squidkid.

Due to recent comments and Squidkid clicks, I want to talk to beginners more about the subject of learning how to swim freestyle correctly, or at least better than you do right now. If you’d like to catch up on what we’ve been talking about regarding freestyle development, click here for an entry that offers all the links.

A freestyle first-timer is someone who has fundamental swim skills — meaning they can swim verse sinking and are over a water fear if there was one — but wants to learn how to do side-breathing laps correctly as a fitness benefit. (So make sure you’re water safe before you take this on).

I’ve had a few adult students that fall into the freestyle first-timer category as of late, and it’s always the same story: They attribute their exhaustion or “out-of-breath-ness” when swimming from one end of the pool to the other because of the way they might be kicking or pulling water. Or some other stroke technique they aren’t doing right.

These are fully athletic types, too. They are runners and weight-lifters. They are in shape … but not in shape for swimming. It is very hard for an athletic person to not figure out why they cannot transfer their physical ability to swimming right away. Does this sound like you? Let’s work out a few first-timer freestyle kinks to get you settled:

• You might be in great shape, but note your body won’t adjust to swimming right away. Swimming calls upon the body to move muscles in a new and unique way; to use oxygen in a new and unique way; and most importantly — the breathe in and out a new and unique way.
• Focus calmly on the breathing and the breathing only. If you don’t get a sufficient breath every time, you’ll have no oxygen; have no oxygen and you have no gas. You need to exhale fully as well to not build carbon monoxide. If you take a breath in the size of a grapefruit, you let the same size out.
• Measure freestyle swimming success in the SMALLEST milestones available. Here is your very first milestone: swim from one end to the other using rhythmic breathing. If you can do that without stopping ONCE, your next goal is to do it twice. And then four times. And then a bit faster netting the same results: You’re COMFORTABLE and not winded at the end.
• You MUST have loads of patience and humility to do this, not to mention access to a pool. And the time to swim 2-3 times a week in 30-minute sessions. All those swimmers you admire in the pool? I can promise you they swim 5-6 times a week, up to two hours a day, and have been doing so for years. But they did start somewhere …
• Your only stroke technique worry at this stage is establishing a rhythmic breathing pattern. This means breathe on your second stroke every time to the right (if you’re a righty) and to the left (if you’re a lefty). One, two, breathe … one, two, breathe.
• Respect your speed, no matter how slow. You’ll have plenty of time to get faster if you stick to this sport, but you won’t stick to it if you don’t take it easy and get the air you need and expel it in the manner your body needs to.
• If your mind wanders and tries to come up with different answers, RE-READ all above. Adults are used to attributing complex solutions to complex issues. Swimming is NOT complex. It just takes application and persistence to do it, and that’s what throws everyone off.

If you can accomplish all of the above, which means if you can do eight laps (200 yards) with no stopping and it feel really good, you are ready for stroke technique stuff, like kicking better or pulling better.

I’ve been there too. I wasn’t born a great swimmer. Some of you know I didn’t start swimming freestyle laps correctly until age 23, after college, and almost got dropped from my lifeguarding class by the teacher because I was doing so poorly. And I was someone who just walked onto the college lacrosse team!

Read tomorrow’s entry. It will be a Fool-Proof Way to Start Doing Side-Breathing Freestyle Laps Today. I just experimented this concept on an adult swimmer — it clicked immediately for him!