SWIM FASTER: FREESTYLE
Learning to Gain Seconds on the Foundational Competitive Stroke
Students who reach the Freestyle milestone will:
- Push themselves to set a personal best time
- Learn more about streamlining and minimizing drag
- Get detailed instruction on positioning and breathing patterns
- Standard for mastery: Freestyle with pattern stroke, turns and finishes: goal time x 1 lap for respective pool
The Swim Faster program at Foss Swim School operates differently from our Learn to Swim and Swim Stronger programs. It mimics a swim team, and all students are competent and confident swimmers before they begin. The milestones are all speed-based, and we set a goal time for each swimmer and stroke.
The freestyle is the fastest, most efficient stroke and the foundation of competitive swimming. In the Swim Faster program, the teacher, in the role of coach, will focus on minor refinements to form while also helping motivate the student to remain focused and exert full effort.
Efficiency Over Exertion
A common misconception is that going faster in freestyle simply means moving the arms and legs faster. The goal is to maximize efficiency – move the largest amount of water with your hands and feet while expending the least amount of energy.
Once you have maximized efficiency, then adding speed to your stroke or kick can indeed make you faster, but even here, it is important to balance the energy you are putting out at any moment with the distance you need to swim.
To maximize efficiency in the freestyle, swimmers are coached on five elements that are common across all strokes, but applied differently for each:
Propulsive Hands and Feet
To catch as much water as possible, stretch as far as you can, keep your fingertips pointed to the bottom of the pool, and push back the entire time your hand is underwater. Keep toes pointed to maximize the area that is pushing water, but don’t make the kicks too big – energy is wasted pushing too deep into the pool.
Recovery
When bringing the opposite arm forward, make a delicate recovery over the top of the water to avoid any resistance that can reduce speed. The smaller the splash when the hand enters the water at the start of the next pull, the less resistance is created.
Streamlining
Keeping kicks tight and the head down maintains the most streamlined cross-section possible. Keep your hips high so your legs don’t dangle and slow you down. Keeping one eye in the water when breathing to the side also minimizes motion and reduces drag.
Timing
Once a swimmer has an efficient stroke, the goal is to get arms and legs operating in concert but at different speeds – 5-6 kicks per second, two arm strokes (left and right) every second or so.
Breathing
As endurance builds up, reduce the number of breaths to stroke ratio. Eventually, the fastest swimmers often will only breathe once every six strokes. This improves streamlining.
The Swim Faster Levels
Is Swim Faster right for your student? Since this program (level Big 6 in our Swim Path) assumes students have mastered the four competitive strokes and are familiar with turns, finishes, and swimming longer distances, we recommend a Preview Lesson to assess skills unless you are joining from another FOSS program.
The Swim Faster Levels
Is Swim Faster right for your student? Since this program (level Big 6 in our Swim Path) assumes students have mastered the four competitive strokes and are familiar with turns, finishes, and swimming longer distances, we recommend a Preview Lesson to assess skills unless you are joining from another FOSS program.
Achieving the Freestyle Milestone in the Swim Faster Program
Over a quarter, Swim Faster students will work on these improvements to swim a personal best time and will pass the milestone once they surpass the target time set for the freestyle stroke.
After that, swimmers can work on other stroke milestones in the same quarter, or sometimes return for another quarter of Swim Faster to improve their freestyle speed further. It’s all about what swimmers want to achieve and represents the ultimate culmination of their Swim Path journey with FOSS!
