Still, everyday when I go to check Squidkid stats, the most popular search is how to swim laps. Also, my most-clicked entry remains to be How To Swim Freestyle Laps Correctly & Well. I get about 50 views a day just on this link.
So onto more Freestyle Notes. Today’s topic? Using the power of less when you swim.
Less Means You Get To Eliminate
This mantra isn’t mine. I’m reading Leo Babauta’s new book, The Power of Less. Leo reveals the concept of creating simplicity in your life, from everything to time management to tending emails, boils down to two steps: Identify the essential and eliminate the rest.
In case you don’t know about Leo, he runs a very popular website called ZenHabits. His site is one of my everyday favorites. Leo has simplicity — or the ability to rid modern distractions like consumer debt or Twittering — down to a science.
Eliminate the Head, Add the Body
As a swim instructor, the biggest obsticle I encounter with adult students is their need to overanalize aspects about their stroke or swimming that just do not apply to their current ability or situation.
If they can’t swim a lap, it’s because their arms are wrong. If they aren’t swimming as fast as they think they should, it’s due to very minut, specific details that if their head could just understand, theire body would follow.
Baloney. You cannot swim a lap or swim fast because your body isn’t conditioned for swimming yet. It’s ain’t about your head.
How To Swim Better With Less
Let’s apply Leo’s two steps, identify the essential and eliminate the rest, to swim better:
- Get in the pool and get your heart rate up. This means move from one end to the other, doing the best you can with what your interpretation of freestyle is. No talking.
- Breathing is the gateway to learning freestyle. Not fantasic arms. Not killer kicks. Breath in, blow out. Find rhythm. Just like you do on land.
- Shut your head off and continue to let your body perform. No judgment. No anaylizing how you look. Breath in. Breath out. Heart rate stays up.
- The only two technical terms you get is ‘horizontal’ and ‘rotate.’ The good news isyou can’t have one without the other: When you breath on the side, rotate the body (not the head) which will keep you horizontal and thus gliding in the water.
Additional Freestyle Note entries here on Squidkid:
Could you please cover what swimming does for fitness? I swim laps every day, and generally know that it is a great exercise. However, I would love you to go into detail what muscles are worked, how aerobic it is compared to other forms of exercising etc. What it can do for cholesterol lowering, HDL etc. You are a good writer, and seem to keep it simple yet comprehensive.
Thanks.