Stroke Tips (by Kevin Koskella)

Tip #1: Slice your hand into the water right about at your goggle line, and drive it forward. Many swimmers attempt to get as much "air time" as possible by reaching the hand out before entering into the water, but it is actually more efficient to go through the water with your hand as you rotate from one side to the other.

Tip #2: Keep looking straight down when swimming freestyle. It's important to keep your head down with only a small part of the back of your head out of the water. Also, as you rotate through the water, try not to move your head with the rest of your body rotation.

Tip #3: In freestyle, your hands should pull all the way back past your hips. The last part of the stroke before recovery (arms coming out of the water) should be an acceleration behind you, and not up out of the water.

Tip #4: Try minimizing your kick as you train for swimming. Most people will kick extra hard to make up for lack of balance in the water. Minimizing your kick will allow you to improve your balance, as well as conserve energy.

Tip #5: Master's Swimming: Move to a slower lane to work on stroke improvement. If you belong to a masters team, don't feel that you always need to keep up with your lanemates at every workout. Masters teams typically have many people with many different swimming goals. It's important to do your own thing! Remember that technique comes before all else and if this means swallowing a little pride to make improvements, just think of how much faster you will be for this in the long run.