How To Swim Perfect Freestyle in 7 DAYS (Day By Day Breakdown)

Your freestyle can completely transform in seven days, and you won't get there by swimming more laps. You'll get there by fixing the right things in the right order. In this video, I'm giving you the exact seven day blueprint. You'll learn how to measure your stroke and build a streamline that helps you move more efficiently off the wall. You'll unlock mobility that your stroke depends on, and you're going to learn how to train smarter than just swimming freestyle and build real speed. Then I'll show you how to keep improving way after day seven so that way you can be efficient for the rest of your life. Let's dive right in. So the first thing we're going to do is we want to assess where you're at right now, because if we don't know where we are, it's really hard to set good goals and figure out where we can be, whether it's in a week, in a month, in a year. And one of the ways that we can assess is by the stroke count. Count how many strokes it takes you to get from one wall to the other, where every hand entry is one stroke. Push off the same way each time, swim at an easy, steady pace, and write that number down. If you use the MySwimPro app, this will be tracked automatically. Now this matters because it measures your distance per stroke, how far you travel every time you pull. The fewer strokes you swim with, the more efficient you are. And the goal is to get as much distance as possible out of every single stroke. When I think about lengthening out the stroke... It starts with your fingertips entering the water and then driving your hand for extension and your shoulder and your hips are creating that rotation and then we catch the water. Some of you guys are not getting a lot of extension. So let's try and stretch things out a little bit. We'll go 1-100 and then we're going to do some filming. Filming yourself is one of the fastest ways to improve because you can actually see what's going on below and above the surface. What you feel and what you see are two completely different things. And you don't need a fancy setup. You can use your phone on the pool deck and that's enough. Film from the side, film from the front. And watch yourself as your hand enters the water. How long are you extended? Are you dropping your elbows? Are you crossing over that midline? Save the clip because this will be your baseline. And the first time you watch it... This is going to be really exciting because you're going to be like, wow, that's me? When our swimmers watched their footage, almost all of them noticed the same thing. Their bodies weren't nearly as long or as straight as they thought. A lot of people have sinking legs. That starts by improving your head position. So on day two, before touching any single stroke, we went back to the basics and we started with streamline. Streamline! Is the most important part of swimming, it's how you push off the wall, it's how you dive in the water, it's the foundation of every stroke. Now when we do streamline, I want everyone right now your top hand goes over the bottom and your thumb grabs the bottom. Let's see if we can get you real tall, feel the stretch, good streamline stretch stretch stretch stretch. We're gonna get in the water and we're gonna push off and I want you to just float as far as you can. The goal should be to go three Three lane lines. We're trying to get you all into this lane. Okay, streamline, ready, go. Here's a little physics. Momentum equals mass times velocity. You can't change your mass when you push off the wall, but you can change your velocity. You can change how streamlined you are. So when you leave the wall, push as hard as you can and make sure you're in a tight streamline before doing so. The more speed you can create from that first instance, the further you're going to carry it on every single push off. But you know what the biggest factor is? It's your displacement of water. Because water is 800 times more dense than air. So your goal is to try and minimize the amount of space that you take when you leave the wall. We want to be like a missile, like a steel rod coming off the wall. So the more firm and controlled your core is, the further you're going to go. Like an elite, elite swimmer can go the entire way just on a push. You want tension on your entire body and that will keep you moving through the water. Let's try it again. Once you've nailed your streamline, it's time for one of my favorite drills, the rotisserie kick. It teaches you to rotate from your core while holding a perfect body line. And that's exactly what your freestyle needs. So you're going to push off the wall in a streamlined position. And when you're really tight, you're going to rotate like rotisserie chicken. And the goal is to use our core to drive that rotation. And you're not using your hands at all. Hands are in streamline. And again, it goes back to having that perfect body line. So that way you're rotating symmetrically all the way through. So this is going to be tricky. You're like, coach, how do I breathe? Well, you don't when your face is in the water. So you're going to be breathing, breathing. You know, you're going under and you're kicking and you're continuous all the way. Oxygen. And then you've got another, you know, seven seconds or so. So and then you're going to rotate. All the way through. Remember the streamline stretch? If that was too hard to hold, that's not a technique problem. It's your mobility. It's your lats and your shoulder flexion and your upper back deciding how long you can get in the water. So on day three, we took the work out of the pool. And every morning at the retreat, before anyone touched the water, we started on the deck. And it all starts with how you warm up properly. We don't want to start a session cold where our muscles haven't been activated. Now the difference between what we're doing right now, which is called a dynamic warm-up, and a static stretch, is that right now if you notice we're not trying to hold the stretch. We just want to touch the top range of motion, but we're not going to hold it there. We're just trying to get the muscles firing. So what does a good dynamic warm-up actually look like? Try some arm swings, forward, then backwards, and across your body. Add in leg swings, dynamically warming up your hamstrings, your glutes, and your lower back. Front to back and side to side. Then do hand walkouts. Activate your core. Walk your hands out in a plank and then back up. If you have a resistance band, add some shoulder work. Internal and external rotations. Build the alphabet. Y, T, W raises. Then strengthen the small muscles that stabilize your shoulders around the rotator cuff. And this is one of the simplest ways to keep your joints and your shoulders healthy. We can't guarantee that you won't hurt yourself, But at least you can reduce the likelihood. So what we're trying to do again is just wake up the body. The more accustomed to doing this kind of stuff, the more advanced the progression, so if this is foreign to you, maybe the push-up feels like a lot, you're like, well how am I going to have energy for the swim? Whatever level you're at, listen to your body. A warm-up should leave you feeling awake and ready to swim, not drained. You want to activate your central nervous system, not fry it. To finish, we take streamline into the dry land. With a streamline kick on your back and superman extensions on your stomach, They build the core and strengthen the core thing. That holds your body in the water. You want to keep your lower back on the ground. This is not a good streamline. This is not good. A lot of pressure on my lower back. Instead, you want to tilt your pelvis so that way your lower back is touching the ground. Toes are pointed, feet are going to come off the ground, and then I'm going to be in a nice tight streamline. If that's too difficult, eventually you'll want to go from pulling your hands under your butt to just being able to support it naturally. Make sure your lower back is off the ground. Try and hold that streamline. So we're going to go from the streamline position and then we're going to add some flutter kicks and then I'll call out dolphin kicks. Now I'm not trying to bend my knees right, we want to avoid doing this. Flutter kick, dolphin kick, oh yeah there it is, flutter kick, up and then alternate, up and then alternate, up and then alternate, up all four. Now the question is, how do you actually train? Getting faster isn't only about how much you swim, it's about how you structure it. And that's actually the most important part. So halfway through the week, with the Mediterranean sun out, our group was ready for it. We just got back from a yacht trip yesterday. Still carrying the vibes. And when it comes to swimming faster, you've got to make sure you're training the right way When it comes to interval training, this is the best way to progressively measure how you're improving in your aerobic fitness. So one week you might be doing the interval on the 1.20. The next week you go to the 1.15, and then a few weeks later you get down to the 1.10. If you're able to maintain that progression, that's how you know you're getting faster. It's also really important to mix up the style of training that you're doing. It's great to swim freestyle, but we have all the other strokes that engage different muscles at different times. So swimming breaststroke, backstroke, and butterfly. This is called IMX style training by incorporating all these different modalities of training and equipment You're going to really enhance the way that you're actually training. So whether you're going for a best time in a 50 freestyle or you're trying to swim for a 1500 meter open water swim or the 400 IM, this IMX style training will benefit you. And if this is too confusing for you, that's why we developed the MySwimPro app. So that can personalize everything I just mentioned into one spot, give you exactly what you need to do at the pool, sync it to your watch and guide you through it set by set. You've built the engine. Now it's time to make it go fast. Speed in the water isn't only about trying harder. In fact, you can try harder and go slower. Swimming fast is a skill, and like any other skill, you have to train it. On day five, we went back to the pool for the session everyone was waiting for. Welcome to Speed 101. The name of the game is to train your mind and your body how to move through the water as efficiently as possible. If you take a look at the whiteboard, there are three main ways we do this in swimming. The first, we got to develop our feel of the water. The second thing is we have to work on breath control. So that way we are as efficient as possible with what's coming in and what's coming out. We have to expand our lungs. And the third is muscle activation. So we're gonna work on all three of these with a little mini CNS activation set. CNS, it's an acronym for central nervous system. We're trying to teach our brain how to move through the water with power and explosiveness. So you're gonna go 225s with the drag socks and they're gonna go on your sleeve. So from your wrist to your elbow, again, working on that. Feel of the water. The second drill are going to be 225s, no breathing. This is working on breath control. Now, if you can't do it, no breath, that's fine. Try and take one breath. Wherever you're at, that's where we're trying to push ourselves. We're not sprinting this. We're just expanding our lungs. The third one is with a parachute. This is that muscle activation. And then we're going to put the pedal to the metal and fire those muscles. The last one is variable sprint. So you're going to go. Half easy, half fast. The second one, half fast, half easy. You're gonna do two rounds. The first round without fins, the second round with fins. We're preparing our body to go really fast for a very short period of time. You can apply a shorter version of this to a competition warmup. So if you're going to do like a sprint set or you're going to do a specific race, you wanna make sure your body is activated so you can swim fast. That's the blueprint. Assess where you are. Nail your streamline, build in the mobility on a regular basis so that way you can continue to improve and train like a complete swimmer. You want to be holistic and only then, after your technique is nailed down, then you add speed. And for days six and seven, a lot of swimmers fall off here. One great week won't make you faster. What you do in the days, weeks, months, and even years after is how you're going to keep progressing. Every few weeks, count your strokes. Film yourself. If that number is dropping and your pace is getting faster, that means you're getting more efficient. Keep your dynamic warm-up before every swim. Static stretching after the swim. Track your intervals. Use the MySwimPro app and make sure you're building a personalized program specific to you. Use the AI coach to make sure you're getting continuous feedback on how you can improve, how you can adapt your workouts, and how you can level up in the water. Progress comes from doing the right things consistently week after week, month after month. And if you'd rather do it in person, come and swim with us at one of our retreats. We hold them in incredible locations all over the world. You get personalized one-to-one connections and feedback to help you level up. And most importantly, it's memories for a lifetime. Until next time, happy swimming.