Hand Stays Near the Hip As It Leaves the Water

Swimming: Freestyle: Coaching Cues to Prevent Wide Arm Recovery

A streamlined body position is one of the keys to efficient freestyle technique. And a key to good streamlining is keeping the body in a straight line as it moves through the water.

A technical error that impairs streamlining is swinging the arms wide as they move forward over the water. This technique is inefficient because the wide arm-swing causes the body to shift sideways, forcing it to “snake” through the water instead of moving in a straight line.

A wide arm-swing often occurs when the hand is positioned away from the hip as it leaves the water (and if the body doesn't rotate enough to ?allow the arm to move forward over the body).

Instead, the hand should leave the water close to the hip as the body rotates. It should be brought straight forward, close to the body, instead of swinging wide over the water.

Coaching Cues
Here are two coaching cues you can use to keep the hands close to the hip as they leave the water.

Tell your swimmers to “take their hand out of their side pocket,” or “take a gun out of a holster” as it leaves the water.

This cue will help your swimmers visualize where the hands should be as they leave the water and begin moving forward.

Reference: Jim Montgomery & Mo Chambers, Mastering Swimming, Human Kinetics, 2009. http://www.humankinetics.com

To download the pdf version of this
article, click here: Download Now