Turn your head to one side and draw a breath through your mouth. Do not lift your head straight up. Hold your knees straight and kick your legs from the hip. Kick relatively fast and make the smallest splashes possible. Your feet should not come out of the water. Exhale underwater, turn your head and draw a new breath. Continue your kicks and breathing until you are comfortable breathing while kicking.
Stand with your back to the side of the pool, facing across the shallow end to the opposite side. Bend at the knees, extend your left arm in front, take a breath and push away from the side with your legs. As you move away from the side, your face should go in the water and your legs should begin to kick as you take a forward stroke with your right arm.
Continue kicking as you make concentrated strokes, bringing each hand back until the palm is at your side as you reach ahead to stroke with the other arm. Make two strokes with each arm, turn your head and draw a breath, return your head to straight and continue. Practice this until you feel comfortable with the breathing and you are able to swim the width of the pool without having to stop. Swimming statistics show 30 minutes will burn about calories for a pound person, according to Harvard Health Publishing.
Bringing your arms out of the water and reaching ahead in a flat circular motion rather than overhead can save energy. Focus on the positions of your wrists as your hands enter the water. Concentrate on the positions of your elbows and forearms as your hands sweep from overhead to your hips. Pay attention to the roll of your body, your flutter kick, and how you exhale as your head turns downward in the water.
Freestyle is easy once you get the hang of it. Fins can be invaluable for that purpose, especially in the beginning. Are using fins cheating? Perhaps if you never take them off. The instructors at the DuPage Swimming Center have years of experience teaching both adults and children how to swim. Always make sure an adult, instructor or lifeguard is watching you or helping you learn.
Next, get comfortable by learning how to hold your breath. To hold your breath, take a long inhale and wait to exhale. Once you learn to hold your breath, you can try to float. Start by making your body parallel with the surface of the water while lying on your back.
Ask an adult to spot you as you find your balance in the water. Try to maintain your parallel posture on your back for a few moments unassisted without submerging your face. Always practice in the shallow end, so you can stand up when you need to. Try keeping your head face-down in the water for a few seconds while holding your breath, but always come up for air when you feel that you need it. To learn how to swim the freestyle, breast, butterfly, and back strokes, try working with a qualified instructor.
Did this summary help you? Yes No. Log in Social login does not work in incognito and private browsers. Please log in with your username or email to continue. No account yet? Create an account. Edit this Article. We use cookies to make wikiHow great. By using our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Cookie Settings. Learn why people trust wikiHow. Download Article Explore this Article parts.
Tips and Warnings. Things You'll Need. Related Articles. Article Summary. Part 1. Let go of your fear. A lot of people put off learning how to swim because they're afraid of drowning. While drownings do occur, most of them could have been prevented by simple safety measures. Follow these guidelines whenever you're swimming, and the odds of drowning will decrease dramatically: [1] X Research source Don't swim alone.
Always go swimming with one other person who is a strong swimmer, if not several other people. An area with a lifeguard is usually the best place to swim.
Don't start out swimming in moving water. If you're learning to swim in an ocean or river, you'll need to be more aware of the motion of the water. If you must learn to swim this way, try to make sure you're with someone who knows what he or she is doing, and be sure to read the step about getting out of a riptide or a rushing river below.
Stay within a depth you can handle. When you're first learning how to swim, don't venture into water that's too deep for you to stand in. That way, if something goes amiss, you can simply stand up and breathe. Avoid swimming during inclement weather conditions.
Swimming in a light rain shower should be fine, but if you see or hear a storm approaching, get out of the water immediately. This rule is to be followed regardless of how well you can swim.
Don't swim in water that's too cold. Moving your limbs to paddle can become suddenly difficult if you're in frigid water. Get used to floating. When you're in the water, hold on to the side of the pool or a dock, and let your legs float out behind you - they should lift easily if you let them.
But, for some people, they like to sink to the bottom, while your upper body floats. Don't worry; just retry the method again.
Practice doing this on your stomach and on your back, until you're used to letting half of your body float. Stay in a shallow depth so that you can simply stand up if it's not working out. It might feel weird to have water around your ears while your nose and mouth are in the air, but you'll get used to it. For extra stability, put out your arms at a right angle so that your body is in a "T" shape.
When floating for the first time, you can try taking a deep breath and then floating. If your lungs are full of air, your body will float for sure. Do this until you're more experienced. Don't panic. Always remember that you have a fallback if you're in an unmanageable depth or you simply can't move your limbs - floating on your back. Don't flail around or start breathing quickly if you can't swim; simply lie back as flat as you can, and let the water carry you while you regain your composure.
A good tip for floating on your back is to hold your breath and have lungs full of air. Another good tip is to stick your stomach out. Practice exhaling underwater. While you're still in a shallow depth, take a deep breath and put your face underwater.
Slowly exhale out your nose until you're out of breath, then come back up. Bubbles should come out. You can also exhale out of your mouth, but usually in big bubbles until you finally let out a stream of bubbles. Wear goggles optional. Wearing goggles can help you feel more comfortable opening your eyes underwater, and might allow you to see more clearly. Find a pair with spongy circles around the eyes and dip them in the water, so that they'll stick to your skin.
Tighten the strap around the back of your head so that the goggles fit snugly. Part 2. Practice kicking your legs. Whether you're floating on your back or still holding on to the side of the pool, you can practice kicking.
To see how far each kick can propel you, practice it using a kickboard. Breathing correctly is also a huge part of having swimming stamina—eventually, you can get the point where you can swim a whole lap without breathing. For breaststroke , imagine your hands are both scooping out a huge mixing bowl full of cookie dough. When you bring your hands back to the top, finish your frog kick. This movement, combined with a constant butterfly kick that starts at the hips, is definitely the hardest combination to master.
Exercises and drills are a great way to work on form; for freestyle, the Fingertip drill, the Catch-up drill and the Fist drill explained in detail here are all good basics. If you want to work on just arms, you can use a pull buoy between your legs that will keep your legs from sinking while you pull. Some people also like swim paddles , or fins, to give them a feel for better swimming technique. When I was at swim camp, they would shoot us swimming underwater and then play the tape back so we could see what we were doing wrong.
And if you start swimming laps regularly, you will begin to recognize people at the pool who are pretty good. You can watch them for form tips, or even ask them for them; most people who like swimming are happy to talk about it if you catch them at a good time. This would be an important time to talk about lane etiquette , which is a huge topic that really deserves a whole blog. That being said: know your speed, and stay in the lane of your speed. Allow people to pass you. Do not spend half your workout hanging out at the end of the lane, getting in the way.
0コメント