4 Strokes of Swimming

Just a sneak peek!

Front Crawl
Your main stroke, some people say its the easiest.

You can go the fastest when you do the front crawl.

Backstroke

Backstroke all has to do with the rolling of the body and the strong pull and kick.

People enjoy backstroke because they can breathe the whole time.

Breaststroke

My favorite, but in some minds the hardest to teach and get the rythym.

Pull, Breathe, Kick and Glide.. 123!

Butterfly

It's called the butterfly because of the arms but the rythym is more like a dolphin.

5 Tips on How to do Basic Front Crawl:

First off, I would like to tell you a little bit about front crawl. It’s the main stroke children learn in swimming lessons.  Even if people don’t know much about swimming they usually know what front crawl is. It could also be called, freestyle and/or front swim.


1. First, we start off with the basics, putting our hands up above our head and making our body into a pencil shape. We simply hop in the water and start kicking our legs when we are in this glide position. Make sure your face is in the water, looking down at the bottom.


2. Once you are in this glide position you are going to need to breathe. The biggest mistake most people make is bringing their heads up and looking ahead of them to breathe, wrong! We need to make sure when we breathe we are doing what is called a side glide. You simply drop one arm to your thigh and the other stays up above by your head with the same ear touching your shoulder (If the right arm is above then the right ear is on the shoulder and vice versa). You will be looking to the side and taking a 2-3 second breath and returning your face back in the water.


Note *(If you want steps one and two to be easier, do the exact same just with a flutter board.)*


3. Once you take your breath to the side, you are going to bring your arm over and around back to your arm that was in the glide position. This can be done on each side, alternating each time.


4. Next we are going to go into 3 arm movement’s pure breath. The arm movements are just like a big circle. There are three things to make sure of when you’re doing the arm movements. 1) Make sure your bringing your arm out nice and high. 2) When your arm is entering the water, do not slap the water. You want to slice the water or dive your hand into the water and 3). Make sure to bend your arm when it first comes out and then extend it in front of you, "Bend and Extend".


5. Once you have the breathing and arm movements to perfection, you are ready to do your front crawl. Make sure to roll your whole body to the side when you’re breathing and the kick your legs continuously.


Hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Good luck!


Xo.Laura

My Life as a Piranha

When I was six years old, I started swimming in a competitive summer swim club called the Piranhas. It’s located in my hometown Fort Saskatchewan and it’s been around for more than 50 years. The piranhas really impacted my life in many ways such as, the job I know work at. I am lifeguard at the same pool I was taught to swim and practiced in.

When I first started out in the club, I learned the basics, how to improve your strokes. Then as you grow up you start being taught how to go faster, if you were a sprinter or if you were a distance swimmer, how to pace yourself. Also when you were older, you developed the strokes you were best at and which strokes you would excel at to win. My top and favourite stroke was the breaststroke. I caught on to the concept of breaststroke when I was really little and enjoyed it a lot.

In a competitive swimming club you have what are called swim meets and they are just like hockey tournaments. They are a one day event and at the end certain individuals are rewarded metals for your age groups. When it came to swim meets I got very nervous, even though I was always one of the top swimmers when it came down to it. Even though I was usually at the top of my age category my nerves seemed to always get to me before a race.

What I enjoyed most about the Piranhas is the friends I made and the experience of being such a great swimmer now. I do not know what I would without my knowledge of swimming. If you are interested in joining a summer swim club or any swim club at all I highly recommend it. It is so much fun and great for you.

Thanks for reading bloggers.

Xo.Laura