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How to Perfect Your Freestyle Hand Entry



How to Perfect Your Freestyle Hand Entry

A great competitive swimmer already has an impressive freestyle stroke at their disposal. This is important, as freestyle is widely used in competition and regarded as swimming's fastest stroke. The efficient and fast freestyle stands pro swimmers in good stead. However, it's always useful to find ways to trim off seconds and make a great stroke even better. The trick is to fine-tune aspects of the stroke to make it smoother and quicker. One aspect that can be tweaked for an even quicker freestyle is the way your hand enters the water.

Picture of a male swimmer, viewed from below doing freestyle. This is how to perfect your freestyle hand entry
Perfect Your Freestyle Hand Entry

A great hand entrance leads to a more efficient stroke that catches the water and then pulls it away more economically, saving the swimmer energy and allowing faster progress. In essence, it's wise to view the fingers as the paddles to a boat the swimmer's body is creating.

To be at their most efficient these paddles should be lean and tight. Keeping the fingers aligned in a clean line allows for a more efficient "paddle" that moves the water away in a smoother manner. It's a small change from fingers slightly open to fingers held in an efficient paddle. Yet, it makes a difference in the overall speed and efficiency of the stroke.

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Key Takeaways:

  • Think of your hands as paddles when swimming, so the larger the surface area, the higher the pulling force.
  • Make sure to use finger paddles because they will ease the stress on your shoulders and help you concentrate on the catch and pull.
  • Make sure to play with the surface area and also try sculling as a warm-up before you freestyle.

"In this article, we'll use an experiment to find out if your freestyle hand entry needs improvement."

Read more: https://blog.arenaswim.com/en/training-technique/learn-correct-hand-position/

Enjoy     
Richard



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