Sabine Stettler

Time key frames:

0:12 – 0:14 When you breathe your head is coming out too much, remember that you should use the power of your arms to pull you forward not up, when you pull forward it will be enough for your head to come a bit outside and take a breath.

Remember to have a relax recovery. Make sure you do not rush your stroke, have a good extension of the arms on the recover.

0:00 – 0:11 When you have your arms in the front put your head and chest deeper, but keep your arms up close to the surface, this movement is going to help you to have a more fluent stroke and be able to move your hips more and have a stronger kick.

0:23 – 0:30 Your kick and your pull should finish at the same time, when you finish your pull and the 2nd kick. 

The first kick is when your arms are entering the water you do not have to bend your knees too much on this kick.

Areas to work on, in general:

• To help you with the hip movement and chest down arms up you are missing mobility, do dryland training for flexibility/ mobility for shoulders and lower back: https://www.youtube.com/c/SwimmingdrylandbySKILLSNT
• Work on kick Synchronization, remember that the second kick is supposed to be the strong kick.

Time key frames:

0:27 – 0:34 Your arms should enter in line with your shoulders, keeping them very close to your head, right know you have them going in too wide (specially the left one)

You want your arms to alternate during the pull; when one arm is up getting ready to pull, the other one should be finishing the pull. Notice how this is not reflected on your stroke, you wait until one of your arms finishes the pull completely before even bringing the other one up to begin the pull. Again, alternate is the key word here.

Use your shoulder rotation on your favor, when your hand goes in rotate and pull, it will be easier for your shoulders.

0:00- 0:12 – Your hips are a bit bend, try to stretch them more, bring them as close to the surface as possible.

Your kick frequency is too high, you are kicking too much and is not in sync with your arms, slow down a bit your kick, and make sure your legs are higher closer to the surface, your toes should almost be breaking the surface.

0:12 – 0:18  We know backstroke is a difficult stroke, specially because it is swum backwards and sometimes we don’t know at where part of the pool exactly we are.

The flags are there to help you know how far out you are from the wall. Once you see the flags count how many strokes it takes you to get to the wall and memorize this number, so you don’t have to be looking out for the wall every time or doing extra freestyle stroke in order to reach the wall.

Be sure to practice your backstroke turn, so when you turn your feet are well position for a strong push and underwater dolphin kicks.

 Good head position  🙂

Areas to work on, in general:

• Work on one thing at the time. Focus one day on one thing, then the next day another point, do not try to correct it all at once.
• Practice your underwater dolphin kicks, do them strong from your core all the way to the feet.

Backstroke examples:

Time key frames:

0:00 – 0:13 Your head position is quite perfect, nevertheless, you are taking your head out too much to breath, remember it should only come out half of the face.

0:20 – 0:28 Try keeping your arms in the same line as your shoulders, in some strokes they are crossing a bit that shoulder line, in others they are well positioned.

0:48 – 0:54 On the recovery phase, your shoulders seems tense, this doesn’t
allow you to keep your elbow bend and high, we recommend you to work on
your shoulder flexibility and mobility: Exercises

0:13 – 0:17  Just remember you push then you start rotating, you are trying to rotate into freestyle before you turn. Keep practicing as much as you can when you swim and it will be much easier to do them all the time

Do not rush your push and practice so you land in a good position, make sure to have a strong push every time you do a turn.

Do not for get to keep your head under and between your arms to keep your underwater position tight 

0:40 – 0:43 Try to compact more your body while doing the turn, the smallest the fastest. 

Areas to work on, in general:

• Overall your freestyle is good. Be sure to practice sets like counting your strokes and reducing them so you start to have a stronger pull and grab more water.

Free examples: