The Secret to Smooth Swimming (1:10 Pace Freestyle Explained)

Hey swimmers, so in this video, we're gonna be talking about how you can achieve smooth swimming. I'm gonna be showing you this video right now that's gonna come up on the screen that literally had millions and millions of views, and that is how to effortlessly swim 110 pace freestyle. Now in this video, we're gonna be unpacking on how you as a swimmer can be doing that, and I'm gonna be actually going through this video and doing a bit of an analysis so you can see how it's all done. So when it comes to my technique and my slow swimming or my bit more aerobic swimming, in a 25-meter pool, I'm normally sitting around eight strokes per lap, which is pretty insane, right? But obviously, the faster you go, the more strokes you're gonna do. But from a base level, we should really always be benchmarking our slow swimming. It's our slow swimming that helps us build all the repetition in our strokes, all those good habits, all those good movement patterns. It's the slow swimming that gives us the ability to be able to build in those good stroking habits. So whenever we're thinking about how to swim perfectly, how to swim properly, we always wanna be thinking about our slow swimming first. There's this famous quote in swimming that says, if you can't swim slow perfectly, you will never be able to swim fast. And that sums up swimming. So it's our slow swimming that helps us have the ability on how to actually swim smooth properly. So what we're gonna do now, guys, is we're gonna step into my office and I'm gonna break down this stroke. Let's go and get into it. So guys, here is the video that I was talking about. Is this the easiest 110 pace we have ever seen? Now there's so many comments as you guys have probably been in. There's so much great feedback from this video. So I'm gonna be dissecting it, unpacking it, letting you know what I was thinking about and how you can get this technique for yourself. The first thing we want to understand when we're swimming is swimming is all about how we swim slow perfectly. This here is literally just that little bit faster than my warmup speed. So obviously I wouldn't be able to hold this forever. Like I am putting a little bit of pressure in the stroke, but when Effortless did this analysis on this video, I am 21 strokes on the way down and 21 strokes on the way back. That firstly is telling me a very, very important parameter in swimming, which is stroke count. One of the things that a lot of people don't do, and especially when we do the clinics and the private lessons and the video analysis and all that kind of stuff, is the first thing a swimmer does is they have a very inconsistent stroke count. So what I've done is, yes, I've perfected my skills. Yes, I've perfected my movement patterns. Yes, I have really, really good body position in the water, but what I've done really well here is I've got really consistent stroke count. So that is number one. That is showing me that I've built in good reputation, good stroking movement patterns and all that kind of stuff. And that's kind of the phase after we've kind of worked through the skill level in swimming. Once we're getting our skills more confident, we're getting good at drills, we're progressing through into a better stroke, what we then want to be able to do is build the stroke and reputation in the stroke. What happens is a lot of swimmers is, is they get stuck in this kind of awkward phase of their swimming where they're trying to do drills, they're wanting to get better, but they don't actually make sure that they're really building in that good reputation in the stroke. That's number one. Number two, what we can see here, even on this shot right now, is how straight my body is in the water. So you can see, if we talk about the framework, which is, you know, the head, the hips and the heels, and this could even be better by the way, guys, is you can see that my body is nice and straight in the water. That is a very, very important skill to have, but the good news is, is when we're correcting the body position, when we're trying to straighten our bodies in the water, it's actually a lot easier to do than what you think. The body position is not that hard to change, and it actually gives us some really big return on investment body position, because if we can start bringing those heels, and like I said, I'd like this to be even better, those heels, those hips, and those heads into alignment, and we bring those heels sitting up higher than our hands in the water, so we're tipping more into that downhill positioning, then swimming's gonna feel more effortless, more easier, less strokes, and we're not gonna be burning as much energy. So that is really, really important, the body position there. Alrighty, so the next one that we're seeing here from this top angle is my rotation. Now, rotation is a very, very confusing thing in swimming, because a lot of swimmers rotate from their hips and their upper body at the same time. Now, the slower you go in your swimming, the more rotation you're going to have through the hips, but what we don't wanna be doing is rocking and rolling from side to side too much. We wanna be trying to keep our hips as still as possible. Now, you can see here when I'm breathing to my right, I've got a split in my kick, which is showing me, even as I give an analysis on this myself, is I'm actually having a core breakdown. So that split in the kick that I've got going on here is showing me that I've actually got a core breakdown in my stroke, and you can see, I'm actually quite rotated there on my hips. I wouldn't like that much rotation in my hips. Now, what we wanna be thinking about is all about that cross connection. So left shoulder to right hip, left hand to right foot, that's what we wanna be thinking about in our swimming. So for me, what I would've liked to be thinking about more is just putting a little bit more pressure on this right hip when I'm breathing. So I'd be thinking about right hip down to help me build that core connection up and that cross connection up to be able to not be rotating as much on my hips, and I could almost put 100% guarantee on it that that's what would remove that split out of my legs there in my freestyle. So moving on to the next part of the stroke, which you can see I'm doing very, very nicely, and swimmers talk about this a lot, like soft hands. Now, I'm not sure that thought process works the best when we're talking about brain connection, but you can see here I am quite soft through my hands when I'm traveling forwards, and see how my fingertips are angling down through that catch. So what I'm doing a very, very good job of is getting my hands straight down into that nice high elbow catch position there and making sure that my fingertips are shooting down. Again, looking at this, I would still actually like to be better, but moral of the story is is when my hands are entering in the water, my fingertips are entering in before my elbows, which is really setting me up for great swimming. And the last one is, is I'm not bouncing, okay? So you can see here, we watch my head, it is going forwards in the water. I would actually like my head position up a little bit more, but see how it's got that really nice bow wave on the front of the stroke there? We'll just go back through that frame again. So just watching that bow wave off the top of my head there, and like I said, I would actually like to have my chin back a little bit more, so I'm just sitting up on top of that water, but I've got that really, really nice bow wave there coming off off the top of my head, as you can see right here, is that nice bow wave coming off the top of my head, which means I'm piercing forward through the water and really getting in that good positioning there. And again, nice soft entry, fingertips down, pressing from that hand, really good inward and outward sweep through the back of the stroke. And you can see why that gives me around that 21, 22 strokes per lap, is because I'm holding an insane amount of water. All those pieces are starting to come together. And again, the moral of the story is as we wrap this up, swimming is hard. It's not something that we can just do all the time and we know what we need to be doing, we know what needs to be focusing on. That's why getting bite size improvement areas in swimming is really, really important. As you can see here, even if I was to dissect this myself and I was then to tell myself that as a swimmer, I would have been extremely overwhelmed trying to change everything that I was just talking about. So you have to think about when you're getting stroke changes and you wanna progress your stroke and you wanna get faster and you wanna get better, you have to be thinking about bite size improvement areas. So what can I do this month? What's one or two things I can do this month and give myself some time to focus on it to then lock it in and make it a habit? Which the good news about a habit is you don't have to think about it anymore. And if I could go back and do my swimming again, that's one thing that I would have done better is often you've got all this input. You know, we had QAS and Swimming Australia and all these people giving me input into my swimming. But unfortunately, a lot of it you wouldn't even remember or be able to do. So for me, bite size improvement areas and having specific focus areas is important. And if I was to pick one thing to be focusing on here, it would be a lot less hip rotation and getting that split out of my kick when I'm breathing. That's what I would pick here to be focusing on. So guys, I hope you found that helpful. I will be continuing to keep providing as much value as I can in giving you my swimming knowledge. Make sure you keep your eyes peeled for the next video. We'll hopefully see you soon.