 you breathe in! Make sure you've been exhaling through your nose while your face is under water. Do not waste any time exhaling with your mouth in the air. This is for intake only!Now for the most important part! Remember, you’re not a planing motorboat. You can't rise up and plane over the water, so don't try to! We talked about the right arm during the pull, so what do you do with the left? IT STAYS FULLY EXTENDED OUT IN FRONT OF YOUR BODY! The most common thing beginner swimmers (and even experienced swimmers) do during the breathing stroke is to begin the pull on the other side too early. They do this not to pull water back and propel them forward, but rather, to push water DOWN to push them up and out of the water to breathe. It's a natural instinct to want to push yourself up higher out of the water to breathe, but don't do it! That's what will slow you down and ruin your rhythm. Not pulling during the breathing stroke with the extended arm is a very difficult thing to do. In order to do it - you have to have balance in the water. That's where your drills come in. You have to do those side-balance drills so that you can breathe with that left arm fully extended and not pushing down to raise you up. Achieving this one thing is the most important and dramatic portion of your swimming stroke that will make you go faster. We'll address this again in #9. It's THAT important!
As soon as your face goes back underwater, start exhaling and continue until you empty your lungs. This does two things. It allows you to completely blow off the carbon dioxide in your lungs, thereby preventing the build-up of lactic acid in your muscles and keeping you from getting tired. And it makes breathing faster and easier because you're not wasting time exhaling with your mouth out of the water when you should be inhaling. See if you can practice swimming with this pattern: breathe in on the left, left stroke, right stroke, left stroke, breathe in on the right. If it's close to your normal breathing rate, great! Those two strokes with your head down and streamlined is what will really make you go farther and faster.Here's a little experiment you can do right now:
Take in a deep breath and hold it. How long can you hold your breath? What does it feel like? Now, hold your breath again but this time, take in a deep breath and blow it all out, entirely. Then hold on and see how long you can go until you have to take in the next breath? What does it feel like? It feels easier the second time because your lungs autonomically feel the urge to take a breath when there is a build up of CO2 in your lungs. If you exhale all of that CO2 out, you can trick your body into going longer.
You don't push the water back towards your feet; you grab the water and pull your body through the hole in the water that you made. The slower you try to swim, the more you have to concentrate on your form. There's a reason that those early morning Tai Chi people move very slowly. Spiritual enlightenment comes through proper form, not speed. When you try to swim faster, your form and stamina will fall apart. I guarantee it! If you can swim slowly and feel the "underwater glide," you've got it! When it happens, you'll know it and it feels really cool. You're like, "Am I coated in Vaseline? I'm just slipping through so easily and fast! Awesome!" It only happens when you swim smooth and SLOWLY.
Your swimming stroke is not meant to push yourself up and out of the water. It is meant to propel you forward. Keep saying to yourself "forward forward forward." This is why the pull-phase of the stroke does NOT HAVE YOUR ARMS STRAIGHT! You're not taking straight arms down and back from your shoulder. Because the entire beginning part of THAT pull has you pushing water down, not back. If you bend your elbows and immediately pull water back towards your feet (the same motion as climbing up a ladder)...
Let's practice that right now:Hold your arms straight over your head and with your elbows locked, bring an arm down and rotate from the shoulder until your hands touch your thigh. Now do 