Wednesday 19 May 2010

This week's swim session focus - Body roll!

Hello there!

This weekend’s swim session is focussing on ‘body roll’. Body roll refers to the rotation of the shoulder, torso and hips about the long axis of the body with each stroke. A good efficient freestyle stroke will result in the shoulders, torso and hips rotating together. The head remains stationary turning only slightly to breathe to each side in time with the body roll and arm action.

Body roll will help improve your freestyle stroke in the following ways:

1. Making arm recovery easier helping to avoid shoulder injury.

2. Using your larger muscles e.g. latissimus dorsi or ‘lats’, and core for power improving propulsion.


3. Lengthening your stoke allowing you to cover a greater distance with fewer strokes.


4. Assisting your breathing by preventing the need to rotate the head too far or lift the head in order to breath.

If you would like to know a little more about body roll have a look at the Swim Smooth website. Remember your fins if you have them it will really help you learn correct technique! See you Saturday. Tim (LFTC Coach)