Swim Mechanics

July 25th is World Drowning Prevention Day 🌏 it's quite serendipitous because it also happens to be my mum's birthday (and Christmas in July). My mom taught me to swim over 50yrs ago and taught me everything I know about swimming.

My focus this year is - floating. I am making a webpage focusing on floating (www.learntofloat.com) because there is so much swimmers miss that could really help them stay safer in the water and swim better.

I'll be adding a heap of new resources over the coming weeks so stay tuned.

And if there's one thing you want to do to decrease Drowning...learn to float and check that your kids can too.

💙 AlyT

Front End Balance will change the way you swim.

Once you understand front end balance (staying streamlined and horizontal) swimming starts to make more sense and becomes a heap easier.

Swimmers who don't support their head and torso when they swim compensate by lifting their head, pressing down on the water with their hands and arms, or over-kicking as their legs try to counterbalance the weight of the upper body.

These compensations create drag, waste energy and become habits that are have to be corrected later (aka Stroke Correction)

You'll see it in Breaststroke with low-hanging legs, Freestyle where the head lifts out (or they roll too far onto their back) to breathe, and butterfly that feels exhausting just to watch.

The swimmer works hard, but gets nowhere because they're fighting the water for balance instead of moving smoothly through the water.

Teaching horizontal balance (not just Starfish Floats) and controlled front support using a kickboard remove the need to overcompensate...and efficient technique becomes much easier to develop.

I create practical swimming resources that help parents and swim teachers understand swimming. You can check them here👉 LINKS IN THE BIO

Floating saves lives and gives swimmers options 🆘

Unfortunately, not all swimmers know how to float, whether that be because they THINK they can't do it or the foundational skill was SKIPPED over.

Either way, I found these three cues always help get the swimmer into the correct body position and floating sooner.

💡Remember - where the head goes the body will follow

Using cues, swimmers will adjust their head themselves and are less likely to flinch and tense up if we do it for them.

I rarely use flotation support when teaching back floats because the swimmer needs to learn to balance on their own.

Teaching in shallow water is great for teaching people to float, especially when you have larger groups of swimmers.

For swimming resources you didn't know you needed, check out the LINKS IN THE BIO 👆

Innovation never stops around here. 💦

I'm always looking for new ways to make swimming easier to teach, more exciting to learn, and a whole lot more fun for everyone involved.

Because the best lessons don't feel like lessons at all.

I've been creating something new behind the scenes, and I think you're gonna love it💙

Stay tuned... 👀