FROM THE AUTHOR: "I am not a professional swimming coach. I do not take credit for discovering or formulating these swimming tips. This is simply a collected collaboration of other people's work, condensed into a single article/post. I do not take credit for works that Terry Laughlin and others have created. These are just free tips for beginners and newbies and many people quickly grow beyond this advice. Again, this is not advice for MOP or advanced swimmers. This article is not meant to take the place of an actual coach, video, book or training program, all of which are probably better."
The key to swimming is reducing drag, not endurance or powering through the water. This is not just my opinion; it is the law of physics. I’ll explain it in a simple way: When you bike, you have to push air in front of you out of the way. The bigger the frontal section of your body and bike, the more air you have to move. What’s worse is that it’s not a one-to-one relationship. An increase in speed requires the square of increase in power to move that air! The faster you want to go, small increases in speed requires exponentially more power to do it. That’s why we’re all so big on getting “aero” for cycling. If we can reduce that amount of air we have to push out of the way, it makes cycling drastically easier. While it might take Lance Armstrong 300 watts of power to bicycle at 30mph, it would take big, broad-shouldered, me, 500 watts of power to maintain that same speed. And while Lance can still ride 10mph faster, I’m pretty much at my aerodynamic limit.Now here’s the bad news. Since water is much denser than air, it requires THE CUBE to overcome hydrodynamic drag as you go faster! There is a massive difference between the power output while swimming at 1.5 mph and 2 mph. As you get faster, it gets (X times X times X) more difficult! Approaching 4 mph is close to the maximum and very few humans can sustain swimming at 5 mph. Beyond that, it’s virtually impossible. Our bodies are just not hydrodynamically shaped to do it. The current World Record (in the 50m freestyle) is 5.37mph by Duje Draganja (2.4m/sec, 50 meters in 20. 81 seconds). No matter how strong a swimmer’s muscles and how aerobically fit they are, it is theoretically impossible for a human to power-swim at speeds beyond this. I highly doubt any human will ever be able to swim faster than a mere 6mph. We just don’t posses the wattage required to overcome the drag. Nature just didn't design us to go fast in the water like say, dolphins that can do it at more than five times faster than us...good hydrodynamic shape to them!So rather than focusing on power and endurance, the first step is to minimize that drag. This is the most crucial part in learning how to swim! So let’s get to those ten tips:
When you go to the pool and see other swimmers seemingly doing effortless lap after lap, do not get caught up the idea that you need to be doing the same. You have to do your exercises and not care about what anyone else may be thinking when they see you. Everyone practices drills, even the pro’s! So if you’re just going to be doing balance drills, so be it. In order to do flip turns, you have to practice the steps in turn and in order. If you ever see someone in the pool just doing forward somersaults from a standing position, they’re not weird – they’re practicing their flip turns! So just do your thing and don’t worry about what other people think. More than likely, the truly experienced swimmers will recognize what you’re doing and respect you for the drills you're doing.
If you do, practice those balance drills. Practice! Practice! Practice! I've been swimming for years and I still do them all the time! I practice my balance before every swim session. IN ORDER TO SWIM, YOU MUST BE BALANCED AND COMFORTABLE!These are the basic balance principles:Master the side-balance drill. When you do it, do it with your hands in FISTS! This will take away a 'feeling' of support. You'll only have your core to balance on. Stretch long, bottom arm stretched out, nose in your armpit (YES!), top 