Freestyle Swimming Drills - Head-Lead Prone Balance

This freestyle swimming drill is designed to teach you how to be balanced in the water in a prone position (lying flat in the water on the chest).

This is the best drill to learn how to keep the hips and legs up while swimming the freestyle stroke.

Swimming Drill Video

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Lie flat in the water, with the face down. The head is aligned with the rest of the body.
Keep the arms relaxed and to the sides of your body.
Start to kick with a gentle flutter kick.
If you notice that your hips and legs have a tendency to sink, try this: push the chest and head down, but still keep the head aligned with the body. You should then notice that the hips and legs come back up.
This is the key lesson of this drill. It's called pressing the buoy. Don't press down too much though, your body should still be more or less horizontal.
When you need to breathe, gently extend the chin to the front until the mouth clears the water.
You will notice that your hips and legs have sunk during the inhale. Press your buoy as described previously to bring the body back into balance.

If your kick is weak you might want to put on swim fins, at least in the beginning. Just make sure that you rebalance your body by pressing the upper body down in the water, not by kicking harder with the fins.
Don't overdo this drill, as extending the chin to get a breath can strain the neck. Once you have understood the principle of pressing your buoy to keep the hips and legs up, move on to the next drill.