Tuesday Tips: Develop A Feel For the Water

Develop a feel for the water

Water is an alien environment to us; something we’re not used to. Start off by simply learning how your body moves and feels in the water – it’s so important. At first you don’t even need to try and float.

Sculling in shallow water. Practise sculling in shallow water to develop a feel for the water.
Stand in the shallow end with your hands in the water and start to move your hands and arms around gently. Think about using your hands like paddles. Push against the water and feel the pressure on your palms – this is the beginning of something called ‘feel for the water’ that is very important to swimming technique.

As you get used to this, try crouching down in the water and let it take some of your weight, all the time continuing to move your hands and arms. Do this for about 5 minutes. Even when you are moving on to learning the freestyle action we recommend you start every session with this exercise.

We much prefer using a pool that is nice and warm for novice swimmers, a cold pool can add to feelings of anxiety.

(taken from Swim Smooth)

And don’t forget…