Brent Hayden

The 2-beat kick isn’t meant for propulsion…

It’s meant to support your stroke in other ways:
✅ Balance
✅ Timing
✅ Rotation
✅ Keeping your lower body in alignment to reduce drag
✅ Connecting your pull to your core through fascial slings
✅ Keeping your HR lower than a 6-beat

So even though it’s not propelling me, it’s still helping move through the water with less effort so it’s great for longer distance swimming where efficiency and sustained speed is the goal.

Kicking continuously (6-beat) generates propulsion but will tire you out faster so typically only reserve this for higher speeds over shorter distances.

If you’re unable to swim WITHOUT kicking continuously, then that’s a sign that your masking errors in other areas of your stroke.

Swimming is not always about chasing faster pace times, it’s also about chasing lower stroke counts to make each stroke more effective.

Focus on lowering your stroke count and you’ll see your pace time drop.

Describe this swim in one word 🏊🏻‍♂️

The fastest swimmers constantly do this…

They focus on swimming fast slowly.

Working on making your slow stroke faster forces you to find where your stroke is leaking.

• Increased drag from poor body position
• A disconnected stroke caused by poor timing
• An unstable or ineffective pull
• Wasted energy from unnecessary muscle tension
• Stiff ankles that push the water down and up instead of flicking it behind
• Not enough rotation
• Too much rotation (see what I did there?)
• Dropped elbows during the catch
• Kicking continuously to mask stroke leaks
• Lifting the head too much during breathing
• Rushing the stroke and losing connection with the water
• Dead spots in the stroke where momentum stalls
• Fighting the water instead of working with it

The goal isn’t just to swim harder.
It’s to seal the leaks so your energy actually transfers into speed.

Once you seal the leaks, then you gradually increase your speed being mindful you only go as fast as you can maintain the integrity of your technique. Keep this up and you will develop the fastest most efficient swimming possible.

How to get the perfect freestyle entry…

First… STOP spearing. Spearing your arm underwater and shooting your arm forward just gives you a false sense of speed because you feel the water rushing past your skin. Remember, your hand shooting forward doesn’t move you forward, moving the water backwards does.

Having a pronounced spearing motion also causes most swimmers to enter too close to the head, so the hand needs to cover more distance underwater and that extension forward increases drag.

But don’t over-reach above the water either! Over reaching will cause your elbow to hit first and now you’re not in position for an effective catch.

To find that “Goldilocks zone” (not too close, not too far, juuuuust right) think about having your arm in a long low arch, enough that the fingertips still touch first similar to spearing, but the elbow is just high enough you could barely fit your hand between the elbow and the surface of the water.

Next pick a spot somewhere in front of your shoulders.

TRY THIS: standing in front of a mirror, line up your thumb with your eye in the same side, and now extend your arm as long as you can without locking your elbow. There’s your sweet spot.

Will you give this a try? Let me know in the comments!

Couldn’t think of a caption this morning but wanted to share this swimming video anyways.

What would you caption this?

Swimming isn’t about how hard you try. It’s simply about “how” you try.

Trying too hard often leads to tight, flexed muscles because you’re trying to overcome the water, when you should be thinking about flow and lightness and using the water to your advantage.

Remember this…

If you swim strong like a rock, you’ll sink like a rock.

Now booking private 1:1 and semi-private sessions in Vancouver and North Vancouver.

Swimming faster isn’t just about overcoming the resistance of the water, it’s about minimizing the resistance you need to overcome.