Learn To Swim: Beginning Freestyle - Swim Streamline Torpedo

Swim Streamline Torpedo The key To Beginning Good Freestyle

Now that you have started to establish a nice strong freestyle stroke. The next step is to establish a good streamline position of your body and a good strong kick.

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The kick itself should not be too much of a concern. If you have been following my series on Learn To Swim 101-Starting Backstroke-The Kick then you should be able to apply the same kick only on your front. The only difference being that you should keep your heals close to the surface of the water rather than your toes.

Both the streamline and the kick can be practiced with a kickboard but I prefer students to try to practice both with no aids at all to start with. If you need help later on the it's OK to move over to the use of a kickboard.


Without the aid of a kickboard what you are about to practice is a torpedo position.

That is you hold your arms straight out in front of you and straighten your legs behind you and kick. Your body should look something like this:

Torpedo

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At this point you need to get someone to look at your body position and tell you if it is straight or where it needs to be fixed.

Torpedo for some is quite challenging, particularly if you have tried to skip a step by establishing you freestyle stroke without it. So I've created a more detailed description of the process of How To Learn Torpedo can be found here.

Once you have established a good streamlined position and you are kicking successfully (by successfully I mean that you are moving in the water smoothly and at a good pace) then it is time to reintroduce the arms.

Start in a torpedo position, begin your kicking, add your straight arm action from previously and see how far you can go. Practice this for a while. It is important as it is relevant to both Freestyle breathing and Breaststroke breathing.

Enjoy
   Richard