We have talked about the importance of rotation of the body in freestyle, that it’s one of the most important phases while swimming.
We will go over three exercises that we recommend you to do oftenly, two or three times per week if you swim daily, or one or two if you swim just some days during the week.
1. No Arms
The first one is very similar to freestyle but without using your arms. Since you don’t have to worry about your arms, you can focus on the rotation better.
Try this exercise by kicking strongly; you will find that without the arms it is more difficult to stay afloat. If you find it too distracting to stay on the surface and you want to just focus on the rotation, try using fins. To do this exercise correctly you need to keep your head still, moving it only to breathe.
You will notice that the most challenging part is to keep kicking normally since your legs will also be rotating with your whole body. This is the part that you actually need to master with this drill.
2. One Arm
Once you get a hold of kicking while rotating you can move on to the next exercise. It is basically the same exercise but this time you add the motion of one arm.
With this exercise, you will practice breathing to one side and using the opposite arm. And you will also practice using your other arm and breathing to the other side. (Yes! You will use the side that you don’t usually use).
It is good to breathe on both sides because the rotation will be more symmetrical.
3. Freestyle Pause
Finally, the third exercise is freestyle with a pause. This exercise will make it obvious how much you are rotating. If you don’t rotate enough you will slow down fast, If you do rotate, you will glide through the water better.
It consists of making a pause on each stroke while gliding, your body must be diagonal with one arm straight to the front and the other one closer to your body.
Remember to keep your head still, looking at a 45-degree angle, moving your head quickly just to take a breath.
I recommend doing these drills sometime during warm-up or right after warm-up so you can swim better in the main set. When you swim at full speed, try to remember the feeling of these rotation exercises and apply them to your normal swim.
Try each one of the drills and tell us how it works for you!
Thank you!