5 Basic Skills Every Swimmer Needs

5 Basic Skills Every Swimmer Needs

Although swimming can look easy, it requires full-body strength and coordination. There are five simple skills that every swimmer needs to learn. Let us explain.

Breathing properly is often overlooked among the skills needed, but the ability to time your breaths with your strokes is important. Beginners tend to lift their heads above water when they run out of air and gasp for more. Breaking your rhythm while swimming slows you down and tires toy out, and if you are not breathing properly, you’ll struggle to make smooth, coordinated movements.

The basic idea for breathing whilst swimming is to breathe out through your nose and mouth when your head is underwater, then lifting your head to the side to take a full breath. Then you can plunge your face back down under the surface. You can practise this by:

1. Stand chest-deep in water, facing the wall and hands on pool edge

2. Breathe in and place your face in the water

3. Slowly, but forcefully, blow out the air in your lungs through nose and mouth

4. Rotate your head whilst exhaling, tilting it to the side

5. When your cheek and mouth emerge above the water, inhale.

6. Repeat the exercise. Try turning your head in both directions.

Once comfortable with this, you can build your way up to doing the same exercise while holding onto a kickboard or using a pull-buoy.

Sculling for swimmers is a technique that helps swimmers build strength and improve form. Sculling is a technique that allows swimmers to “feel the water,” by focusing on the pitch of the hands in the water. It's one of the first safety skills beginners learn, but expert synchronised swimmers and water polo players also depend on sculling. Learn more about sculling here.

Beginner swimmers often find themselves chopping through the water rather than coordinating their limbs to move all in time. That’s okay! It takes a while to get used to it! You must also get used to moving muscles in your lower back, abdomen and hips to power you forwards. Your body position in the water is important to help reduce drag and to help you become a more efficient swimmer. 

Once you’re comfortable with the basics, learning swimming strokes is the next big challenge. Breaststroke, while requiring more coordination than front crawl, offers a gentle stroke for beginners. Here is a video to help with this!

Speedo Swim Technique - Breaststroke - Created by Speedo, Presented by ProSwimwear

Finally, diving into the pool is one of the necessary swimming skills. Always practice diving in a deep pool with a lifeguard on duty. When you start, diving may only involve putting your hands together above your head and curling your body to fall into the water head first. As you progress, try jumping slightly with straightened legs behind you as you enter the water.

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