Swimming Freestyle - Slide on your Side Drill

Slide on your side is a swimming drill to get you started swimming freestyle more on the sides while also maintaining a good balance and a long body.

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.

Learning how to swim the freestyle stroke more on the sides is a great way to reduce drag and become faster. However swimming on the sides feels unnatural at first. But with this drill you will quickly become comfortable sliding up and down the pool in this position. Have fun!

Swimming Drill Video

Instructions

• Push off the wall and rotate your body to bring it into a side position.
• Position your head so that it looks up at the ceiling. It should stay aligned with the spine.
• Extend your bottom arm in front of you with your hand a few inches below the water surface.
• The top arm lies extended on the side of your body.
• The shoulders are stacked vertically and compact.
• The legs and feet kick with a relaxed flutter kick.
• The head and lower shoulder push down in the water so that the hips and legs are counter-balanced and stay up.
• Now slide the pool up and down in this side position. Alternate the sides at each length.

Drill Benefits

If done correctly, this drill allows you to slide easily in the water with a relaxed kick. This is because this position unites the three key swimming skills to reduce drag:

1. You glide in a balanced position, with your hips and legs up.
2. You make your body as tall as possible because your lower arm is extended and supported by the water.
3. You glide on your side, further reducing drag.

Some Tips

You may notice that it's easier to keep balance and slide on one side than on the other. This is often the case and perfectly normal. For example, personally I have better balance on the right side.

The causes for this can be multiple: one lung is smaller than the other, one side of your body is stronger than the other, etc. Just drill some more on the weaker side to compensate if you find yourself in this situation.