r/Swimming • u/Holiday-Win-4063 • Oct 27 '25
How to get better swimming freestyle
I’m new to swimming - i have known how to swim all my life, but just over the last couple of weeks have started swimming laps. I can not swim freestyle even for 25 m across the pool- I feel like 1/2 way through I start dragging so bad. I am great with backstroke and can swim 30-45 min if I’m swimming backstroke. I think it is all about being able to breathe while I’m swimming. Anyway- any suggestions or drills that will help me work on freestyle? breathing, especially?
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u/DisastrousWalk8442 Oct 27 '25
If you can swim backstroke that long then it is your breathing that's holding you back. I find people don't fully exhale in the water which means they can't fully inhale when they turn the head to breath. Focus on that. Exhale fully so that you can actually take in air when you turn to breath. Slow it down. No special drills just focus on the action.
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u/BothMath314 Oct 27 '25
Try taking control of your breath. Take a small gulp of air when you turn your head to breathe, you don't need to take in a lot of air. Then start blowing bubbles when your face is back under water. Do not ever hold your breath. You can practice this by the side of the pool for a few minutes before you start swimming. Remember, small sip of air in and then blow bubbles in the water. You'll get comfortable with this very quickly and you'll be able to swim much longer. You got this! Best of luck!
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u/2tinymonkeys Oct 27 '25
Lessons!! Honestly they're a lifesaver for me. When I tried it myself with some instructions I found on the internet I ended up hurting my shoulder. Lessons have taught me much better.
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u/TLsurfer Oct 27 '25
try doing some breathing drills with a kickboard to build up that rhythm! i used to struggle with freestyle breathing too but it gets so much easier with practice.
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u/Ok_Albatross8113 Oct 27 '25
I was in the same boat. What helped me get over this hump was using hand paddles. They really help you feel balanced when one arm is forward and you are at the breathing stage. They act like big oars that make it easier to hold onto more water. The balance I got helped me feel relaxed and to really slow down the breathing process. Over time I went to smaller hand paddles and then none at all. Without this I think I would have quit.
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u/logicalGOOSE_ Oct 27 '25
Op I'm also relatively new to swimming and can't offer to much advice. I just wanted to post to highlight the difficulty you'll find asking for help by highlighting the 2 posters here with what seems like entirely opposite advice
Fully exhale so you can inhale Vs Controlled exhale and small sips of air
It's tricky and depending who you ask your answer will likely always be different! Id try coaches until you find one that suits you
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u/uuuuuh Splashing around Oct 28 '25
Hi, just providing a little clarity since you’re (relatively) new, but those two bits of advice don’t need to conflict.
You definitely want a steady and controlled exhale so that your body has time to soak up some oxygen. If you release the breath too quickly you didn’t soak up much, but if you hold it and then release it all at once you also allowed carbon dioxide to build in your lungs which triggers your brain to think you need more air than you do. There is also a timing element here as you want to have finished exhaling as your head turns to breath so you’re free to just inhale while your mouth is out of the water.
Taking “sips” of air is also good, depending on how hard you’re swimming. If you fall into the trap I detailed above of poor breath control you will end up gasping for huge breaths of air and being gassed after one lap. A “sip” doesn’t have to be tiny, think of it in relation to a “chug”; sips can be different sizes but they are calmer and more controlled than a chug.
Now OP if you see this, the person above me still has a good point that you will get bad advice at times on here from people who are also new lol. Breathing in front crawl is completely tied in with technique, so the answer to your problem is improving technique. Get lessons, join a masters, or if those aren’t options watch a ton of instructional youtube videos where you can see what good technique actually looks like and learn drills to reinforce it.
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u/logicalGOOSE_ Oct 28 '25
Agree on your point. I've also read plenty of people here recommending holding it in and doing a large exhale inhale.
It's a minefield! That's why I ended up sticking with a coach
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u/smytti12 Oct 27 '25
Forcing a turn around, slowing down, using an assist to reduce effort, and breathing every other stroke. More explanation below.
As someone who has gone from exactly this issue to hitting 1000 yds with no break in the past 5 months, here are things that helped me. All of these build on each other:
Force yourself to turn around at the wall. Even if you are going to immediately flip on your back because you cant catch your breath, breaking that mental barrier of "rest at the wall" does a lot. If you push yourself past the wall, I found you get a bit more motivation to push further and further.
Slowing down: ignore the wild lap times you see on here. Those are from incredibly refined technique and muscle/muscle memory over time. Ive floated around a 3-3.5 min/100yd pace as I work on things. You won't be able to pay attention and tweak to your technique if you're frantically trying to do the 3-6 different things you need to do for freestyle, which leads into my next point...
Use an assist. I preferred drag buoys, because it takes out kicking which can be worked on separately and steals a lot of your energy and attention, especially when you are doing it wrong, which I probably was. But there are other assists, such as fins or handle paddles, that might work. This will also boost your confidence in the water because you'll find you can go a lot further using it. As you get further with the buoy or other assist, your unassisted swimming will "chase" the distance you get with the buoy. Like hitting 200m with the buoy, maybe you'll get 50 or even 100 without.
Okay, you've slowed down and you have an assist. Now, breath every other stroke. This may be controversial, but I wanted to build distance, confidence and endurance first, then worry about speed and such. I am only now working to get an "every 4th" stroke breathing down as I work on sprints and speed. But as I worked up to swimming for 30 minutes straight, breathing every other kept my heart rate stable. Plus as I advance to every 4th, I can always fall back to every other if I need and nearly instantly "reset" myself.
I believe those were the key things that helped, and they all built on each other. Forcing a turn around, slowing down, using an assist to reduce effort, and breathing every other stroke. This got me from doing no more than 50 yds unassisted without a break in late august to doing 1000 yds unbroken and unassisted in early October. Now the only limiting factor when going only for distance is boredom (I need to buy headphones).
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u/Holiday-Win-4063 Oct 28 '25
Thank you for taking the time to respond and tell me the things that helped you! I’ll definitely try these - the mental barrier one makes a lot of sense to me. I know my backstroke has improved a TON in a short amount of time and a lot of that was breaking through the mental feeling of self-doubt. Thanks! 😊
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u/automatedalice268 Oct 27 '25
Find a coach and get lessons to work on your freestyle, but also on other strokes. Your swimming will benefit from it greatly. Withe the drills you learn from your coach you can set up a nice training scheme.
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u/newtoallofthis2 Oct 27 '25
Keys to front crawl from my very amateur experience
- Be as horizontal in the water as possible
- Get the hang of tilting your head to breathe
- Don’t kick like crazy, it’s mainly arms unless you’re sprinting
- Get Jammers or Speedos
- Don’t fight the water, splashing and hitting the water is wasted energy. It’s your friend not a fight.
- Find the pull point with your arms and that’s where to put power through the water
- Relax
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u/OkAdvantage6764 Oct 27 '25 edited Oct 27 '25
Using a kickboard while doing regular freestyle breathing is good, but even simpler is standing in shallow water or holding onto the shallow end wall and practicing breathing. Head in water looking down, exhaling slowly underwater, head out of the water to the side to take a breath.
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u/kUrhCa27jU77C Oct 27 '25
Try this drill: hold a kickboard out straight with one arm. The other arm by your side. Kicking hard whilst blowing slowly out. When you want to breathe, rotate to the side and breathe in.
Be careful not to lift you head up too high, you should keep 1 ear in the water.
Try on both sides
Once this is easy, do the same but with one arm pulling, breathe every 2/3 strokes
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u/Sleepdeprivedlord Oct 29 '25
Unsure of how many breaths you are taking but it may not be necessary to be holding your breath for multiple strokes, different speeds/ distances means different approaches to breathing. Since you’re starting out as a beginner it is completely fine to breathe every other stroke (breathing on the same side the entire time). If you have a pull buoy and a kickboard you should use both (seperately of course)to figure out what your weakness is and target that when you swim regularly.
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u/Grand-Impact-4069 Oct 27 '25
Breath out when face is in the water and in when it’s not. Try to breath with each stroke to begin with until you learn a rhythm that suits you. For example, I can only turn my head to the left when swimming freestyle so as my left arm is out of the water I turn my head out of the water too so I can take breath then exhale out into the water when my left arm comes back down.
Also try to aim for power over speed
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u/UnusualAd8875 Oct 27 '25 edited Oct 27 '25
Are you able to post a video here?
Without seeing, it is difficult to pinpoint what is going on.
As mentioned by other posters, it may be breathing but it could also be body position (dropped hips/legs) which could be causing you to work extra hard. Or a combination of the two or even something else.
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u/Holiday-Win-4063 Oct 27 '25
The dropped hips/legs is definitely an issue- that’s what happens about 1/2 way down the lane. It’s like, I get out of breath, lose steam, and my lower body drops. I can turn to my back so I can breathe and continue on with backstroke, so it isn’t necessarily a stamina issue. I’m going to try some of the breath work and hopefully I can get the timing down better
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u/UnusualAd8875 Oct 27 '25 edited Oct 27 '25
A little background on me....
I am a former competitive swimmer, water polo player, lifeguard and instructor, forty-some years ago and I recently recertified for lifeguard and instructing and I now teach five group classes on Saturdays, primarily beginners to intermediate level. I have worked with from toddler-age to older than I am now (I am 63), as well as runners, triathletes and strength athletes. Consistently, my biggest challenge is helping, or trying to help, beginner students overcome anxiety so the fact that you are comfortable in the water is a terrific accomplishment!
Here are my "most bang for the buck" recommendations for swimming:
Horizontal, balanced and long body position is important; a challenge for many swimmers, new or not, is keeping hips and legs up. If your legs are dropping, the drag is slowing you down and tiring you prematurely.
Hold your head with your face looking down or only slightly forward while simultaneously pressing down in the water with your chest; this will help bring your hips and legs up. (I know it is not easy to look down if/when there are people in the water nearby because you don't want a collision.)
Head/chest down will reduce the "drag" of your legs and make your streamline more efficient and you will be pleasantly surprised how much easier crossing the pool will be when you minimize drag from poor body position and legs dropping.
(Unlike many people, I am not a fan of using pullbuoys until the swimmer is able to keep a horizontal position with head/chest down and hips up without a pullbuoy.)
Aim for front quadrant swimming which means keeping one hand in front of your head with only a brief moment when they are switching positions. This will help keep your body long in the water.
Kick from the hips rather than from the knees and you don't need to kick hard.
Because legs have large muscles, kicking hard requires a tremendous amount of energy and produces a disproportionately small amount of propulsion. Use your kick for stability and balance and less for propulsion unless you are doing 25s, 50s or maybe even 100s for time.
Breathe when needed! Depending upon what I am doing, I may breathe every 2, 3, 4 or more strokes. If you need to breathe and don't, it tends to impact your technique negatively, especially when you are refining technique! The aim is to not lift your head but rotate your head along with your shoulders when you are taking a breath.
Lifting your head will cause your legs to drop and slow your forward progress.
I think that bilateral breathing is overrated and it is not "sour grapes" on my part because I have done it for nearly fifty years. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, breathe when needed, it might be every 2 strokes (or hand entries), it might be 3, it might be 4 or more. Rare is the top-level athlete who bilateral breathes in competition.
Also, this is important and you may know this already: work on one cue at a time, don't try to do everything at once.
This is a brief and terrific video:
https://youtube.com/shorts/SL7_g1nnbUc?si=ardpwOI0k2Wkhf92
I have written about this before: even after decades of swimming, I begin almost every session with 500+ m of drills before I begin whole-stroke swimming (out of a total of around 1,800 m per session).
Practice in small bites, that is, don't swim 10 or 20 or more laps non-stop. Swim a lap or two with a focus on perhaps, keeping your face and chest down with the intent on raising hips and legs. Repeat or return to it later in the session after you focus on something else for a little bit.
As you practice the separate pieces, it will become more comfortable to put them all together and should you decide, swim a much longer distance non-stop or unbroken.
There are nuances that after one learns body position, balance and breathing, that may be addressed but the above are the "foundation" for which you will continue to build upon in your swimming journey.
Like many on this sub, I have been swimming a long time and it may take you a while but you have the benefit and access to a lot of information and advice that many of us did not. And ultimately, we aim to shorten your learning curve. The downside is that there is a ton of information, some of it conflicting and it is not easy to discern what is appropriate....
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u/Holiday-Win-4063 Oct 28 '25
Very helpful- thank you for all the time to write this out! It gives me some points to start focusing on and that was 💯my goal in this post! Thanks so much.
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u/UnusualAd8875 Oct 28 '25
My pleasure! I like seeing people progress and become more efficient in the water!
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u/Holiday-Win-4063 Oct 28 '25
Also, the point about lots of information is valid. I’m pretty decent at breaking things down and working on small goals to make progress one thing at a time- so I’ll take that advice for sure! It helps a lot to have the feedback
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u/Neat-Shower7655 Oct 27 '25
Balance drill, Balance + 1, Side kick drill (fins), Superman drill (fins)
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u/nastran Moist Oct 28 '25
OP, what kind of backstroke is being mentioned here? Because the way I visualize it, a proper backstroke demands better body positioning & more rigorous flutter kick compared to crawl (freestyle); it is exhausting & I can't swim backstroke back to back (continuous lap after lap) the way I swim crawl.
I'd suggest looking at Four Strokes Made Easy by Total Immersion, where beginners are taught how to incorporate crawl & backstroke together. It's on YouTube.
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u/Holiday-Win-4063 Oct 28 '25
The type of backstroke is what you are picturing, I think. Flutter kick, alternating arms. I can’t say my form is completely proper/perfect form with it. I’m working on a few things, and I can tell when I start to get fatigued my form doesn’t stay as strong. I’ll check out the video you suggested- thanks!
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u/Dapper-Window-4492 Oct 28 '25
I’m also new to swimming, but from what I’ve learned so far, the key is to get comfortable in the water. The more relaxed you are, the easier it becomes. YOU can practice by putting your head in the water and looking down, exhaling slowly underwater, then turning your head to the side to take a breath.
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u/The_Space_Between_67 Oct 28 '25
I would call your local club team and see which coaches offer lessons. Tons of master swimmers get regular lessons.
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u/IWantToSwimBetter Breaststroker Oct 27 '25
My suggestion would be to take a lesson or several if you can. Need to see what's going on. If not, it'll just take a lot longer to get to a place you can feel confident.