Freestyle Swimming Drills - Head-Lead Supine Balance

The next few freestyle swimming drills introduce you to balance in the water. You are balanced when your body is perfectly horizontal in the water while swimming the freestyle stroke.

The drill on this particular page will teach you balance in a supine position (on the back). Teaching balance on the back first minimizes breathing issues. Subsequent drills will teach you balance lying on the stomach and on the side.

How To Become Balanced In The Water

To become balanced in the water you will need to learn how to press your buoy. Your buoy is in fact located in the upper body, at the level of your lungs. This area is the most buoyant of the body and you can leverage it to keep the hips and legs up.

You see, our hips and legs are among the most dense parts of the body which is fortunate when we are on land because it helps us to stay erect. But in the water it becomes an inconvenience and we need to counteract our legs' tendency to sink.

So what we need to do is to press our head and upper body down while we are lying flat in the water. As our lungs are buoyant, our chest will then act as a pivot and our hips and legs will automatically rise. Nice, isn't it?

Balance Advantages

Being balanced while swimming freestyle has several advantages:

  • It reduces drag because the body is more slippery and moves in a smaller cylinder of water.
  • You need to kick less harder to keep the legs up, which saves oxygen and energy. (The front upper leg muscle, the quadriceps, is the body's largest muscle and consumes a large amount of oxygen when used. This explains why beginners are often quickly out of breath because they kick hard to keep their legs up).

Freestyle Swimming Drill Video

Lets now have a look our swimming drill:

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How To Do The Drill

  • Lie flat in the water, with the face up. The head is aligned with the rest of the spine.
  • Tuck in the chin slightly.
  • Keep the arms relaxed to the sides of the body.
  • Start to kick with a gentle flutter kick.
  • If you notice that the hips and legs drop, lean more on your shoulder blades and back of the head. This should make the hips and legs rise. Don't counteract sinking legs by kicking harder!

Some Tips

  • If you find it hard to kick or don't get enough propulsion, try to wear swim fins. You can always remove them later once you become more proficient with the drill. Another option to improve the kick is to do some vertical kicking first.
  • If you don't know what it feels like to stay parallel to the water surface, have a friend spot you and correct mistakes you might be doing (bending at the hips while kicking, etc...).
  • If you can't concentrate on the drill because you get water in the nose, wear a nose clip.
  • Even though this drill is done on the back and the face is emerged, wear swimming goggles so that you aren't distracted by getting water into the eyes.

Related Pages


Top of Freestyle Swimming Drills - Head-Lead Supine Balance