- How to Stop Choking on Water – If you find that you’re choking on water in freestyle, it’s usually because you’re breathing too far forward. Because it restricts the amount of rotation you can get when you’re taking that breath. The best way to fix it is to breathe more towards your shoulder so you keep one goggle in, one goggle out of the water and you’re breathing towards that shoulder which keeps the rest of your body in line and allows you more rotation so it doesn’t restrict your movement. If you find that you’re having trouble breathing or you’re choking on water, breathe more towards your shoulder.
- Swim Slower – Every session you don’t need to go there and just hammer yourself and kill yourself and come out totally bugged. Swimming isn’t just about pushing as hard as you can, it’s about control, form and technique and that comes from slower swimming working on drills, stroke count, techniques and really focusing on those few things. So if you find that you’re hammering yourself every session, try and take at least one session where you just focus on your stroke, form and drills. That’s why we developed the Mastering Freestyle Program because it takes people through the drills that they need in order to get the right body and head position, kick and balance in the water. If you’re not doing any slower sessions in your training week, just include at least one of them because you’ll most likely find that you’ll get a huge benefit from that one slower swim. Don’t worry about not getting the fitness from that training session. Swimming is about staying relaxed and having good form while you swim.
- Train in All Conditions – Open water swimming is about being able to deal with the conditions that you get thrown at you. Conditions can vary anywhere from a smooth flat sea to big, choppy swells. If you go to our open water video program which is openwatermastery.com, that’s where we teach you how to deal with any type of conditions that you get thrown at you, and to be able to sight when conditions are choppy and visibility is low. If you want to improve your skills, you can check out our video program at openwatermastery.com.
- Hips Up Without Dropping Your Legs – You have probably been told by a coach to get your hips up and the way most swimmers get their hips up is by bending at their waist so their hips are up but their legs have dropped low and that usually causes you to create a lot more drag when you’re swimming which will slow you down and you’re wondering why your coach is telling you to put your hips up. The only way to fix that is to lengthen your body.
The description doesn’t make any sense to me. “too far forward” ok so the shoulder you’re referring to in the phrase “breathe more towards your shoulder” is the back shoulder on the arm that you are lifting but you’re not lifting your head because “you keep one goggle in, one goggle out of the water”.
Confused, need diagram or something.
Ris – Breathe so that your mouth is pointing towards your shoulder.