You literally saved me! (from suffering) I struggled with breathing, couldn’t understand how to do this properly, and you’re the only one who described it step by step! It’s nearly impossible without practicing these rolls. Thank you so much!
Your explanations are amazingly clear. I went to your channel, but didn't see any videos on breaststrokes. Are you planning to make some videos on that? 🙏
Hey. Thank you for the compliments. We will absolutely put together classes on breaststroke in the future. Please keep your comments and questions coming. Your questions help us choose our video topics. Thanks again
Excellent video and demonstration modeling. 1) forearm is (in English) the lower arm between elbow and wrist - how can this be in the position you describe? "Make sure your forearm is flush to the midline of your torso." "Flush" meaning, Merriam-Webster: 4a: having or forming a continuous plane or unbroken surface flush paneling b : directly abutting or immediately adjacent: such as (1): set even with an edge of a type page or column : having no indention (2): arranged edge to edge so as to fit snugly
Hi Anna, Thank you for your detailed comment and questions. I have put the video below together to help answer your question. If you need more clarification, please leave another comment. Enjoy your swimming and thanks for tuning in. ruclips.net/video/KXOvzLjPrQ4/видео.html
Hi. Not just yet, but in the future, we will definitely put some classes together of breaststroke and butterfly. To get ready to learn breaststroke kick/ frog kick, practice becoming balanced at the surface with a kick board and add freestyle kick. Aim to cover 15m - 25m in distance. To help us with our content, let us know anything that prevents you from improving your swimming? Are any problems or concerns holding you back?
@@specialistswimming Well so when I do butterfly I get really tired and stop doing it because i do it really hard and don’t know when to breathe. and for breaststroke my arms and feet just can’t do it correctly at different times, and breathing.
Good video and I really want to learn. I’m having a hard time differentiating between the male and female examples of mid line forearm and torso. I really want to understand this awesome teaching and great video ! Thank you so much 🌻
Hi Debbie. Thanks for your comments. Let me know if the video below helps you. Thanks Flush Forearm: FAQ - Learn To Swim ruclips.net/video/KXOvzLjPrQ4/видео.html
Thanks for the great explanation. What does "flush to the mid line of the torso" mean? I'm not a native speaker. Does it mean to bring back your forearm until it is aligned against your hip and thigh? If not please clarify. Thank you.
Your absolutely right. Place your forearm (your arm) against your body so there is no gaps. If your forearm is flush (against your body) you know your arm is fully extended and this creates good neutral posture which will keep you level to the surface. Sounds like you are doing a great job reading and controlling your stroke. Thanks for the great question. Keep me posted how you go with your practice. Thanks for tuning in to our channel.
I can do a fast 50 meters, but i can't even do 100m in a row, how should be my training? slower and longer distances? Or just keep doing the 25, 50 meters sprints? My goal is at least a 100m sub 1:40. Excelent video!
If you struggle to cover a greater distance and find you have to swim at a fast pace, the majority of your work in your stroke is being used to maintain your position at the water surface instead of propelling you forward. Great swimmers can swim fast and incredibly slow without losing their balanced body position at the surface. If you struggle to swim more than 100m at a slow pace, the best thing to do is to develop your balance at the water surface. This can take a long time to develop, but you will gradually swim greater distances with control and ease. I would recommend using our drill progressions to build your freestyle. We have an online course coming out soon, which will help take your stroke from drill progressions to fluid freestyle. I will add a link for our online class in our youtube video descriptions when it is ready. In the meantime, practice plenty of kicking and very slow laps of freestyle. Break your efforts into smaller distances (25m or smaller) and assess your control on each lap. Observe areas of your stroke where you rush or lose control and try to improve your technique on your next lap. Below, I have included some excellent exercises which help with enhancing balancing in swimming: Streamline kick Kicking with kick board Streamline Role Catch Position Role Adding breath control to your drills Practice drills with and without fins Breaststroke Only if you are comfortable in the water and aim to increase your swimming volume, I would recommend timing yourself for 200 - 400m. Work out your 25m split for your effort (e.g. 400:: 8:00 = 25m @ 30 sec. Every time you train, swim 16 x 25m, achieving your exact split from your 400m. Take 10 - 15 seconds to rest between efforts. I will add a video sample from our online course, which will explain the theory and the physiological adaptation to why this works and will always create improvement in your swimming.
When I'm in the catch roll position, only the upper part of my shoulder is above water, like at 2:43 in this video. The rest of my body is completely immersed, therefore although I am in the correct position, I am unable to breathe if I turn my head (I merely swallow water). My aim is to bring the entire upper half of my body above water, like at 4:01 in this video, which would make it much easier to breathe. Do you have any tips?
First, ensure your head and/or arm has not moved towards the surface during the roll. Second, ensure all rotation comes from your hips and your shoulder remains relaxed. Your kick should remain consistent. Like playing around with the kick, you may have to emphasise the head leaning towards the ground to counteract any sink. You will feel a counteracting action, but a bystander will see the position looks the same. Once at the surface, ensure your head rotates all the way around to see the sky. The head should only rotate and not lift. If the head position changes (outside of rotation), the body will sink. Try to ensure your chin becomes dry when breathing. As you turn your head, ensure your body position and kick does not change. The breath essentially has two rules; breathe and don't disturb the rest of the stroke.
Interesting. I started forward crawl/freestyle at mature age (old breast stroker here) and had huge breathing problems, not only rhythm, but water into mouth. We were taught to never get head out more than half the face (one eye, ear in water, nose is just out) and that the air pocket dint in water, if you have any velocity/forward speed, created enough room to breath. So half or a third of my chin would be submerged, but there is a dint in the water automatically, hence it looks almost out of water. What was THE most important game changer for me to stop choking on water upon breath in freestyle, was: to wear a swim cap! My hair is long, but there are ample shorter 10-20cm (4-8 inch) hair, that would partially cover my forehead and cheeks, hair ends pointing due to swim direction....to my nose and mouth, and the run off from those hair was the most water that entered my mouth. It wasn't much hair, but enough to cause more run off my face than just skin without hair. Just my experience. Maybe becomes less an issue once more comfortable with freestyle. But as a beginner, that was a noticable difference . You can also play with different mouth opening shapes, like puffing a pipe shape so that the mouth opening is smaller and on the upper side only, still gets good amount of air. I also did my first 5 days in shallow pool end only. That gave me psychological safety for choking and need to stop. Breathing out the nose too also helped because I would always have water creeping in that uncontrollably seconds later trickled down. Hope there was something new to try. Keep on trying in baby steps. I sometimes only did 8-10 strokes just to feel safe.
Hi Jo. Thanks for your question and thank your tuning in. Flush means fully in contact with no gaps. Ensure all parts of the forearm are in contact with the midline (side) of the body.
These are good drills but there's a few problems. 1. Streamline role is extremely hard for someone learning how to swim. 2. Laying on your side is great for balence, however it's not the correct body position in the sense that promotes over-rotation. 3. Breathing is to the side, not up to the ceiling, but the only way to breath during these drills is up to the ceiling. It's tricky combini g the right drills though.
Hi, great comment. I think this topic would make a great video in itself. These types of comments and questions pop up often during our coaching sessions. There are a few things to keep in mind. The first is, that our drills are designed to replicate the movements that occur in swimming in relation to the torso, anatomically referenced. For example, the breath requires the head to turn toward the shoulder, and as the torso changes position, the position of the head will change relative to the water, but the movement remains consistent in relation to the torso. The second is, that our drills are designed to condition the body. Like all strength and conditioning, we want to explore the full range of motion available. In the gym, an athlete would implement the full range of motion to squat. However, a basketball player, a runner, or a swimmer implementing a tumble turn, may not use the full range of motion in action. The full range of motion was required in the exercise to develop optimal strength and control, regardless of the range of motion used during its utility. 1) You're right; the streamline can be challenging to pick up straight away. When coaching swimmers one-on-one, we find that all swimmers very quickly pick up the streamline role. Errors usually come from over analysing the components or rushing through the drill. Once swimmers take their time, observe and control the key indicators, they master the exercise very quickly. Further to conditioning the body, the streamline role is a great drill to train swimmers to observe multiple components simultaneously. The streamline role is the first step to maintaining control of the kick whilst changing the position of the torso relative to the water. It requires swimmers to retain control regarding the body (anatomically) and awareness in relation to the water surface. Develop this control, and you can master any aspect of swimming. 2) Over rotation is an interesting subject. The point of over-rotation is called backstroke. If you watch Sun Yang achieve his 1500m world record, his torso (hips) rotate almost 180 degrees, especially when breathing. In the 50m world record, Caleb Dressel implements much less rotation. This is all due to the duration for range of motion and the body's natural biomechanical nature to maintain stability. I will try to cover this topic in a future video. Rotating the body onto the side offers a full range of motion, which thoroughly conditions the body for rotation in freestyle. The act of rotating the body onto the side also develops awareness. The hard thing in swimming is we can see our technique. Our drills aim to build a swimmer's proprioception in the water and improve their understanding of swimming. It is much easier to train a swimmer to reduce rotation than to find the control to increase it during the chaos of full-motion freestyle. 3) True. In this drill, the only way to breathe is to rotate the head to look at the ceiling. This forces the swimmer to turn their head all the way around towards the shoulder. Although the swimmer looks at the ceiling, they replicate the same range of motion used in freestyle, relative to the torso. Many errors arrive in freestyle, where the stroke alters to compensate for the head's lack of range of motion. Addressing this type of conditioning early on will yield significant improvement later. On a side note for all the open water swimmers out there, air will always be above you, even in the roughest conditions. Thanks again for your great comments. I will take these notes to add to our future content.
Definition of Flush: ruclips.net/video/KXOvzLjPrQ4/видео.html
Flush means to have your forearm fully in contact with your body.
You literally saved me! (from suffering) I struggled with breathing, couldn’t understand how to do this properly, and you’re the only one who described it step by step! It’s nearly impossible without practicing these rolls. Thank you so much!
Thank you so much for your comment. Great to hear your swimming is going so well.
Thank you for this video bro. I have been struggling with this but it really helped
Legend. Thanks for watching. Keep us posted if there is a topic we can cover in our next video to help further.
Great Videos 💙
Definitely helps beginner Swimmers
It would be more helpful if you could keep the terms simpler
I would love to see more videos
Your explanations are amazingly clear.
I went to your channel, but didn't see any videos on breaststrokes. Are you planning to make some videos on that? 🙏
Hey. Thank you for the compliments. We will absolutely put together classes on breaststroke in the future. Please keep your comments and questions coming. Your questions help us choose our video topics. Thanks again
Excellent explanation and a fundamentally important baseline drill.
Would rate this the number one drill to learn.
Thanks Heaps!
Excellent video and demonstration modeling.
1) forearm is (in English) the lower arm between elbow and wrist - how can this be in the position you describe?
"Make sure your forearm is flush to the midline of your torso."
"Flush" meaning, Merriam-Webster:
4a: having or forming a continuous plane or unbroken surface
flush paneling
b
: directly abutting or immediately adjacent: such as
(1): set even with an edge of a type page or column : having no indention
(2): arranged edge to edge so as to fit snugly
Hi Anna,
Thank you for your detailed comment and questions. I have put the video below together to help answer your question. If you need more clarification, please leave another comment.
Enjoy your swimming and thanks for tuning in.
ruclips.net/video/KXOvzLjPrQ4/видео.html
Just for drills to get a feel, not during swim.
The explanation vid he extra made is excellent.
Do you have any lessons for butterfly or frog swim or breathing techniques
Hi. Not just yet, but in the future, we will definitely put some classes together of breaststroke and butterfly. To get ready to learn breaststroke kick/ frog kick, practice becoming balanced at the surface with a kick board and add freestyle kick. Aim to cover 15m - 25m in distance.
To help us with our content, let us know anything that prevents you from improving your swimming? Are any problems or concerns holding you back?
@@specialistswimming Well so when I do butterfly I get really tired and stop doing it because i do it really hard and don’t know when to breathe. and for breaststroke my arms and feet just can’t do it correctly at different times, and breathing.
Good video and I really want to learn.
I’m having a hard time differentiating between the male and female examples of mid line forearm and torso.
I really want to understand this awesome teaching and great video !
Thank you so much 🌻
Hi Debbie. Thanks for your comments. Let me know if the video below helps you. Thanks
Flush Forearm: FAQ - Learn To Swim
ruclips.net/video/KXOvzLjPrQ4/видео.html
@@specialistswimming thank you 🙏👍🏼☺️
Thanks for the great explanation. What does "flush to the mid line of the torso" mean? I'm not a native speaker. Does it mean to bring back your forearm until it is aligned against your hip and thigh? If not please clarify. Thank you.
Your absolutely right. Place your forearm (your arm) against your body so there is no gaps. If your forearm is flush (against your body) you know your arm is fully extended and this creates good neutral posture which will keep you level to the surface. Sounds like you are doing a great job reading and controlling your stroke. Thanks for the great question. Keep me posted how you go with your practice.
Thanks for tuning in to our channel.
Exactly my question... Regarding d phrase, flush 2 midline of torso...
Got d explanation...
Amazing explanation
Thank you! Hope you enjoy learning to swim with us.
I can do a fast 50 meters, but i can't even do 100m in a row, how should be my training? slower and longer distances? Or just keep doing the 25, 50 meters sprints? My goal is at least a 100m sub 1:40. Excelent video!
If you struggle to cover a greater distance and find you have to swim at a fast pace, the majority of your work in your stroke is being used to maintain your position at the water surface instead of propelling you forward. Great swimmers can swim fast and incredibly slow without losing their balanced body position at the surface.
If you struggle to swim more than 100m at a slow pace, the best thing to do is to develop your balance at the water surface. This can take a long time to develop, but you will gradually swim greater distances with control and ease.
I would recommend using our drill progressions to build your freestyle. We have an online course coming out soon, which will help take your stroke from drill progressions to fluid freestyle. I will add a link for our online class in our youtube video descriptions when it is ready. In the meantime, practice plenty of kicking and very slow laps of freestyle. Break your efforts into smaller distances (25m or smaller) and assess your control on each lap. Observe areas of your stroke where you rush or lose control and try to improve your technique on your next lap. Below, I have included some excellent exercises which help with enhancing balancing in swimming:
Streamline kick
Kicking with kick board
Streamline Role
Catch Position Role
Adding breath control to your drills
Practice drills with and without fins
Breaststroke
Only if you are comfortable in the water and aim to increase your swimming volume, I would recommend timing yourself for 200 - 400m. Work out your 25m split for your effort (e.g. 400:: 8:00 = 25m @ 30 sec. Every time you train, swim 16 x 25m, achieving your exact split from your 400m. Take 10 - 15 seconds to rest between efforts. I will add a video sample from our online course, which will explain the theory and the physiological adaptation to why this works and will always create improvement in your swimming.
When I'm in the catch roll position, only the upper part of my shoulder is above water, like at 2:43 in this video. The rest of my body is completely immersed, therefore although I am in the correct position, I am unable to breathe if I turn my head (I merely swallow water).
My aim is to bring the entire upper half of my body above water, like at 4:01 in this video, which would make it much easier to breathe. Do you have any tips?
First, ensure your head and/or arm has not moved towards the surface during the roll. Second, ensure all rotation comes from your hips and your shoulder remains relaxed. Your kick should remain consistent. Like playing around with the kick, you may have to emphasise the head leaning towards the ground to counteract any sink. You will feel a counteracting action, but a bystander will see the position looks the same.
Once at the surface, ensure your head rotates all the way around to see the sky. The head should only rotate and not lift. If the head position changes (outside of rotation), the body will sink. Try to ensure your chin becomes dry when breathing. As you turn your head, ensure your body position and kick does not change. The breath essentially has two rules; breathe and don't disturb the rest of the stroke.
Interesting. I started forward crawl/freestyle at mature age (old breast stroker here) and had huge breathing problems, not only rhythm, but water into mouth.
We were taught to never get head out more than half the face (one eye, ear in water, nose is just out)
and that the air pocket dint in water, if you have any velocity/forward speed,
created enough room to breath.
So half or a third of my chin would be submerged, but there is a dint in the water automatically, hence it looks almost out of water.
What was
THE most important game changer for me to stop choking on water upon breath in freestyle, was:
to wear a swim cap!
My hair is long, but there are ample shorter 10-20cm (4-8 inch) hair,
that would partially cover my forehead and cheeks, hair ends pointing due to swim direction....to my nose and mouth,
and the run off from those hair was the most water that entered my mouth.
It wasn't much hair, but enough to cause more run off my face than just skin without hair.
Just my experience.
Maybe becomes less an issue once more comfortable with freestyle.
But as a beginner, that was a noticable difference .
You can also play with different mouth opening shapes, like puffing a pipe shape so that the mouth opening is smaller and on the upper side only, still gets good amount of air.
I also did my first 5 days in shallow pool end only. That gave me psychological safety for choking and need to stop.
Breathing out the nose too also helped because I would always have water creeping in that uncontrollably seconds later trickled down.
Hope there was something new to try.
Keep on trying in baby steps. I sometimes only did 8-10 strokes just to feel safe.
wonderfull
What is,"flush to your torso" mean? I never heard of that
Great question. Check out our video below explaining the meaning of flush.
ruclips.net/video/KXOvzLjPrQ4/видео.html
Thank you
Volume too low. Can do it louder please? Thx
Thanks for your feedback
Excellent videos but where is Step 4? :)
On its way. Thank you for tuning in.
ruclips.net/video/nhkSTPw4Tik/видео.html
Step 5 on its way.
الضربات متوازنة
What's "flush" mean here, forearm FLUSH to the torso, this is said so many times in this video, never heard this expression or use of the word flush.
Hi Jo. Thanks for your question and thank your tuning in. Flush means fully in contact with no gaps. Ensure all parts of the forearm are in contact with the midline (side) of the body.
Our new video. All about the flush forearm. Thanks for tuning in.
ruclips.net/video/KXOvzLjPrQ4/видео.html
These are good drills but there's a few problems.
1. Streamline role is extremely hard for someone learning how to swim.
2. Laying on your side is great for balence, however it's not the correct body position in the sense that promotes over-rotation.
3. Breathing is to the side, not up to the ceiling, but the only way to breath during these drills is up to the ceiling.
It's tricky combini g the right drills though.
Hi, great comment. I think this topic would make a great video in itself. These types of comments and questions pop up often during our coaching sessions.
There are a few things to keep in mind. The first is, that our drills are designed to replicate the movements that occur in swimming in relation to the torso, anatomically referenced. For example, the breath requires the head to turn toward the shoulder, and as the torso changes position, the position of the head will change relative to the water, but the movement remains consistent in relation to the torso. The second is, that our drills are designed to condition the body. Like all strength and conditioning, we want to explore the full range of motion available. In the gym, an athlete would implement the full range of motion to squat. However, a basketball player, a runner, or a swimmer implementing a tumble turn, may not use the full range of motion in action. The full range of motion was required in the exercise to develop optimal strength and control, regardless of the range of motion used during its utility.
1) You're right; the streamline can be challenging to pick up straight away. When coaching swimmers one-on-one, we find that all swimmers very quickly pick up the streamline role. Errors usually come from over analysing the components or rushing through the drill. Once swimmers take their time, observe and control the key indicators, they master the exercise very quickly. Further to conditioning the body, the streamline role is a great drill to train swimmers to observe multiple components simultaneously. The streamline role is the first step to maintaining control of the kick whilst changing the position of the torso relative to the water. It requires swimmers to retain control regarding the body (anatomically) and awareness in relation to the water surface. Develop this control, and you can master any aspect of swimming.
2) Over rotation is an interesting subject. The point of over-rotation is called backstroke. If you watch Sun Yang achieve his 1500m world record, his torso (hips) rotate almost 180 degrees, especially when breathing. In the 50m world record, Caleb Dressel implements much less rotation. This is all due to the duration for range of motion and the body's natural biomechanical nature to maintain stability. I will try to cover this topic in a future video. Rotating the body onto the side offers a full range of motion, which thoroughly conditions the body for rotation in freestyle. The act of rotating the body onto the side also develops awareness. The hard thing in swimming is we can see our technique. Our drills aim to build a swimmer's proprioception in the water and improve their understanding of swimming.
It is much easier to train a swimmer to reduce rotation than to find the control to increase it during the chaos of full-motion freestyle.
3) True. In this drill, the only way to breathe is to rotate the head to look at the ceiling. This forces the swimmer to turn their head all the way around towards the shoulder. Although the swimmer looks at the ceiling, they replicate the same range of motion used in freestyle, relative to the torso. Many errors arrive in freestyle, where the stroke alters to compensate for the head's lack of range of motion. Addressing this type of conditioning early on will yield significant improvement later.
On a side note for all the open water swimmers out there, air will always be above you, even in the roughest conditions.
Thanks again for your great comments. I will take these notes to add to our future content.
@@specialistswimming it's nice to see someone who actually knows what they're talking anoit. All your points make sense :-)
Thank you, and thanks agin for your comments on our video. It gives us a great insight and helps us develop more great content.
Sound quality is very poor
Sorry to hear. I hope it improves. I hope our videos help you with your swimming.