How your hands pull you forward or upward when swimming the breast stroke

How Should You Place Your Hands, Arms and Legs When Swimming?

Problem
What's the 'correct' way to do it? Does it matter?

Answer
What's correct according to one swimmer or teacher or era might not be correct for another.

In theory you don't even need arms to swim. I've seen international competitions in which an arnless swimming won, propelling themselves at huge speed through the water using only their legs.

I was amazed that they didn't sink, head first.

Several thoughts emerge. (Pardon the unintended pun.)

Arms may cause drag, holding you back.

Your head position keeps your eyes and mnouth and nose in or out of the water.

Speed comes from pushing though the water with either arms or legs or both.

What works is what works for you. I tried moving my hands back against the water. Then I tried pushing my hands diaognally down. Trhe effect is different. Move your hand back moves your forward. Pushing your hands down pushes you upward. When I pushed my hands down, my head came upward.

In many situations you would not want your head coming upward. You would get greater speed with your head half submerged wehnd doing the crawl. You only turn sideways or come up for air every other second / every backward arm stroke or every fourth second / second armstroke. My husband does two crawl armstrokes before breathing.

With breaststroke, the downward push brings your head up. Why would you ever need to do this? Maybe if you are a novice or panic easily and want to breath.

Pulling down deliberately with both arms simultaneously is the butterfly stroke. Exhausting.

Seeing Ahead And Being Seen
Maybe you want to watch where you are going. Maybe you want to be seen, by rescuers or companions or escorts in a boat. Maybe you want to avoid waves which wash into your mouth or face or eyes.

Maybe you want your face out of the way of obstacles, debris, or insects or other wildlife.

Why would you ever want to keep your head under water? To hide. (Like those horror movies, WWII, or River Wild, where you are the hero hiding from the human baddies pursuing you.) To see what is on the swimming pool base, search for items you have dropped or lost. Out in the sea to see the seabed below, to enjoy viewing wildlife, search for lost treasure - with or without goggles.

Try operating your arms like paddles, and see what different effects that has.

You can read about swimming on Wikipedia and see videos on Youtube. The disadvantage of links to youtube is that they are numbers and letters and don't tell you the contents. The wikihow links tell you what you are getting.

Useful websites
https://www.wikihow.com/Swim-the-Breaststroke
https://www.wikihow.com/Swim-the-Butterfly-Stroke
https://www.wikihow.com/Swim-Freestyle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_River_Wild

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and phtographer, author and speaker.

Update on learning to swim the crawl on holiday

Problem
I can already swim breast stroke and I am learning the crawl. (I aim to learn one new stroke a year.) Regarding the crawl, I have progressed from doggy paddle to something which looks like extended arm movements. So far so good.

The next stage is to get somebody to watch me. If you don't have an instructor, you could ask somebody to video you on a smartphone. Send the video to somebody who can do the crawl.

I have somebody to watch me. Bad news. He says I have my head out of the water, like breast stroke, and I should have my head under water, turning and coming up to breathe. Yikes!

My eyes should be under water. I had grasped the instruction to have ears under water and dealt with the dicomfort. I have a waterrpoof swimhat, most importantly pulled down over my ears.

But eyes under water? How about goggles?

Nose under water?

This requires some more co-ordination.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Learning To Swim, Breaststroke, Crawl, Do a new Stroke

Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

Problem
You are on holiday and want to teach a friend or family member to swim. You want to learn a new stroke (in my case converting from breaststroke to crawl. The obvious answer is to take lessons. But they require a commitment to once a week for ten weeks and you don't have that time.

Answers
Here are some amateur answers. Watch the swimming lessons, whether they are teaching children or adults. Even if you can't understand the language, you can see the demonstration of the arm stroke.

Talk To Teachers
I saw a teacher who was teaching small children every day for a week. The second or third day I started smiling and saying good morning to the teacher and waving goodbye.

Get in conversation with the teacher, if they are not in a hurry to go to the next lesson. Ask how long they have been teaching, how often they teach, whether they like the work and whether they have another job, if the pupils are keen, if there are any swimming competitions.

Maybe after the lessons you can offer something in conversation, help with their pronunciation or grammar. You might ask for advice on buying a swimsuit or goggles.

In return they might freely offer you some advice on swimming. After you've explained you don't have the time for a series of lessons, or that your budget is slightly smaller, they might recommend a video, or an alternative class at a nearby public pool, or offer a one-off private lesson for one or a one off for your family.

Your teacher might offer classes at another venue on a more convenient day, or their day off from regular classes.

Breast Stroke
Three things to look for:
Arm movement.
Leg movement.
Body position.

First movement.
Standing, with your hands toegether against your chestyou lean forward. I was taught to move hands forward from chest through the water horizontally, thumbs alongside.

A new swimmer asked me, "Should you move your hand palms together, like a fish?"

I tried that and it involves rotating your hands further for the next step.

Pull back with your hands, not scooping but like a paddle. Your arms should be fully stretched.

I was recently taught a new variation. Instead of pulling your arms sideways, you pull downwards. This is quite different. By driving your hands downwards, you pull your head upwards. This would be handy if you were facing large waves and needed to keep your head and mouth high, or you wanted to be seen by rescuers.

Otherwise, no, not for me, not longterm, because it is very tiring. However, if you want to tire yourself out and get more 'exercise' in a shorter time, go for it.

It's worthwhile trying this, just to get an idea how swimming works, pulling water.

Notice that the movement does three things. It pulls you through the water. It starts momentum so you continue moving forwards for a short while after you have stopped pulling, like a ball rolling down a slope. Thirdly, you create a ripple or current, which may help carry you along.

If you are practising for competitions, training others, you need to look on line and find out what is recommended to suit yourself and your situation.

I had a one-off group lesson free as part of gym membership. (The Gym later stopped the free lessons!)

Corkscrewing
The teacher observed me doing the breastroke and said I was corkscrewing. She meant rotating, turning my body, not going in a straight line.

I immediately realised why. First, my body is not exactly symmetrical. Firstly, our bodies are usually bigger one side than the other. You might find that when you go to buy shoes, you have one larger foot. When you take photos, you often see that your profile is better on one side, partly because the side with the larger eye is more attractive.

Earlier Injuries
I have a slightly lop-sdied body because in a traffic accident. I was knocked down by a car when on holiday in Corsica, exiting from a broken down coach on a hillside. A car came over the brow of the hill and knocked me down. I was unsconscious and broke my collar bone.

Many people are slightly lop-sided after major or minor inuries. You may have bones set wrongly. Or you may walk lop-sided as your body tries to protect the damaged side, or remembers the way you had to walk whilst injured. This may affect your swimming posture.

Crawl
Four things to look for:
Arm movement.
Leg movement.
Body turning.
Breathing.
(Off to swim. More later.)
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.

Swimmers' Secrets: breast stroke, breathing, competitions

Problems
How do you swim better? How do you do talks on swimming?

Answers
I heard a speech about swimming at a meeting of an IT college in Singapore. He told us how after failing in academic subjects at school he recovered confidence as a swimmer.

His tips on swimming included that when you are in a competition you need to swim faster (than other competitors) by reducing 'drag' which slows you down. Your arms, legs, head and body have to be streamlined as much as possible.

In the interval I chatted to the speaker. I asked him about breathing. Surprise tips were:

1 Breathing
If you are right handed you tend to have a stronger pull on one arm and you tend to breathe on one side. You could have been trained to breathe on the other side. Some swimmers breathe on both sides (eg when doing the crawl?).

2 Technical terms
He described the way your feet move when swimming as acting like a propeller.

3 Breast Stoke Arm Movements
I thought that when doing breast stroke you had to turn your hands backwards cupped or flat against the water for maximum force and thrust. However, his system was to use the legs and feet for gliding and reduce the resistance to arms by bringing them back bent and closer to the body, (I would say almost like praying or lifting a bowl to your mouth - but I could be wrong).

Now you know what to ask your swimming teacher and what to research on line.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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Swimming opportunities - learn to swim

A friend of mine does an impressive number of laps of crawl. I asked her where she learned to do so. At school in the UK I was taught to swim breast stroke. I remember we watched a demo of the arm strokes by the teacher. Then we lay with our waists across the low calf-height benches you have in a gym and moved our arms and legs. This was in preparation for a trip to a public swimming pool.

My athletic friend learned todo the crawl in four lessons from a private swimming instructor. I was surprised to hear she had taken up the crawl because of two sports injuries. She had pain in her back and spine which was aggravated by doing bread stroke. She had knee pain which was aggravated by the leg movement of breast stroke.

Her instructor taught her using hand paddles. The ones sold in Singapore had hand or wrist straps. In Australia she bought a different style which were like large mittens held on by a separate thumb section. She found these quicker to take on and off and they pulled less.

She practised daily (when in a condo with an outdoor swimming pool in Singapore) in between the weekly lessons. If you are on holiday in any country you could take weekly lessons or twice a week lessons or even daily lessons.

She said the cost was about ninety something dollars, about £50 a lesson, for the instructor to come to her venue for a private lesson. She thought it was worthwhile to spend that amount (just under £200 in total) to be able to swim in a way which was not hurting her back or knee and to have a new skill for life.

The instructor gave her a link to videos demonstrating what she should be doing. He also took videos of her to show her what she was doing wrong and so she could judge mistakes and progress for herself.

What might you need or want to buy?

Checklist
1 Swimsuit.
2 Swimming hat
3 Swimming socks
4 Hand paddles for practising and learning
5 Nose clips
6 Ear plugs
7 Goggles
8 Videos on the internet
9 Lessons, group or private
10 Pool or club membership
11 A holiday at a hotel or self-catering complex with a pool where you can have swimming lessons
12 Lessons at a local public or private swimming pool in the holiday season
13 Cheaper midweek membership of a swimming pool 'club' at a city centre hotel
14 Camera, smart phone or a waterproof camera to photograph yourself swimming

What could you and I learn from her?

1 Look at videos on line.
2 Go to free lessons at your club or gym whilst they are on offer, so that if you ever get a sports injury you have another way of swimming.
3 Get an instructor or friend or family member to film you swimming so that you can see how well you are doing compared to yourself previously and compared to the demos on line.
4 If you can afford it take private lessons at your gym, country club, second home or on holiday at place with an indoor or outdoor pool.
5 Looking for entertainment on holiday? Instead of or as well as spending on clothes and outings, spend on lessons which could give you a new skill.
6 Look for the nearest swimming pool to your holiday hotel or condo and enquire about group lessons.
7 Combine with other family members or friends to reduce the cost and have a private lesson.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.