Common Competitive Freestyle Faults

Last Updated on November 28, 2022 by admin

**Overuse during training can lead to the development of freestyle stroke faults**

In this article, we’ll look at the most common freestyle faults and provide advice, hacks and tips on how to fix them.

During most competitive swimming training sessions, freestyle is usually the dominant stroke.
The overuse of this stroke can result in the development of common stroke faults.

Muscle memory

Repetitive training enables the swimmer to adapt their training to their ‘muscle memory’*, enabling them to automatically perform as taught during competition.

(*muscle memory – the ability to reproduce a movement without conscious thought, acquired as a result of frequent repetition of that movement)

If the training was undertaken with a perfect technique, then the swimmer’s muscle memory will store the perfect technique.

However, if training is repetitively undertaken with a poor technique, then the swimmer’s muscle memory will store this poor technique.
Once a poor technique has been stored, this can be difficult and can take a long time to correct.
For any coach or teacher, it is important that they ‘consistently and persistently’ incorporate perfectly performed drills into their training programmes to reinforce and develop a great stroke technique.

Common freestyle faults

Listed below are some common freestyle faults.

A weak leg kick

A weak freestyle leg kick not only reduces the secondary means of the stroke’s propulsion, but it can often lead to your body being in a non-horizontal position.

To swim freestyle effectively, you need to ensure you are swimming with the correct head and body position.
Swimming with the correct head and body position requires you to swim in a horizontal, face-down (prone) position.
This reduces drag and establishes the correct platform from which an effective freestyle stroke can be performed.
The first stage of establishing the correct platform for an effective freestyle stroke is to raise the body into a horizontal position, via an effective freestyle leg kick.
Kicking is an important and sometimes undervalued key swimming skill, and as such needs to be constantly and consistently developed and practised.
As the leg muscles are amongst the largest in the body, having a trained, effective leg kick minimises energy and oxygen consumption, whilst maximising propulsion.

The key components for an effective leg kick are:

Kicking from the hips and buttocks, using the largest muscles in the body to drive propulsion.

Eliminate knee bend, the most common fault while freestyle kicking.
Kicking from the knee increases drag and uses the smaller calf muscles.
Your feet should be in a pointed (plantar flexion) position.
Flexible ankles, which allow your feet to be in the pointed position, enabling increased propulsion.

Poor body position

Your body should be in a horizontal and streamlined (prone) position.

This helps to reduce drag and establishes the correct platform from which an effective arm stroke and leg kick can be performed.

Head position – lifting your head when breathing

One of the most common freestyle faults with less experienced swimmers as they swim and breathe with their heads out of the water.

By lifting their head, swimmers naturally drop their hips into a position that significantly increases drag* and makes their freestyle stroke significantly less efficient.
*Drag: The resistance caused by the swimmer’s head, body or limbs, as they move through the water
For a swimmer to swim freestyle efficiently, they should learn to swim and breathe with their head in the water.
Your head should be in the water whilst not breathing and be looking slightly forward at the bottom of the pool.
The level of the surface of the water should just cover your ears.
When inhaling, you should have one goggle lens completely in the water and through the other goggle lens, you should look across the surface of the pool.

Hips Position

Your hips should be just under the surface of the water

Leg Position

Your legs should be close together, just under the surface of the water

Feet Position

Your feet should be in a pointed (plantar flexion) position, which reduces drag and places the feet in the optimum position for maximum propulsion.

Poor body rotation

You should rotate from the shoulders, trunk and hips, to facilitate a powerful arm-pulling action and an effective breathing pattern.

Under rotation

You should have a balanced body rotation.

Many swimmers rotate correctly on the side on which they breathe and insufficiently rotate on their other side.
Ideally, they should adopt a bilateral breathing pattern when swimming freestyle, to help balance their rotation.

Over rotation

However, you should ensure that you don’t over-rotate, as this will cause you to pull too deeply, which in turn will slow down your stroke rate and will contribute to an ineffective breathing pattern. (See: head position above)

Ineffective arm stroke

Pulling across the centre line

Another common freestyle fault is that some swimmers pull across the imaginary line running down the centre of their bodies.

This often results in them ‘snaking’ (moving from side to side) as they swim down the pool.
To correct this, you should place your hands shoulder-width apart and extend your arms to reduce the bend in your elbows.

Short Arm Stroke

Many swimmers shorten their arm strokes as they begin to swim faster.

Resulting in their stroke becoming increasingly inefficient, as they take more strokes than is necessary.
Swimmers should aim to control their stroke length and stroke rate.
Ensuring that they fully extended their arms during the catch and that they brush their thumb against the thigh as their hand exits the stroke.
This will help to ensure they are achieving a maximum distance per stroke.
You should undertake regular stroke count drills to help ensure that you develop your stroke length.

Slow turns

A freestyle ‘tumble’ turn is a key competitive swimming skill.

It is the process of turning on a pool wall when finishing one lap/length and starting another.
So much time, distance and energy can be saved by the execution of an effective freestyle turn, that turn drills should be a regular part of any training programme.

The key components for an effective freestyle turn are:

Breath control

As a swimmer starts their approach to the pool wall, they should ensure they take a deep explosive breath, that fills their lungs.

The approach

As the swimmer approaches the pool wall, they should maintain or increase their existing swimming speed.

Any speed reduction on the approach will not only result in a slower turn but will require the swimmer to burn more energy out of the turn, as they attempt to pick up their race speed.

The forward rotation

As the swimmer starts their turn, they should perform a strong and fast single-arm pull with their leading arm, from the catch position to their hip.

This will produce a fast-forward rotation, as they go into the tucked position.
As a swimmer starts their forward rotation, they should quickly adopt a tucked position, by placing their chin on their chest and bringing their knees tightly up to their trunk/stomach.
Swimmers should ensure they do not rotate as they are turning, which results in the swimmers rotating at an angle, which reduces the speed of their turn.
The forward rotation should be performed in a straight line, so that the swimmer’s feet come quickly ‘over the top’ of the forward rotation, to touch the pool wall.

The plant

The swimmer’s feet should be firmly planted on the pool wall and their knees should be bent at a ninety degrees angle.

As soon as the swimmer’s feet are planted on the pool wall, they should immediately commence their push-off.
The swimmer should imagine that the pool wall is red hot and will burn your feet if you don’t push off quickly!”

The push-off

The swimmer should adopt a tight streamlined position as they push off the wall.

They should immediately start to perform fast and vigorous underwater dolphin kicking.
Swimmers should perform a fast ‘corkscrew’ rotation of their body from their back onto their front, as they prepare the breakout into their stroke.

The breakout

The breakout is the transition from the push-off into the freestyle stroke.

Swimmers should ensure their push-off is not too deep, which can slow a swimmer down as they have to reach for the surface, to start their breakout.
They should also ensure their push-off is not too shallow, which can cut short the advantage of the momentum generated by the turn.
Swimmers should not breathe on the first stroke out of the turn, which loses the momentum generated by the turn.

Poor streamlining

Effective swimming streamlining reduces drag maintains the swimmer’s speed and therefore increases the distance during the starts, turns and transitions* for all of the competitive events.

*Transitions the phase from a start or a turn, where the swimmer breaks out into a full stroke.

Streamlining is also a key skill while performing underwater dolphin kicking.

Weak underwater dolphin kicking

Underwater dolphin kicking should be performed to maintain the speed from the start, not the distance.
The swimmer should hold a tight streamlined position until the swimmer’s starting speed begins to slow.
The underwater dolphin kicking should start slowly and rapidly speed up, becoming increasingly less undulation and an increasingly rigid body position.
The swimmer should complete at least two strokes before breathing, achieving race pace from the first stroke.

Takeaways

In this article, we’ll look at the most common freestyle mistakes and provide advice, hacks and tips on how to fix them.

During most competitive swimming training sessions, the freestyle stroke is usually the dominant stroke.
The often overuse of this stroke often results in the development of common stroke faults.

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