Smooth Freestyle Swimming - Keep Your Head Still

Smooth Freestyle Swimming Requires Minimizing Your Hear Movement

You have to breathe when you are doing Freestyle obviously but did you know that if you want a smooth Freestyle swimming stroke you have to avoid excessive movement of your head when you breathe. It is a very common fault

Wait... Get Your Lesson Plans Here

Now I'm not just talking beginners here. I have had adult swimmers who have come asking for advice and when I get them to show me their swimming the first thing I notice is the excessive head movement.

I'm not talking here about over rotating head this is quite different.

Excessive movement of the head causes zig zag but it is different from over reaching in that it is a more subtle and although it is more obvious when swimmers breath it often continues when on the non breathing portion of your stroke.


At first glance you may think that you are looking at an over reaching issue but if you are like me and applies an exaggerated movement to try and fix it you will find it will either have no effect or will exacerbate the fault. How frustrating! Or at least I was the first time I came across this. I was at a loss to explain the zig zag in my student.

Keeping Your Head Movement Constant in Freestyle

If this is you try telling your student to keep their head still between breaths and if you are a swimmer ask someone to look at your swimming and see if they think you have too much head movement. managing your head as a swimmer will have a very positive impact on our stroke. In fact for a while there I had struck the problem so many times that I started suggesting to my students as soon as I saw the zig zag. Most times it was an over reaching problem but eliminating the excess head movement first just made identifying and rectifying the problem so much easier.

Enjoy
   Richard