Swimming is the most complex sport of the three that make up the triathlon . This is due to the fact that the technical gesture of the crawl style is by far much more complicated to execute than that of cycling or running . I even dare to say that a person needs the same number of hours to learn to run with a refined technique as to learn to swim in a very basic way. In today's article I am going to explain the most essential aspects to improve your crawl swimming with lifeguard classes technique and we are going to do it in 7 points, let's start!

1. Breathing in swimming technique.  

Breathing is one of the most important things to learn at the beginning, because underwater we cannot breathe and that activates our basic survival instincts that translate into overwhelm . Avoiding this will allow us to be in relaxed conditions both physically and mentally and assimilate everything better. 

It is very important to learn to breathe on both sides to achieve a symmetrical swim and not take bad unilateral postures.

The most typical mistakes to avoid are:  

  • Breathe every four, five or more strokes. Better every two or three. 
  • Breathe by moving your head forward. You should breathe looking to the side. 
  • Breathe laterally but extending the head too far and rotating the body excessively. You must breathe with the right amount of movement that does not change your swimming style. 
  • Not controlling the expulsion of air at certain times where we can avoid the entry of water into the nostrils.


2. The coordination of arms and legs in the swimming technique. 

In the front crawl we act with arms and legs asymmetrically , this means that first one arm acts, then the other and the same happens with the feet (unlike breaststroke and butterfly which are symmetrical). This involves proper coordination between the arms, between the legs, and between arms and legs. 

Regarding the number of kicks for each cycle of strokes (2 strokes), it is recommended to give 4 or 6 kicks, even being able to give only 2, but perhaps in initial learning it is not highly recommended to start with such a low frequency. 

Typical errors are: 

  • A very different or asymmetrical gesture between one arm and the other. 
  • Stop kicking at certain times, such as when sticking out his face to breathe. 
  • Giving a very low kick frequency without knowing how to float well. 

3. Flotation and body position in the swimming technique.

Floating in the water is easy if you know how, we have two factors that can help us, one is breathing and the other is the horizontal position. 

When we inflate our lungs with air, we manage to reduce the push force against the water and in this way, as if we were an inflatable boat, we can float better. This does not mean that we take in air and hold it, but that we know how to control it and at certain times breathe with our lungs fuller and at other times let it out more. 

The main errors are: 

  • Excessive emptying of the lungs. 
  • Go with your legs sunk in and your torso slightly vertical with respect to the sheet of water. The ideal position is to break the surface with the crown, shoulders, arms, butt and heels but the rest of the body parts under water. 
  • Go with the body contracted or shrunken. We must stretch to the maximum as if we wanted to be taller. 

4. The coordination between arms in the swimming technique. 

Does deadlock ring a bell? It is an exercise widely used in the crawl swimming technique, especially in the initial stages and consists of not stroking with one arm until the other has completed the stroke. The curious thing about deadlock is that it is actually a wrong gesture, but it is practiced to see the difference between the correct and incorrect gesture (what is known as contrast exercises). 

The explanation is that the deadlock, as its name suggests and as it happens in your car, is a moment of non-propulsion and this does not interest us because we will go in fits and starts accelerating during the stroke and slowing down during the moment of stop.

5. The stroke rate in swimming technique. 

So that everyone understands, a very low stroke rate (a few strokes per length) makes us swim slow and a very high stroke rate (many strokes per length) will make us feel that we are going very fast but if we do not know how to apply it well strength in the water (see section 6) we will also go slow. 

6. The trajectory of the stroke in the swimming technique.

It is the most complex part of swimming with lifeguarding certification but the one that will offer us the most results. We can work on it from the beginning but debugging basic aspects and when we have a certain level, we can begin to perfect it and learn the trajectory in "question mark" or "s". 

  • Extended elbow in the aerial phase. It is preferable to flex it to create a back-forward gesture rather than an up-down movement that will cause us to enter too deep at the beginning of the stroke. 
  • Entry of the hand with the elbow and wrist internally rotated causing the thumb to be the first to enter and starting to stroke laterally. The correct thing is flat hand and gesture down and back. 
  • Reaching out too quickly and not completing the stroke with elbow extension.  

7. The other styles.

Although in this article I have focused on the front crawl style because it is the fastest and the one we will use in triathlons, we cannot leave out the other styles, regardless of our level. 

This is because the breaststroke, backstroke, and even the butterfly offer us a greater variety of movements and aquatic experiences that will help us improve crawl swimming and also prevent injury from excessive repetitive movements. 

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