Side swimming. What is it? Why is it important?
Side swimming literally makes all the difference -- if you know, you know.
What is side swimming?
The theory of side swimming
What is side swimming? To understand what it is, first understand that the fastest thing you can be in the water is a line.
Lines have no corners or edges for water to get caught on. A line cuts through the water clean and efficiently. Swimmers, on the other hand, with arms and legs and heads, can easily get caught in the water. That is why the streamline is such a valuable asset to any competitive swimmer.
In competitive swimming, dolphin kick with streamline is faster than any stroke, that’s why it’s illegal for swimmers to be in a streamline past the 15 meter mark in the pool. The position is so fast, that any further is considered cheating.
Efficient swimmers know that if lines are the fastest shape, then the fastest part of each stroke is also a line -- but where is the line?
It’s true, at first glance, it might not seem that the four strokes have any lines at all. But they do, they all derive their speed and power from the line - each stroke relies on the line to push the swimmer forward in the water.
Butterfly - hits the line after the recovery
Backstroke - hits the line after the pull
Breaststroke - hits the line after the recovery
Freestyle - hits the line after the pull
Side stroke swimming- why you should care
It’s very cool that the line is the fastest shape in the water, but your biggest takeaway shouldn’t be that the line is the fastest shape in the water. Instead, hear this: if you are not driving the line, you are losing out on the majority of the power you got from your pull. All that kinetic energy, ready to propel you through the water: lost. Your hard work, lost.
Where does that leave you? More tired than you should be and much slower than you should be.
So, let’s get in line -- first, in freestyle.
Freestyle
Freestyle or “front crawl” is the generic swim stroke that most non-competitive swimmers might think of when they think of swimming. I blame this on lifeguards and triathlons.
Though this THE swimming stroke, most people do it wrong. Why? Because we learn to swim on our front; we are taught how to swim on our side too late; we are taught how to swim on our sides improperly; and we end up turning our stroke into a water-weighted down nightmare, with our head and shoulders turning into prime edges and corners for the water to catch onto.
There’s an easier way to do this - side swimming.
Side swimming in practice
Freestyle, when done well, is a three step process:
Step 1: pull
Step 2: side rotation
Step 3: recovery
In step 1, the swimmer gets their power. In step 2, the swimmer has the opportunity to breathe, rest, and move forward in the water. In step 3, the swimmer is able to recover and begin the next pull.
Even though the side position allows the swimmer to take a breath - the swimmer does not have to. In fact, if the swimmer is not breathing on that stroke, they should keep their eyes looking straight down at the bottom of the pool. In other words the body and the head rotate on different planes. The body rotates with each stroke, but the head only rotates up when a breath is needed.
Planes of rotation
When swimming freestyle, swimmers must rotate their bodies (from their shoulders to their feet) and their heads (from right to left). This allows the swimmer to get on their side and, when needed, to breathe.
When I was a kid, one of my coaches described these separate planes of rotation as two separate skewers separated by a bit of wood [your shoulders]:
Your head is a rotating skewer
Your body is a rotating skewer,
But they do not rotate at the same time.
In fact, the head skewer is a bit broken, only rotating to the left or right every few rotations of the body skewer’s rotations.
Each rotation of these skewers requires effort from the swimmer. For the top skewer (the head), the effort is simple (please take this with a grain of salt because it is not simple in practice), all you need to do is turn your head so that your chin is directly over your shoulder. For the bottom skewer, the effort is a little more complicated because the bottom skewer is a lot bigger and needs to be powered by something a lot bigger.
This is where your hips come into play. You cannot rotate correctly if you do not move your hips. That is a fact. When you move your hips you have no choice but to rotate your body. In short, it is the singular most effective and efficient way to rotate in the water. Many people make the mistake of rotating their shoulders. This is common because we usually turn our upper bodies using our shoulders (think of how you would turn around in a chair). Understand that this might be you, and focus on rotating the hips, it will force your upper body and legs to turn on the side.
So, let’s put it all together.
We have a swimmer, they are flat in the water, arms are in streamline, eyes looking straight down at the bottom of the pool.
The swimmer takes their first stroke and breaks their streamline.
The arm pulls down, and as the arm pulls, the hips begin to rotate on the side. So, at the end of the pull, for just a second, the swimmer is laying on their side.
On their side, the swimmer’s eyes are looking down at the bottom of the pool with their chin directly over their shoulder. One of their arms is at the side of their head, the other arm is plastered to the side of their body. Their pelvis is pointing to the side of the pool, as is the front of their pointed feet. Their legs kick back and forth like scissors.
Once this second is over, the swimmer starts their recovery and their front arm gets ready to begin its pull.
On the next stroke, the swimmer will have the opportunity to breathe. They will do so, by twisting their head up towards the air and then twisting it back down, just as they would if they were to shake their head back and forth. This breath is taken when the hips have already rotated and the swimmer’s pelvis is already pointed to the side of the pool. The swimmer’s body is not to rotate back to center until the head is placed firmly back in the water. The swimmer is not to finish their recovery until their head is back in the water.
The swimmer is not to disrupt the line.
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