Considered the most challenging stroke to master, the butterfly would require both your arms to power the movement, aside from the dolphin kick. However, it is noteworthy that it is not always about strength, it is also about rhythm and timing. To add, if this stroke is performed improperly, it can be extremely inefficient and tiring.
In this post, we will be discussing how the perfect butterfly technique is done. It may require a lot of practice to master this technique but when you have successfully done it the proper way, it can be the most aesthetically pleasing and rewarding swimming styles, especially when used in competition. If you are struggling to improve your butterfly stroke, then this article is for you.
The Perfect Butterfly Technique
The butterfly is arguably the most difficult stroke, but it does not have to be. Below you will find the important elements of doing the perfect butterfly technique:
Timing
The Catch: Timing is a very important part of the butterfly stroke. To master the stroke, you need to move your body forward to be able to push the water back. Make sure that your fingers are pointing down, with your palms facing back. You may also bend your elbows so that your forearm is angled vertically. Lastly, ensure that your arms are wide right after entry and extension.
The Press: To perfect the butterfly technique, try driving your body forward with your chest and chin. The chin, particularly, should not be diving down or tucked. In addition, pressing too deep will only compromise the catch, mentioned above. Overall, these three actions happen altogether: pressing your body forward while your hands extend and enter forward, and kicking. Finally, kick your press while you enter forward.
Kicking
Mastering the butterfly technique would also entail you to perform two kicks, which are both equal in terms of size and power. It should be noted, however, that the second kick while you exit is the kick that is most often missed just because our knees do not bend to set the kick up. Then, you need to drive your knee downward.
Breathing
Breathing is another crucial part of performing the butterfly technique. Breathing, when done at the wrong time or if done too high, would only kill a good stroke. What you can do is to breathe forward while staying low. To add, you would also find it advantageous if you have a late breath. You also need to keep your focus on pulling forward to be able to breathe.
If you would notice when watching the best swimmers in the world, you will see that their chin only barely grazes the water’s surface to breathe. Plus, take note of your second kick, as it is a critical part of driving your body forward.
Pull Pattern, Hand Entry, and Recovery
When doing the hand entry, make sure that it is within shoulder width. Your palms should be facing downward while your thumbs come in first or just the same time with the rest of your fingers. Probably the most critical part of the hand entry is that you feel controlled. This allows you not to create a lot of splashes when you enter the water.
The next thing you need to focus on is pushing the water back while you initiate an early vertical forearm using your palms, as well as your arms and forearm. The pull pattern is often determined by how deep you press your body and chest. Lastly, the pull pattern’s finish will set your arms up into recovery, which should be controlled.
Kayaking is such a fun activity. It is full of wonderful opportunities that allow you to experience nature, whether you are running fast on a river or sitting still on a lake. While it can bring you a lot of enjoyment on your day out, it can also be a bit scary once your kayak capsizes. This event can be daunting, especially if you are a beginner.
So, what do you do get back in? Luckily, this post is intended to help you learn how to get back into a kayak after it has flipped over. After all, you have your kayak in the water and at some point, it will eventually flip over, dumping you into that water. Knowing what do in case this happens will save your life. If you are curious, then keep on reading.
The Type of Kayak Are You Riding
As the accidental flipping over of a kayak happens to almost every kayaker, this should not worry you so much. Besides, the unplanned swim could be considered a part of your kayaking trip. For that matter, it is essential that you are informed of the ways on how to get back in your kayak safely and quickly. But first, we need to discuss the type of kayak you’re riding.
The type of kayak you’re riding makes an important difference in the likelihood of you flipping over. This factor also distinguishes what kind of technique is suitable for you. To make you see things a bit clearer, we have highlighted the important differences between these two kinds of kayak, as well as what to do in case the kayak flips over.
Sit-on Kayak
Sit-on kayaks, generally, are used for recreation, especially because it features a spacious beam, which makes it challenging to flip over. In addition, you are sitting on top of it instead of in it. This would also mean that the gravity’s center is higher, making the kayak vulnerable to capsizing because of sudden changes in weight. It is normally easy to get back in this type of kayak, as you won’t be able to find any internal space, as well as a spray skirt. It is also easier to get back in of because you can have your legs placed in no time.
Sit-in Kayak
For starters, sit-in kayaks may seem more vulnerable to capsizing. This is because of your body’s position inside the kayak’s hull. The gravity’s center is lower, making it more challenging for your kayak to flip over, especially through the sudden motions made by your body. Typically, there is a lot more stressing issues, especially when you capsize in this type of kayak than the previous type of kayak. This is true, especially if there is an attached spray skirt, which you need to take into account when you exit the kayak. This type of kayak also takes on a considerable amount of water, which would mean that it is required that you bail out your kayak before you reenter.
How to Get Back into a Kayak
Sit-on Kayak
What you need to do first is to get ahold of your paddle and swim where your capsized kayak is. You may also have to kick your legs while pushing your torso, then, grab the kayak’s hull. While you are holding the hull, you may need to situate your knees back up while you lean backward. Doing this makes the weight of your body pull your kayak over until the hull’s shape takes over. This is where your kayak rights itself.
The major advantage of riding a sit-on kayak, as discussed, is that it does not need to bail in the event of a capsize. In case this happens, you just need to be pushing your upper body towards the kayak’s hull. However, this time, you need to let your legs float behind you rather than situating your knees up while leaning back.
When your body is level with the water, the kayak is less vulnerable to capsizing. You may also pull your body onto your kayak until you’re flat. You’ll know when you’re flat if the center of gravity is already in the middle of your kayak. When you feel that you are stable, you may now try rolling your body until you have your back on the seat. Finally, try swinging your legs up.
Kayaking, either for an adventure or multi-sport race, could be daunting for most of you. Chances are you haven’t been in a kayak for a long time or this experience could be completely unknown territory for you. However, you shouldn’t let this feeling get in the way, as most people often find themselves really enjoying their time in the water.
To provide you with a little steer in the right direction, we will be discussing how to go straight when kayaking. In this post, we have also made a compilation of helpful tips to make your time in your kayak a lot smoother. We guarantee that after you have read this post, you will be gliding in a straight line sooner than you think. Keep reading if you want to know more.
Kayaking: How to Go Straight
Learning the proper way to paddle a kayak forward is quite easy. However, focusing on the correct technique would ensure that you will be able to paddle faster and more efficiently. Doing it in the proper way also eliminates strain on your body. It is also noteworthy that the ideal paddling technique is also dependent on your physical condition, as well as your paddling style.
Sit-on-top kayaks are generally used in most races. As the name suggests, these kayaks are open and a bit bulky, which makes capsizing unlikely to happen. That’s already one thing you can cross off from your worries. Some sit-on-top kayaks are also built for two, which would mean that you need not worry about being alone in the water. For reference, here are the steps on how to go straight when kayaking:
1. Get into position
While some races only entail you to travel about 1 to 2 kilometers, the experience is likely to feel a lot longer if you are in an uncomfortable position, to begin with. Your bum would be all the way back in the kayak seat while your legs are bent slightly. You will also notice a series of pegs cut into your kayak, especially at your feet.
To prevent the feeling of uneasiness while you’re paddling, you might want to straighten your legs and bring them back a couple of pegs. Then, rest your feet in them. As discussed, there should be a slight bend on your legs. It should also be noted that if you have straightened out your legs complete, you will feel an unnecessary strain, especially on your lower back.
2. Good posture
It is very important that you are sitting up straight when you’re in your kayak. As opposed to popular belief, it will not be your arms that will provide power for every stroke that you do. It is actually your core. With this, it is perfectly normal that your arms exert a lot of effort when kayaking.
Swimming delivers enormous fitness benefits. Swimming for about 2.5 hours per week decreases your risk for acquiring chronic diseases, studies say. It also has the capability to improve mood and decrease anxiety. To add, swimming would also make be a great choice for those who have arthritis, among other pain conditions.
In this post, we will be discussing five of the essential swim skills that you need to be aware of. The sport would take a bit of coordination, from your arms and legs to your swimming strokes and breathing. Even if you do not join swimming competitions anytime soon, you should be able to perform these basic swimming skills. Keep reading if you want to know more.
Breathing
Breathing comes naturally to all of us, even when we are not swimming. In fact, it is one activity that will continue to function without any kind of conscious thought or interruption. Breathing is easy when swimming. You just need to remember the two very important aspects of breathing, in which you should be comfortable with: a rhythm to your breathing and your face in the water.
The first step is keeping your face in the water. The reason is that if you swim with your face out of the water or your head up, there is a risk that your hips and legs will drop invariably. In addition, it might create more drag if you are in a low-hip or high-head position, making it a lot more challenging to swim due to resistance.
There could be several techniques for keeping your face in the water. First, make sure that you are wearing comfortable goggles. Second, you need to focus on looking at the pool’s bottom. It could also help if you keep staring at the black line found at the center of the pool lane. Third, take rest breaks in case you are experiencing anxiety. Lastly, private lessons accompanied by practice has also been proven to be very helpful.
When you have mastered keeping your head or face in the water, you need to know how to breathe. The most important action is to start exhaling through your mouth or nose, as soon as you have finished breathing in. However, a problem among beginners is that they try to hold their breath when their face is in the water. Then, they try to exhale and inhale when they turn to breathe. It should be noted that this only results in a shallow and poor breath, as well as the quick buildup of carbon dioxide in your lungs.
Sink Downs
Being able to exhale constantly is necessary, especially for an efficient freestyle stroke. However, many athletes, including beginners, just hold their breath under the water. To be able to master your exhalation, a sink-down exercise is highly recommended. If you find it difficult to exhale just to sink down, then this would mean that you are not exhaling enough in your stroke.
If you are struggling to sink, you might be holding your breath subconsciously. On the other hand, if you sink down but immediately pop back up, then you certainly need to exhale a lot more quickly. Once you have mastered this exercise, try doing at least three sink downs consecutively before, so you can release some tension while reminding yourself to breathe properly.
Tumble Turn
Tumble turns are also important skills for swimmers to master, especially when they start to perform repetitive sets or increase the distances. It is also vital that trainers teach this skill, as it will allow swimmers to be able to keep moving without causing interruption by touching the wall just to go again.
Doing tumble turns is a skill that will help you achieve the practice time that you need. It also can improve your speed, especially if you are working on timed sets. Once you have mastered this skill, you may need to practice it again, but this time as a relay in two or three lanes, that is if you have space. Swimmers can also race for fun while allowing them to fully understand the approach. While this may be very difficult for some, it will certainly require practice, patience, and repetition.
Watching swimmers who demonstrate a powerful kick can be such an inspiration, especially for beginners like you. They exhibit a very fluid, powerful, and effortless performance, the very reason why you should train and practice your freestyle kick. Whether you are a sprinter or a distance swimmer, a powerful freestyle kick is very important for fast swimming.
In this post, we will be discussing our tips on freestyle kick to help you swim faster. As this guide will help promote improvement in your body position and an adequate measure of propulsion, we do hope that it can also help you maintain your speed in between strokes. Keep reading if you want to know more.
Why Working on Your Freestyle Kick is Essential
Doing freestyle kicks when swimming goes beyond just giving your shoulders a rest. It is also very easy to comprehend why we sometimes forget the legs, as they work autonomously down below. It could also be because we only pay attention to what is happening in front of us, especially with our hands and arms. Having a solid freestyle kick will certainly help you become a better swimmer and here’s why:
It provides you added propulsion
The ultimate goal of mastering your freestyle kick is because you want to go a lot faster. The faster you are able to kick, the faster you are able to swim. It’s as basic as that.
It gives you the perfect body position in the water
For sprinters, kicking helps them to maintain a high body position. While the goal of being complete hydro-planing could still be a farfetched idea, you may think that this is the goal.
It helps you launch into an arm pull
A strong freestyle kick can help you launch into an arm pull. The reason is that a strong kick, paired with strong legs, effectively add power to hip rotation. This, in turn, will be able to help you drive your arms into a forward position, which is the gateway for a more dynamic and faster arm pull.
It helps you keep your strokes together
You would notice that keeping your legs strong come in handy, especially towards the end of your races – specifically when your muscles start to fail and your strokes disintegrating as each meter passes by. If you have the endurance in your lower extremities, it would be of great benefit because it keeps your body position powerful, and at the same time, efficient.
Tips on Freestyle Kick to Help You Swim Faster
To help you swim faster, we will be going over three small details that can certainly make a big difference – tempo, transition, and form, which will determine how fast you can move. To perform a very effective freestyle kick, you are required to have amazing ankle flexibility. The more flexible your ankles are, the less drag you are likely to create.
You may notice from more experienced swimmers that they don’t move their ankles a lot while keeping their knees a little bent when going down and their knees straight when going up. To be able to do this technique, you should be able to relax your hamstring and activate your quads well. When your leg is going up, you may need to activate your hamstrings and calves after you have learned the trick.
When freestyle kicking, you also need to perfect the tempo of your kick. This can vary depending on the distance you are swimming. However, the most common tempo is six kicks every two strokes. It could also be three kicks with one leg while your one arm does one stroke cycle. If you notice, the timing of the kick is of great importance, mainly because of the rotation and the movement of your muscles in your core.
It would also be better if your right leg goes down while your left arm enters the water. While it is gliding, you can do another kick and use that momentum to be able to start when your leg goes down again. When you swim freestyle, the most effective thing that you can do after turning is to do several butterfly or dolphin underwater kicks.
In case you don’t know, this effectively carries the speed of your push. However, it is also noteworthy that theproblem most swimmers have is that they lose the speed, especially in the transition from underwater kicks to freestyle kicks. The first few freestyle kicks are also very important. They need to be fast and they need to start right before the arms start moving.
What You Need to Improve to Perfect Your Freestyle Kick
Ankle Strength
While most swimmers don’t have the most stable ankles, they still spend a majority of their training time in the water, in which they build up their ankle strength by skipping into their mobility and warm up plan. To add, skipping rope has also been proven to be a low-key way to quickly develop ankle strength, as well as improve a swimmer’s overall athleticism.
Ankle Flexibility
Having a flexible ankle when freestyle kicking would mean that you will be able to catch more water using your foot, as well as achieve an early vertical ankle, which allows you to push a lot more water backward. However, it should be noted that for swimmers with limited ankle mobility, it would require them mobilization work such as ankle rockers and ankle rotations.
Kick Mindfully
When you are doing freestyle kick sets, you should certainly be mindful of your leg, hip, and ankles’ movements. Kicking mindlessly sure is fun, especially for aerobic endurance. However, if you want to be as efficient as possible, you are going to be very mindful of yourfreestyle kicking techniques.
Avoid kicking down and start to kick backward
When freestyle kicking, we definitely want to start kicking the water backward instead of kicking the water downwards. This trick would require ankle flexibility. Otherwise, you will only bend your knee to a 90-degree angle just to be able to push the water backward, using the top of your feet.
Conclusion
Improving your freestyle kick is no longer a mystery. It is also not only reserved to top athletes when it comes to swimming. With this guide, we hope that you will also be able to improve your kick. All you need is your consistent and focused effort to master these techniques. Hopefully, we are of great assistance in helping you improve not only your kick but also your speed.
As a beginner, you need to learn basic surf etiquette, including those that we will briefly mention in the rest of this post. These are actually unwritten rules that you have to know by heart. These things will be important for your safety and while making sure that you won’t annoy anyone who also happens to be in the water.
1. Choose the Right Surf Spot
One of the most important things that you should do is to choose a spot that will work best for your abilities. Be realistic in terms of what you can do and what you still have to learn. As a sign of respect for other surfers, do not go into an area that you know is not for you. Other than compromising your safety, you might just upset other surfers as well. Do your research beforehand and see spots that are categorized as beginner-friendly. The waves should not be too big and the bottom of the water should not be rocky, which will minimize the likelihood of suffering from an injury.
2. Don’t Drop In
This is one of the most important etiquettes that every beginner should learn. The concept of dropping in operates under the premise that one surfer is equal to one wave. Meaning, there should be no two surfers who are propelling towards the same direction. It is important to know who has the right of way, and you must respect this. If you go against the right of way, you are burning the wave of another surfer, and this is exactly one thing that you do not want to happen to you as well. Not only that it is disrespectful, but it will also result in serious injury or surfboard damages. With this, you should learn how to take it slow and wait until it is finally your turn to ride the wave.
3. Don’t Snake
Aside from dropping in, snaking is another disrespectful behavior that novice surfers must avoid. Simply put, snaking is the act of intentionally paddling around the surfer to be able to get the right of way. Literally, this makes you a snake trying to crawl at a space that is not supposed to be yours. If there is already a surfer who is waiting for the wave, do not go there. Or, at least, wait for that person to be able to catch the wave before you paddle towards that direction.
4. Paddle Wide
This is one of the best ways for you to avoid other surfers. By being able to paddle wide, you won’t be able to impede on the way of another surfer. Again, this is related to the things that have been mentioned above with regards to the right of way. Also, paddling wide means that you should not paddle through the peak. If you are already caught inside, it is best to stay in the water rather than being in a rush to go out and ahead of other surfers. If you are too aggressive, you will most probably end up upsetting other surfers.
5. Take Turns
This is another etiquette that is related to those that have been mentioned above. Do not get too excited by the wave in front of you. You should know how to consider other surfers, especially if you are in a crowded spot. After all, you surely haven’t paid to have the spot all for yourself. You need to learn how to be patient. You have to learn how to determine if it is your turn to ride the wave. It requires the need for you to wait in line. There are some who call this break sharing. By taking turns, the one who will be waiting for the longest time will be at the end and nearest the peak.
6. Communicate
Even when you are out in the sea and enjoying a good surf, communication is important. This necessitates the need to talk to other surfers in the same spot as you. This will make it easier to know whether someone is going left or right. You need to know the intentions of other people to avoid injury and to be not seen as someone who has no manner. Sometimes, you do not even need to talk. Simple hand signals can already be enough to let someone know what you are about to do.
7. Respect the Locals
Whenever you are surfing, make sure that you always respect the locals. Do not think that they act as if the place is exclusive to them. As they say, if you want to gain respect, you should give respect. It is mutual. It is possible that locals have their own rules, so be sure to respect it when you are in their community. Before you surf, it will be good to have the opportunity to talk to a local. You should also watch them surf and learn from your observations. Take note of their variations as well. Plus, if they tell you to not surf in a specific spot because it is unsafe, listen. After all, they know better!
8. Hold on to your Board
A lot of beginners are surely guilty of letting go of their board after they fall on the water. After all, this is a common instinct for those who were shocked by what just happened. Some might not just know the best way to react. However, take note that letting the board go is one of the rudest things that other surfers would not want to see. Holding on to the board will prevent the possibility of causing injury to other surfers. Do not just dive under the water and forget about the board as it can hit other people. Especially for beginners, the boards are usually large and heavy, and hence, they can cause serious injury when it hits someone.
9. Say Sorry
If you ever mess up, own up to it. Learn how to say sorry to the other surfer. This is one of the easiest ways to gain a new friend while on the water. In some instances, the other surfer might even inform you that you did something wrong. Do not take offense. Rather, take this as constructive criticism, an opportunity to learn something new. Some surfers might start shouting and cursing when you do something that you aren’t supposed to do. Most, meanwhile, will be more understanding, especially if they could tell that you are a beginner. Regardless, the important thing is for you to apologize, own up to your mistakes, and avoid committing the same thing in the future.
