Sinking When Swimming Freestyle

I have a problem with a pupil sinking when swimming freestyle. I'm trying to teach a young lady freestyle, but she tends to sink when we add the arms and legs together.

We've worked on both arms & legs separately, and I have been sure to tell her that it's a fluent motion using your entire body together.

I've started working on glides to get her momentum going, then add the flutter kick & she starts sinking or going farther underwater, getting closer to the bottom of the pool. She feels pretty relaxed when she's doing the glides with the kicks.

How can I fix this problem?

You can try a few things to help get this lady swimming on the surface.

First of all, ensure you are not emphasising the leg kick to provide momentum. The propulsion and subsequent momentum for front crawl come mainly from the arm action.

Your lady obviously has a body composition that does not naturally float, so she has to learn to move through the water and how to keep her body at the surface. We swimmers naturally keep ourselves at the surface as we swim, regardless of our body composition and ability to float.

Most of the best swimmers in the world have a body composition that does not float, and like most people that can swim, they make subtle adjustments to their technique to keep them at the water's surface (movements of the head, hands and feet). This can be a tricky concept for an established swimmer to pass on to a beginner because we do this stuff without really thinking about it.

A glide is a great place to start but ensure that the head position is level with eyes looking forward and down. If the head is raised even slightly, the legs will sink. If the head is too deep, the glide will nosedive downwards.

Try a push and glide with a pull buoy between the legs and then add the arm action. The pull buoy may provide some support, and if the arm action is relaxed and smooth, a level position could be maintained for longer.

Also, try her swimming with some fins on. They will assist the leg action and help propulsion and momentum, so she can get a feel for moving on a level plane.

Obviously, she must not come to rely on fins or a pull buoy, but they may assist her in experiencing the right position and correct movements through the water as she learns.

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Teaching Adults How to Swim Easily?

I would like some help teaching adults to swim easily. Can you give me some teaching tips, please?

By “swim easily” I will assume that you mean teaching adults to swim in a relaxed, smooth and easy way.

This will depend firstly on their level of confidence to start with. If they are a complete beginner, they will have some anxieties and nervousness and even an absolute fear of the water. These adults need to learn how to submerge and float in the water. They will then begin to get a feel for the water and how their body behaves in those conditions, and when they get used to it, they will learn to relax.

The preferred stroke for adult beginners to learn is breaststroke, which can be performed with their head out of the water and is the least energetic. Also, they can stop and regain a standing position in the water easily from breaststroke as the stroke is performed with the body at a slight angle.

My very popular book Teaching Adults How To Swim is aimed specifically at teaching adults how to overcome the most common barriers and challenges. It covers all aspects of swimming, including learning how to submerge. It is available to download and contains practical exercises and lesson plans. You can download it, print out the parts you need, and take them to your pool to try out. Click here for an instant preview or the link below for more information.

Teaching Adults How To Swim 

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Swimmer Moves Nowhere

I have encountered two swimmers who have a problem with front crawl and back crawl leg kicks. Their legs kick too deep and wide apart when asked to kick. Also, the legs are as straight as a ruler, so the swimmer moves nowhere; any suggestions?

The alternating leg kick action for both front crawl and backstroke must be a relaxed movement. If the leg kick is tense or rigid, or in your words, as straight as a ruler, then the swimmer will not move through the water.

There must be a slight knee bend and a very relaxed ankle. Encourage your swimmers to ‘kick with floppy feet’ or make their feet ‘like fins’. This may encourage a relaxed leg kick and a kick that generates enough power to maintain some movement.

You could try them with some fins. Fins obviously help provide movement through the water, but their most important job, in this case, is to help the leg kick technique by forcing the legs to relax and kick with a slight knee bend and relaxed ankle. Then there is a chance that this technique will be maintained when the fins are removed.

The swimmers will definitely get a better feel of how they should kick and move through the water.

Also, kicking whilst sitting on the poolside can be useful as they can see their legs kicking and maybe compare with a correct leg kick next to them; they can see and therefore feel the difference in how the legs should be kicking.

They will then hopefully transpose this into a correct action whilst swimming along.

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