaching we'll teach you how to improve your swim efficiency and help transform your swimming! Who is the swim clinic for? Intermediate front crawl swimmers who can swim 400m between 6-9 minutes Enter code "EarlyBird10" to receive a 10% off. Discount available until 15th December 2017 at 11.45pm.
Video of Haydn Woolley
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