If you want to improve your swimming then you need to remember that everyone can get better. From the world’s best to the little kids just starting out. Everyone is always trying to improve something about their swimming. So how do you improve with ease? Is there a magic trick to getting better and why do some people improve faster than others. Everyone learns in different ways but there are some basic principles that you can follow to help you improve your swimming.
Changes and time
When we start to learn we have minimum knowledge about techniques and we can make a lot of errors. Then we start to improve by making big changes to our technique. Then once we have honed those bigger skills we then start to make smaller adjustments. Even Olympic swimmers make slight adjustments to get more out of their stroke and technique. Some of these slight changes can take a lot of time to become automatic. When your try to improve your swimming you will find that you may have a large improvement to start with and then a gradual smaller improvement over time. Remember small changes rehearsed over time equals big improvements.
Get feedback
Feedback is critical when you want to improve your swimming. That’s why you need a coach or a minimum some someone who can give you some feedback. Finding a squad to training with as an adult can be tricky, however, there are alternatives. I would be sure that if you have a local swim coach in your town that they would happily give you some feedback on your technique. There as also online coaching services available too. Always remember to check your ego at the door when you getting feedback. Sometimes people are going to say things that your not going to like, but honest feedback is the best type.
Practice
Ok, so you now have your feedback, whats next? Practice, practice, practice. When you get your male sure you understand it. If you don’t know exactly what’s wrong or what you need to work on you could possibly practice the wrong thing. When practicing to improve your swimming you need to focus on the details. With each stroke, you take you need to remember your feedback and try to adjust. Always remember that you don’t practice to get it right. You practice so that you cant get it wrong.
Copy the best
Success leaves clues. Youtube and Facebook are filled with helpful videos on how to improve your technique. Some of these are pretty good however some can be less than useless. My best advice on this would be to look for videos that have the current world’s best. A great video to watch and try to emulate would of Ian Thorpe. Click here to see it.
Test yourself.
As they say, the proof is in the pudding. You have now done all the hard work on improving your technique. So how do you test yourself? Well, the easiest way is to simply time yourself and see if you have gotten faster. If your trying to improve your swimming technique then a time decrease might not be the only thing you want to judge improvement by. Instead, look for things like efficiency, the ease of movement through the water, and your coach or anybody watching should be able to see a noticeable improvement in your swimming.
Now, here is the easy part, start the cycle over and repeat it.
Good luck.