TRI Swim Club

The Secret to Freestyle That Most Swimmers Overlook: Hip Drive 🌀

Most swimmers think freestyle power comes from the arms. It doesn’t. It comes from your hips — and once you understand that, everything changes.

Here’s what’s actually happening in an efficient freestyle stroke: you initiate each pull by rotating your hip, not reaching with your arm. That hip turn fires your core, loads your lats, and sets you up for a powerful catch. Think of your body like a swivel chair or a rotisserie chicken — you are constantly rotating from one side to the other, smooth and controlled. That rotation is your engine.

Your core has to stay engaged and in line throughout. This isn’t a side-to-side sway or a wiggle — it’s a full rotation through your axis. The moment your hips start shifting laterally instead of rotating, you lose power and stability. Keep it clean. Keep it rotational.

Why does this matter beyond just power? Two reasons: drag and endurance.

When you’re flat on your stomach, you’re presenting the widest surface area possible to the water. That’s drag working against you. But when you rotate to your side, you become more streamlined — narrower, more hydrodynamic. The goal is to spend as little time flat as possible and use your hip drive to get from one side to the other as efficiently as you can.

And because you’re recruiting your core, your lats, your obliques — not just pulling with your arms — you’re distributing the workload across your biggest muscle groups. That means less fatigue, more power per stroke, and better endurance over long distances.

Hip driven freestyle isn’t just a technique. It’s the difference between fighting the water and working with it. 💧

Less than two weeks to Ironman Austria.

Joe Skipper is wrapping up his final hard swim sessions before taper. The biggest mistake athletes make at this stage is trying to squeeze in extra fitness. The focus now is maintaining speed, reinforcing race-specific skills, and arriving at the start line fresh.

50 yards → 2,200 yards. In 8 weeks. 💪

When Dawson first joined our TRI Swim Club group training, 50 yards had him gassed. The Ironman swim felt impossible.

He didn’t wait until he was ready. He didn’t wait until he was good. He just started.

He jumped into the program, trusted the process, and got to work — stroke by stroke, week by week.

Eight weeks later he swam 2,200 yards straight at sub 2:00/100. Already faster than the Ironman cutoff with months to spare.

You don’t need to be ready. You don’t need to already be good. That’s what the program is for. You just need to start.

Join the TRI Swim Club today for FREE.
🔗 Link in bio

Every single workout in the Tri Swim Club program is written by yours truly, but I don’t just type them up and hope for the best. I get in the water and test them myself to guarantee the highest quality, the perfect flow, and just the right amount of challenge.

(And don't panic if this reel looks brutal! I write 4 different distance variations for every single workout so it meets you exactly where your fitness level is at.)

We are leveling up BIG time starting next week for June! Here’s what’s dropping:

📝 Coach’s Notes: I’m breaking down every workout for you, explaining the main purpose, and giving you a specific focus so you aren't just swimming mindlessly.

⏱️ New 1:45 Interval Option: Performance track crew, you asked, you got it.

🗺️ Phase Notes: Always know where you are and where you're going. You'll see exactly what training cycle you're in each week and what’s ahead.

June programming drops soon. Let's get to work. Link in bio to join the club! 📲