Freestyle has the characteristics of relatively simple technique, efficient movements, and fast swimming speed, so it is very popular among swimmers. However, some wrong freestyle movements can often be seen in the pool, which affects the characteristics of efficient and fast swimming in the freestyle. Now let's list these common mistakes so that freestyle enthusiasts can compare, detect and correct them in time.
1. Raise your head for ventilation: When this kind of enthusiast is ventilating in freestyle, he will use his paddle to press down on the water and lift his head out of the water to ventilate. In fact, this is a very wrong movement, the paddling hand presses down on the water and loses the momentum to move forward, and the head of the water is ventilated, which will cause the legs to sink, increase the resistance of the body, and slow down the swimming speed. The correct method of ventilation should be to turn the shoulders and drive the head to rotate to achieve water ventilation on the side of the face. In this way, the ventilation can be achieved without affecting the previous speed.
2. Insufficient arm forward extension: This kind of enthusiast does not continue to stretch the arm forward after paddling into the water and straightening, and the body fails to fully maintain the streamline, which will lead to increased resistance of the shoulder and slow down the straight body gliding. The correct movement is to paddle straight into the water, then continue to work hard and then stretch forward, keeping your arms close to your head.
3. Shoulder rotation is not in place: If the arm entering the water is not stretched forward enough, it will definitely cause the shoulder rotation to be not in place, and the shoulder on the side of the paddler will not be able to expose the water surface, increasing the water resistance and slowing down the straight body gliding speed. The correct movement is to extend one arm forward and turn the shoulder, while driving the other shoulder to rotate, and so that the shoulder can be exposed to the water before the paddling hand comes out of the water.
Fourth, the hands and legs are not coordinated: when paddling, this kind of enthusiast is not synchronized with the same side of the heavy leg, due to the dispersion of force, resulting in the lack of explosive power, and the swimming appears weak and weak. The correct movement is to raise the leg and hit the leg simultaneously when the paddler is holding the water and paddling. This creates an explosive momentum to move forward, allowing the freestyle to gain sufficient momentum.
5. Lower limb sinking: When this kind of enthusiast swims in, the lower leg and foot are far from the water surface, and the legs form a large angle with the water surface, resulting in the whole body in a state of tilt with high head and low feet. This state is mostly caused by the sinking of the lower limbs of the body, which has greater swimming resistance, low stroke efficiency, and high physical exertion. Most of this happens because the freestyle "high flat position" technique is not practiced properly. For specific improvement methods, you can refer to the content of "Learning Freestyle Static Drift" in my previous "Learning Freestyle in Five Steps for Zero Foundation (1)".
If you also have one of the above mistakes in freestyle, you can watch some relevant foreign exercises** or ask swimmers who do not have the same mistakes, and then, according to the correct movements, focus on the practice, and correct the wrong movements.
Some freestyle enthusiasts will have the above several wrong movements at the same time when swimming, at this time, they need to be improved one by one, and they must not think that all the problems will be solved at the same time, which will only "speed up but not reach", resulting in the consequences of practicing for a long time but unable to correct the wrong movements, so that they lose confidence and can only make mistakes forever.
I hope that freestyle enthusiasts can find the above wrong movements, constantly adjust and standardize the freestyle movements, so that your freestyle can swim easily, gracefully and efficiently!