Even the best of swimmers get stuck sometimes when learning a new skill. We could all use some help with our lessons. That’s why Coach Mollie shared a few inside tips to help you get over your station 4 hurdle!
Side Glide Kick
The Side Glide Kick drill is important for teaching you to finish each kick and for teaching you how long to hold the glide between kicks.
At home lay on your couch or bed and practice balancing on one side with one arm arm up and one arm down so they get the feeling of being on their side instead of their back
Scissor Kick
The scissor kick is a lower-body movement that helps propel swimmers through the water. It is easy for beginners to learn because it requires only a simple opening and closing of your straightened legs to provide forward momentum.
Make sure you kick with a straight leg and a pointed foot. You don’t want to be bicycling anywhere. you want to look more like [riding] scooters than we are riding bicycles.”
Backwards Bobs
The swimmer throw their legs up on the side of the pool and go backwards to blow nose bubbles. A lot of kids don’t know what nose bubbles are until they get to that point, so there’s no cheating that one.
“You just got to practice blowing your nose into a tissue, because that’s what you do in the water. It’s disgusting, but true.”
Somersaults
Knowing how to somersault is critical to perfecting a flip turn, but you may have a hard time adjusting to being both upside-down and underwater. Coach Mollie says it’s not as different as above water:
“Somersaults in the water is just like rolling on land. Practice rolling on the carpet to get used to the motion.”
Crawl Stroke
While the front crawl stroke can be the fastest method to swim, poor technique can exhaust a swimmer quickly. “[Swimmers] dance. They don’t know they have to rotate their body when they swim. They try to reach and makes their hip go out weird. Their arms start to hurt.”
Things Coach Mollie says to focus on include, “rotate your full body while kicking, keep your arms parallel instead of dabbing, go ‘over the rainbow’ with a bent elbow, and make sure you’re swimming with ice cream scoopers, not swiss cheese-hands.
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