Use This To Reduce Your Stroke Count

When you find yourself struggling to reduce your stroke count, this drill will help you fix an important part of your freestyle technique.
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Chapters:
0:18 What's the problem?
0:35 The fastest point in your stroke
1:05 Slide and glide drill
1:30 The rubber band effect
2:10 How to do the drill
3:05 Add this to your warm up
3:54 What can go wrong
4:44 Lead arm
5:21 Shoulder and cheek
6:36 Elite swimmers examples

[@damngrooveman2013]

When I started my first crawling at the end of 2018, I was so slow and without any technic and made all mistakes which are possible to do. Than I watched all your nice videos since more than a year and followed your advices. I needed once more than 2 minutes for 100m and have been nearly ready for emergency. Now I reach 1:08 and I'm still not out of breath. One of your best videos I find was about Katie Ledecky - because I am a 1-2 beat swimmer. Effortless swimming was my goal - I reached it now and can still improve further...(Y) And - I'm 69 and never tired of learning by doing your stuff, taking your advices and training your technic tips...:-)

[@timmackey2896]

Started swimming again after a 50 year hiatus. Found I was having to stop and rest every 50 meters. Watched your videos changed my stroke completely a few weeks ago and now doing 400-500 meters in sets with same amount of rest I had been taking every 50,or 100 meters prior. Thanks for your timely instruction.

[@jamiegutierrez8583]

Just this morning during my swim I realized I had gotten away from reaching out .Lately things have just seemed a bit off on my swim Perfect timing for the video

[@zinnia20207]

I've been doing this drill with snorkel and fins. It really helps to create muscle memory so I keep good form when swimming. Thanks for the video.

[@sharingstoke]

Try to progress to no fins and no snorkel! Let me know which one you ditch first!

[@zinnia20207]

@Jonathan Jennings I ditched the fins, but do a few laps with them for leg strength. I have been using the power breather wave snorkel for 2 years in February. I will never ditch it. I swim for exercise, not competition, but by getting my form down, I've cut 8 minutes off my mile.

[@dakzer55]

After 2 years struggling with freestyle, experimenting with quicker stroke rate, I am starting to feel the glide now in my stroke. If I miss the glide it feels almost as if you are not propelling forward no matter how hard I pull or how fast my stroke rate is. Thank you for highlighting the importance of the glide in this video, and I am sure many of your other videos.

[@nowaythisway1694]

The best drill for feeling the glide is, take two or three armsstrokes and leave one arm in front and the other on the side of your body. Use your legs a little and try to glide a few meters. Then do it with the other arm in front. This is the best exercise for feeling the water resistance.

[@davilfs]

@@nowaythisway1694 I do this you mentioned... 3 armsstrokes, stand on on side, and 6 kicks. It's amazing, but I feel as if it evolves more the hips, the core and the head position. For me the drill of the video seems to work more with the shoulders, lats, hands... Seems to work on the movements of the catch and glide... Gonna include it on my training

[@simonshusse]

I started training swimming as an adult. However I train with former competetive swimmers and they are 10-50% faster than me at any given time. I always search for stuff that they do that I can pick up and this is by far the most important part to pick up, second only to hours in the pool ^.^. I categorize it under "don't get in the way of the water", something that can be really challenging for non lifetime swimmers. Good stuff this.

[@jojijosette5946]

Thank you Brenton. Youre helping me a lot to keep improving my freestyle. Im an intermediate swimmer.

[@Mrdibzahab]

I find in really helpful to swim behind someone to practise this. You feel like a pro when you are just as fast with half the stroke count :) Catch-up drills also give you the time to reach and glide.

[@dominickdaalhuizen1158]

I had the reach tip from one of your other videos and after months of swimming with a coach for 2 times a week it finally clicked. From needing to rest every 100 meters to an easy 500 meter warm up in 10 minutes in one go. THANK YOU

[@colinsimpson3243]

Great tip, and well presented in the video, this technique really does make a difference

[@scottreutter]

I need to try this drill! My extended arm seems to drop and pull too soon when I take a breathe.

[@danielcercasgarcia3044]

Thanks so much for the explanation about this video greetings from Mexico

[@ShreksSpliff]

I'm gonna need bigger flippers for this. What beautiful technique and strength demonstrated.

[@b3arwithm3]

At what point do we start the pull? When the other hand enters the water?

[@MrBraindead101]

Thanks for this video. I breathe to the right and don't have a problem rotating and extending my left arm. I tend not to rotate and reach my right arm nearly as much. Amazingly (though not really to those who watch these videos) simply reaching more on the right took about 3 seconds off my 100m time in a set of 100m Intervals. Now the trick is to do this all the time...

[@357saleemb]

Ii

[@357saleemb]

Ii

[@livinginitaly16years80]

Hi from northern Italy 🇮🇹👍 aussie coach in Italy 17 years

[@dianabenobo]

When the hand starts the leading edge vortex and the displacing stream tube of the arm generates the additive quanta of toroidal vortices, the stroke begins with a lateral stretching of the unified array of cycles to where the catch begins with the initiation of another leading edge upon the vortex shear and every finger dances out another vortex street ... or not.

[@EffortlessSwimming]

😂

[@RickMartinYouTube]

I've been working on the glide and reach a lot lately while I've been working on my breathing using the catch-up drill ---it has been used exclusively lately as I work on adding distance for endurance

[@jojijosette5946]

Thank you for this info. Very helpful.

[@fernandosanchez6953]

🙏thank u💕 this is very helpful ❤

[@natashajohnson186]

Got back to the pool last week in Sydney Brenton. Long story short …. Not good . There is a good side tho , I hurt in all the right places , across the chest and top of the back . Not arms and legs . Disappointed in myself but work on it . This is a good drill to back to , doing it tomorrow morning. Hope everything goes well for you in Melbourne guys !!! You’ve had it worse than Sydney, enjoy your freedom from lockdown!

[@KeithHiew]

You Aussies need to rise up and show your government YOU the people are the ones truly in control. Enough is enough of stupid lockdowns.

[@inz_uzi]

@@KeithHiew Why don't we go all the way and simply let people die in the streets cause covid is stupid.

[@tuyulnyasar2784]

I has been try this... less energy to use and more enjoyable doing freestyle when glide on each stroke, but sometimes during slide glide my body is over rotation itself 😅.

[@Lovely-elf830]

Thanks!

[@EffortlessSwimming]

Thanks Gerard!

[@SuperCuriouss]

i drop to 47spm (thanks form goggles), mainly because i don't have the strength to keep moving. first 100m im near 60spm with good form and can feel everything working well.... then suddenly the brakes come on for the rest of the swim. i've always been a bit of an overglider. didn't know anything about catch and pull.. thanks heaps for all you are teaching me!

[@ronhamilton2879]

i struggled with this at practice while i’m learning to swim right now

[@sharingstoke]

I call that drill "1,2,3's" we look down at the bottom for 3 then rotate onto our breathing side with our arm extended, just like the woman with fins on. Great video!

[@YoutubeStandardLicense]

This is how I actually naturally swim freestyle. I tend to glide while swimming even doing breastsroke. Just seems natural to me. In fact, I always think to myself slide and glide in my head and that keeps me very calm, streamlined and I don't worry about the kick or catch. Ages ago I was shown a swimming stroke used by the US Military called the combat sidestroke which I trained on and learned pretty well. It emphasises slide/reach and glide quite a lot. It's a very good stroke to improve the reach on freestyle

[@johnoneil4857]

Excellent video. This was a Eureka moment for me. I've been swimming freestyle badly for 55 years, always pulling as soon as my hand was in the water. Went for a swim this morning and tried to change my stroke so that there was a proper reach phase and it came to me fairly easily. I could tell it was more efficient immediately as I was able to maintain a more streamlined position without over kicking. Still needs some refinement but being a Brit swimming in a local authority pool there's no way I'm going to be allowed to use fins to do the suggested drill. Anything else I could do to improve this technique? BTW - if you're swimming in a local authority pool in the UK and you're unsure of which specialist equipment you can use and you need to ask then the answer is NO.

[@michaeltoner1993]

what the hell? the dont let you wear fins?

[@notmyrealname6272]

Very interesting. Will try this. Can I ask about the shoulder? When do you pull your shoulders back? Can you explain what happens exactly with shoulders as the go from teach-catch-pull..? Getting a bit of pain in front of right shoulder and think I’m doing something wrong.

[@sambyrmo6036]

I Wonder if the stroke rate of the champions has decreased during the years. What is the stroke rate of Pan, Popovic compared to Caleb dressel?

[@alan102549]

It sounds as if you are talking about making it a plyometric movement, am I correct?

[@michaelkraft218]

Be nice if he emphasized the flat hand angle at the top of the reach. The drill is golden. So hard to do without fins

[@donnymo3481]

awesome

[@MarcPatry-sp4xc]

On the extension should the palm of the hand still be pointing to the bottom of the pool ? In this video it is quite obviously not?

[@수영하자]

good good ^^

[@tonyshihoutang6576]

I would like to ask how come I would always find I have a difficult to swim deeper water as compared to shallow water

[@nash.p9781]

Bit controversial but watch Sun Yangs freestyle stroke it’s majestic

[@slide4180]

They say you should swivel your torso a little as you swim - ie, not swim 'flat.' But the male swimmer in the video only seems to swivel to the side he's breathing on; otherwise, he appears flat to me - he's not swiveling to the non-breathing side. Is this proper technique?

[@frankeeeej]

What if I have a background as an (amateur) sprinter, and I'm actually trying to shorten my distance per stroke for longer distances, do you have any ideas for that? Currently it kinda feels like I'm gliding to a halt on every stroke, so there's always the danger of overdoing the extension fase I guess, haha

[@mosiowaty1573]

Read about "The overglider" swimmer archetype, you'll get some ideas there. Overgliding is good I think when you're a beginner. I have a tendency to overglide, too. On our swim team class we have super-small pull buoys and that's what cured me - initially my legs were sinking, so to prevent that I needed to increase my stroke rate.

[@janetgroves2220]

What find would you recommend? 🙂

[@EffortlessSwimming]

DMC elite max

[@kstbox7749]

Should you not be increasing the stroke rate if you want to swim faster?! I hear all the time “gliding” is a waste of speed and it’s not the fastest part of the stroke, but most of your videos state you should slow down this part of the stroke and really emphasize the reach/glide. I’m a bit confused. My stroke rate is 44 at 1.30 over 100, I think I’m over gliding.

[@marcelomenezes8488]

Me too. I used to subscribe to swimm smooth and they insist on thinking about the arm as an arrow.

[@kstbox7749]

@@marcelomenezes8488 I get the science behind being more hydrodynamic with a glide/arrow but it doesn’t beat stroke turnover, took me ages to realize this. Ugly but effective

[@dyvel]

I always lose my stroke count anyway. No need to reduce anything.

[@himanshuanand9048]

Hello, @Effortless Swimming I have started swimming after a very long break. I watch your videos often and they have helped me improve very quickly. However, I am facing two major hurdles and I was hoping you had some advice for me. I can't breathe bilaterally. Even when I exaggerate my rotation to my off side and sync my head turn with my torso's, my head is completely in the water. I tried the kicking on the side drill for 2-3 days, but now my stroke is completely unsynchronized. Like, head popping out of the water, legs flailing, shoulders overstrained, gasping for breathe kind of unsynchronized. Which brings me to my second problem. I am (was) using a 2 beat kick for my 1-side breathing stroke. Now I am trying to switch to a 6 beat kick because I thought more frequent kicking might help prevent my upper body from sinking when I breathe to my 'off-side'. But I am unable to maintain the sync between my kicks and pulls, resulting in excess snaking and sinking. Could you suggest some equipment free drills that I can use to get back on track? Thanks a lot in advance!

[@sjdj3000]

This always confuses me. The pro triathletes swim 70-80 range. That’s high no?

[@briandarga5443]

To get the glide!? People ! Think about the way you lie down on a branch trying to reach out for the far end fruit! Pluck it and give it to someone behind you

[@user-rl3ef4ju9k]

I have very long arms and I find it easier to swim without trying to glide much. And the speed remains or is even better. Stroke rate is still just 50...55 per min and speed 1:40 per 100m.

[@rato_gordo]

Whats your reach in cm?

[@user-rl3ef4ju9k]

80-85 from armpit to tip of middle finger if that's what you mean.

[@pocketcharts12]

Great videos Notice the woman needs to open fingers more!

[@markogal8812]

I think you are left handed, looking at your strike. Are you?

[@briandarga5443]

..but that person is far behind!

[@kstbox7749]

Why would you want to reduce stroke count if that makes you faster?! High turnover, high speed…. What’s with all this gliding/reach nonsense ?!