🏊‍♀️ TECHNIQUE: What is the most important swim stroke you'll ever take?

Ever pondered the astonishing speed gap between elite swimmers and us ordinary folks?

Sure, their aquatic upbringing and rigorous training regimen of 10-12 sessions weekly, spanning over 4,000km annually, contribute significantly. Mastering the art demands relentless repetition, refining each stroke to perfection.

Yet, let's shift our perspective a bit. What if there's a way for us regular swimmers to make noteworthy strides by honing in on a single aspect of our stroke technique? Delving into this, we'll uncover a simple yet pivotal difference.

Rebecca Adlington - the epitome of freestyle excellence. What does she do consistently that most of us don't? How can this improve your technique almost instantly by 33⅓ - 50%?

Imagine improving your swim not by emulating the exhaustive routine of a double-Olympic Gold Medallist like Rebecca Adlington - or even trying to replicate her “smooth” style exactly, especially if you're more of an open water “swinger” - but by pinpointing the essential nuance that can elevate any swimmer's performance, bridging the gap between them and a commendable age-group triathlete mastering a 58-minute Ironman distance (3.8km) swim. Intrigued? Let’s dive in!

Spot the difference:

Let’s start by playing a game of “spot the difference”.

Below are two images:

1. (TOP) this is double Olympic Gold Medallist, Rebecca Adlington’s right arm during the catch phase of her stroke. In the left image she’s not breathing in (but great exhalation though!), and in the right image she’s breathing to her left.

2. (BOTTOM) this is a good Age Group triathlete, already capable of swimming 58 minutes for a 3.8km Ironman distance swim. Many of you would be more than happy with that result “as is”, however, in the pursuit of performance and seeking a spot in Kona or Nice at some point in the future, he wants to improve both his economy and speed. Now, before you get too clever, the “spot the difference” is not the fact that it’s his left arm we’re looking at (versus Rebecca’s right) as we’re doing so because this is the one aspect of his stroke that we identified needed some work. In the left image he’s not breathing in (and also great exhalation!), and in the right image he’s breathing to his right.

So what’s the single fundamental difference (avoid scrolling further down to see the answer - what can you see?)

Rebecca Adlington - CSS pace ~1:01/100m in her heyday

Good Age Group triathlete - CSS pace ~1:30/100m (but getting better with each swim now!)

OK, so here’s some additional assistance then.

By drawing on some additional lines, we should start to see the following:

1. Both are exhaling well under the water ✅

2. Both have an angle at the elbow during the catch phase between 100º and 120º and are consistent with this whether they’re breathing or not (in fact with 2º) ✅

3. Rebecca’s hand placement always stays below the same shoulder even when she’s breathing. Essentially, her breathing stroke is mechanically almost exactly the same as her non-breathing stroke. This affords her brilliant consistency of technique ensuring she’s always moving forwards as efficiently as possible 👀

4. The triathlete’s hand placement varies considerably between his non-breathing and breathing strokes. Observe how much his left hand sweeps underneath the body when he breathes to his right. Essentially his left hand almost lines up underneath his right shoulder every time he breathes to his right. If he switches to breathing every 2 strokes to that side, 50% of the time he’s swimming he’s incurring a fault that could be relatively simply improved ⚠️

…and that’s the difference. Rebecca’s stroke is consistently the same, his is not.

You might not be sweeping under the body like him when you breathe, but if something’s going to go wrong in your stroke, it’ll go wrong when you breathe. This is so fundamental to our Swim Smooth Methodology, that it features in our Top-10 Tenets which you can read here (later!).

It’s all about consistency of technique whether you’re breathing or not!

If something’s going to go wrong in your stroke, it’ll go wrong when you’re breathing.

So, what is the most important swim stroke you'll ever take?

If something’s going to go wrong in your stroke, it’ll go wrong when you’re breathing. Just knowing this and working to improve that singular aspect of your stroke, and viewing your breathing stroke as the most important swim stroke you’ll ever take, is hugely powerful!

A classic “under-sweep” when breathing - very typical of the Bambino and Swinger swim type

How can I monitor and improve this?

If you have set yourself up with a FREE 7-day trial of the new Swim Smooth GURU, and connected your Apple Watch, you might have started digging into your post-swim analysis via our patented Stroke Insights feature - like this image below - and noticed more than just one “hot spot” for the position of your hand:

Stroke Insights from Head Coach, Paul Newsome, showing variability (not consistency!) in his strokes!

So what does this tell us?

Firstly, it shows that the guy who teaches you all this stuff is not perfect himself! This is data taken just a few weeks ago from myself. I’m moderately fit at the moment, but not pumping! I’ve been experiencing some shoulder pain when I swim, especially on the right-hand side (unusual for me as it’s usually my left shoulder that gives me issues). You can observe a few things:

1. my left arm pull through is always too deep. This has developed over the 38+ years I’ve been swimming because - as a kid and junior - I only ever breathed to my right, and no one suggested I change that. It’s been the primary source of my sore left shoulder over the years when I ramp up my distances for a big event.

2. whilst I now practice what I preach (bilateral breathing in 80% of my training to give me versatility to breathe to either side when racing depending on the conditions and my tactics), these issues still linger and I’m always working to improve them. In fairness, my scores have been much better than this in the past 12 months as I’ve built up for big events, but now - just like anyone else in a lower-focus period - both my fitness and technique have deteriorated a bit.

3. my left arm has two hot spots - one will be for when I’m breathing (#1), one for when I’m not (#2). I need to aim to get those two hots spots to merge.

4. my right arm has three hot spots - one for when I’m breathing (#1), one for when I’m not (#2), and one for when I’m consciously trying to bring my right hand more under my right shoulder (#3 - less wide) as the GURU has flagged that this is a likely source of my right shoulder pain.

For both arms, I should be aiming to have these hotspots merge into one and for my scores to come up closer towards the holy panacea of 5/5. It’s a work in progress, but my shoulder is instantly feeling better, which is great.

Is this the best way to improve your stroke and your swimming in general?

In a word, no.

The best way to improve your stroke is to sit down with one of our Certified Swim Smooth Coaches and have them identify the issues that you have within your stroke and help formulate a plan to systematically correct those areas that need to be focused on in a “hierarchy of needs” as it were. This is the best way to make improvements for the long-term. Real-world, empathetic human coaching - trained and certified systematically via our Swim Smooth coaching program - will always trump what is possible with an app, even our own.

Of course, in the absence of being able to work with one of our coaches directly, the Stroke Insights from the new Swim Smooth GURU, coupled with the Fault Fixers and Swim Type Guides will still help move you forwards. Ultimately, I wasn’t able to have a full session myself, but a combination of seeing my Stroke Insights from the GURU, having him flag that my right shoulder was at risk, already experiencing that issue and then asking Super Sal, our Swim Smooth Coach here in Perth to take a quick sanity check during a Squad session, has helped me nip this issue in the bud.

To help you further: the 'Worlds Biggest Swim Squad' will launch on Monday the 22nd January 2024.

As a GURU subscriber to either our Understanding or Routine levels you’ll get 1 or 3 session(s) per week respectively to implement your learnings, fresh in the Guru each Monday morning.

Each week you'll get a 'Pure Technique', 'CSS' and/or 'Red Mist' session. These sessions will have been recently swum in one of our Swim Smooth Squads around the world so even if you cannot attend one of our coaches Swim Smooth squads you can be a part of the global Swim Smooth Squad ... surely the biggest swim squad in the world?

Combined with 'Session Roulette' there is never a need for procratination again ... well for your swim sessions at least!

Thanks for reading! Swim Smooth!