Swimming Freestyle Stroke
Advanced Slide on Your Side Drill

Swimming Drill Benefits

The next drill for the freestyle stroke teaches you how to inhale in a side position while keeping balance and staying long and extended. This is important to avoid loosing momentum in the freestyle stroke during the inhale phase.

This drill belongs to an older sequence of swimming drills to learn the freestyle stroke. Please consult the Learn How To Swim The Freestyle Stroke article to learn the current sequence of swimming drills.

Swimming Drill Video

Drill Instructions

You start the drill like the basic slide on your side drill:

• Push off the wall.
• Place yourself in a 90° side-lying position.
• Kick with a gentle flutter kick.
• The head is aligned with the spine and rotated up so that the face emerges from the water.
• The higher arm lies on the side and clears the water.
• The lower arm is extended to the front, parallel to the water surface or slightly lower. The palm is rotated towards the bottom of the pool.

Now when you feel comfortable in this side position, do the following:

• Rotate your head so that you directly look towards the pool's bottom.
• If your hips and legs sink, rebalance (push your lower shoulder and head down in the water) to make the hips and legs come back up.
• Slide in this position for a while, then rotate the head back up when you need to breathe, and rebalance if needed.

Swimming Drill Tips

• Exhale in the water while your head is rotated.
• The body should stay all the time in its 90° side-lying position during the drill. It should rotate as few as possible between the head up and head down positions.
• The extended arm should stay extended and feel weightless all the time during the drill.
• Alternate drill lengths and swim lengths once you can comfortably switch between the head up and head down positions. Try to feel the weightless arm while you swim.