Leicester Triathlon Club
Swim Technique School 2024/25
What is Swim School?
Swim School is a group session to help participants develop the skills required to swim front crawl more effectively.
Our approach to developing freestyle technique is not just a random set of exercises. It's a systematic process focusing on foundational skills before progressing to more advanced aspects of the stroke. Swimming drills are a common way to help learn techniques, but they are also a good means of learning poor technique if the drill is poorly executed.
A single drill performed correctly, at the right time, often enough and repetitively will have a much more significant impact than ten ‘cool’ drills all done poorly.
Repetition is key when learning a technique so we try to keep it simple whilst still engaging so you can develop the necessary skill and technique to improve your form.
Swim Technique Breakdown
In swimming, two main factors are acting on a swimmer
Drag
As you swim you create a ‘hole’ in the water. The size of this hole will affect how much resistance you must overcome.
If the technique is poor, this hole can be much larger than it needs to be, requiring a large amount of energy to overcome it.
Propulsion
To move forward in the water, you need to push water behind you, mainly through your arm action, although some swimmers will gain a small amount of propulsion from their kick.
If your body is not in the correct position at the right time, you will not be able to produce a consistent, forceful action, resulting in expended energy but inadequate propulsion
Drag is affected by
- Posture and Core Control
- Body position
- Kick action
- Rotation
- Alignment
- Breathing
Propulsion comprises
- Posture and Core Control
- Timing and rhythm
- Alignment
- Catch and pull
- Kick (for some)
Specifics for Leicester Triathlon Club
Within the group that attended the initial session, we had a range of abilities. To give each person the best experience, we will split the group into two groups: an intermediate group and a more advanced group.
The Intermediate group will be a larger group led by Nick White, who helped with the previous session and works with Mark regularly. Another coach will assist him. Based on the first session this group would take about 10-11 of the swimmers who attended. This will cover 3 lanes.
Mark will lead the advanced group, which will be a smaller group focusing on some higher-level skills with 4 - 5 swimmers in one lane.
The swimmer's speed is not the important factor in determining which group people are in; their level of technical competency is.
We are proposing three sessions before Xmas, with dates to be agreed upon, but we have options on a Sunday from 4:15 - 5:15 pm or Tuesday 8:15 - 9:15 pm.
Swimmers may progress from the Intermediate to the Advanced group from one session to the next.
Video
In the initial session, we captured some video, we don’t foresee doing this during these sessions and that is reflected in the cost of the sessions. If anyone wants video analysis or some feedback, please get in touch with us directly and we can arrange that on an individual basis, or if there are a lot of people who would like some footage, we can put on another short session, specifically to capture the footage. If this is of interest I can provide some more information.
Dates / Times
To help Chris with arrangements, could you please indicate whether you have a distinct preference for the day/time by completing the form?
Obviously there will be specific dates some people cannot do, but if the majority don’t want to swim on Sunday or cannot do a later time then it simplifies things for us organising it.