Hidden Timing Mistake Destroying Your Freestyle Power

Almost every adult swimmer has this timing mistake that's quietly killing their freestyle speed. If it's just off by one second, you can lose massive power in your stroke. In this video, I'm going to show you what that timing mistake looks like, how do you know if you're doing it, and of course, the simple fixes that can change it immediately. Welcome to the channel. I'm Lucas Siska. Let's make your stroke fast and strong now. Now, let's see if this timing issue is something that you're dealing with. When you go for a breath, do you feel like your timing just gets messed up? Or how about when you go to catch, that you just feel like you're losing water immediately? Or do you feel that there's a disconnect between your arms and your legs when you swim? These are all indications that your stroke timing is off. Keep watching, and we're going to fix this permanently. All these issues come from the same cause. Your timing chain is broken. Elite swimmers, they put their whole body into one motion, and when they go for a breath, for example, everything is in unison. Now, that might sound easier said than done, but it actually is super simple. Let's take a look. When you look at Michael compared to the average lap swimmer, you'll notice that his stroke is super simple. When he goes for a breath, he just starts initiating it as soon as the arm starts pulling down, and then closes it off as soon as the arm comes back. Whereas the average lap swimmer, their timing is just all over the place. This sets off a ripple effect on their entire stroke. And it's not just the breath. People do weird things with their catch and their legs and their arms, whereas Michael's stroke is completely in unison going from one side to the other. Let's look at how we can do this as well. The good news is there's essentially just three steps that you need to get your timing synced up like the elites, and it doesn't take long. Number one, we've got to align your body position. Number two, we're going to put that breath into your stroke so that it fits perfectly. It's actually really simple to do. And number three, we're going to get you perfect rotation so that your power transfer into the water is explosive. All right, guys, the first thing that we need to do is align that body. And I'm laying up here on this couch because I want to show you what you need to do. We have to be in the water, extremely stretched out, just like this, okay? And then the way we get our breath into the stroke is first, you need to realize that when we pull the arm down, as soon as it starts coming down, we start turning our head for a breath. And then as it comes around, it closes off our breath. A lot of swimmers either breathe too late or too early. They'll start breathing immediately, and that throws off their stroke. Or they'll pull, pull, pull, and then take a breath, and that throws off their stroke. Even people who have been swimming for years make this mistake. So we've got to align that body with extreme extension, and I'll show you how to do that with one of my favorite drills. And then we'll learn how to put that breath into the stroke. So what we're going to do is we're going to kick on the wall, practicing that maximum extension that we did with the pull-up bar. Then I'm going to push away from the wall, and I'm going to kick myself back all the while maintaining that extension. And you'll see, as I stay extended, my body will stay right at the surface. This is a drill progression I do with all my clients. First, we start at the wall with our feet on the ground, and simply turn our head to breathe as soon as our pulling arm comes down. We put it back when the arm closes it off. We just repeat this until we get the timing perfectly. Then we want to actually be going somewhere, and we take a kickboard and do the same thing with a single arm. Keep that body extended and stretched out the whole time. Then after we do that and get comfortable, we're going to do it with both arms, as you'll see in just a minute. When we get to this point, guys, it's essentially doing the catch-up stroke, but with the kickboard for a point of reference. Notice that when I go for a breath, I'm doing it as the pulling arm comes down, and then I put my head back when the arm is back. The next step after this is only to go into the full catch-up stroke. No board needed. The catch-up is a beautiful drill to help us to get the timing perfectly. Again, notice I go for a breath as soon as that arm comes down. This is how we get lined up perfectly. And guys, if you want to know your true swim potential in this moment, I want you to take my quiz and we'll give you a score to let you know. Look in the comments below, click the link and find out. Okay, guys, so we put that breath into the stroke. We've learned how to extend. Now within that extended position, let's master perfect rotation from side to side. And remember, freestyle is the whole body rotating from one side to the other. But the trick is the top rotates more than the bottom. What do I mean? Watch this. Perfect rotation is simply stretching to the max, but having my toes pointed forward and my hips locked in. When I rotate to the max in the water with my hips locked in, my hips rotate less. So watch that again. Here's perfect rotation. I'm coming in, rotate straight as far as I can go. And my hips are just rotating with my arm, but they're not over rotating like this. And they're not just staying flat like this. And when I rotate like this, I can get the elbow high and I can pull through with massive power. Now let's get a visual on that perfect rotation. Nobody does it better than David Popovich. Check this out. This slow motion footage of Olympic gold medalist David Popovich shows that perfect rotation so well. Notice that he's just flinging his body from one side to the other, but it's not over rotating and it's not under rotating. Notice that his hips rotate, but less than his shoulders do. They go with the shoulders, but they're not overcooking it. The shoulders do the brunt of the rotation work, while the hips just follow with. This is how we can get maximum power in the water. Some of you might be wondering, yo, Lucas, how come you didn't even mention the kick? Well, the beautiful thing is, is if you get everything right that we just talked about, the kick will almost just happen on its own. All you need to be concerned with is not to have stiff and rigid ankles because if you kick with stiff and rigid angles, it will pull you backwards and down. Make sure they're mobile and loose. That way, when you do everything we talked about correctly, your kick will just be a byproduct and cause a whip-like motion into your stroke. Now, over the years and every time a new swimmer comes to me, these are two drills that we do that has shown big benefits in boosting power into the water. This drill teaches you to pull so much more water. For some reason, when you keep the arms underneath, it just increases your feel. Notice that we're using all the principles that we talked about in this video. Extended body position, rotating from one side to the other, putting our arm in a position to have the high elbow. Now, when we move from this drill to the single arm drill with the other arm extended, now we're trying to make our arm that's not being used to just glide. We're using momentum to throw our body into that non-swimming arm so that it just basically surfs and we generate momentum. This combination of drills I found that over the years produces big results. When timing syncs up, everything comes together. Then after that, all you have to do is just build your fitness because you're functioning within an almost perfect freestyle. When you were broken, you were wasting energy. And once the timing is lined up, you're just building an efficient machine. Now, I want to tell you guys a secret and it's totally free and it's going to boost your freestyle. Subscribe to the channel. It's going to help us because once we have a bigger channel, we can produce more full-time. And this is a dream of ours. So if you found value in this video, give us a like, subscribe to the channel. That's how you can support us. Now, if you want to know how to go in-depth on catching more water, I did a great video on that. It's got over 100K views. Check it out here. And I can't wait to see you in the next one. Take care.