Try This – a series of short tips you can try yourself, straight from the master Steven Shaw…
Centre side centre swimming with underwater recovery – it may not have a catchy title but if you love the front crawl this simple hint could transform your stroke!
To learn to rotate and centre the body without the challenge of having to recover the arms over the water. This is the core action in front crawl. This also helps to overcome the tendency of turning the head with the body and supports awareness of the inside and outside of the body as well as helping to develop good breath control.
- Launch into a glide with hands at shoulder width and palms facing down and start a gentle leg action.
- Initiate the rotation by turning the lead hand as if to shake someone hand forward and slightly down into the water drawing the back and slightly up to the hip.
- During this propulsive action maintain the position of the head, this achieved by extending the muscles on the side of the neck you are turning towards and extending the same leg.
- Turn the the lead arm flat as the recovering arm slides back under the water as the leg action assists the rotation back to the centre.
As you extend see if you can feel the whole underside of the body from the hip extend.
Consciously breathe out during the propulsive phase.
Initiate the recovering action from the shoulder and chest.
Feel the rhythm is 1 beat on the propulsive action to the side 2,3,4 as the body returns to the centre.
Enjoy!