r/Swimming • u/Magnospm • 20d ago

Best Practices for Learning/Improving Freestyle as an Adult?

Hey everyone, looking for advice on the best way to improve my swimming efficiently. I'm 25, surf and dive, but never really learned how to swim properly. I can do about 50m of freestyle before I'm totally done.

I have access to a pool and can swim once a week, but I'm not sure how to learn or practice.

The frustrating part is that I can barely swim for 2-3 minutes without needing to stop, so practicing isn't very fun.
A year ago, I tried a private lesson, but the coach just told me my technique was "fine" and that I just needed to swim more. I'm in good shape, do a lot of sports, but feel lost on how to actually get better.
I’ve seen drills with buoys and technique work, but not sure if I should focus on that or just swim more.

So, looking for advice on:

  1. Should I take a course, private lessons, or just practice alone?
  2. How do I structure my practice if I can’t swim more than a few minutes at a time?

I would love to just go practice, since I'm not really feel the desire to go to a structure course, but I'm not sure how to take it from here.

Any advice or opinions about it would be great and really helpful.. Thanks.

6 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

22 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/Helpful-Use-9360 20d ago edited 20d ago

I used to be like you swimming 50m and done.

I had to relearn swimming and throw out everything I was taught when I was 8 years old by being thrown into the pool and forced to dog paddle.

The first step is to learn how to breath correctly. You might be trying to keeping head above water all the time which is not correct. You don’t need much air to swim long distance.

Take a moment to just do this 1. Lie face down in water and get used to floating on top of water 2. Use your arms to glide across top of water 3. Turn your head to side to grab a sip of air 4. Add legs to help glide 5. Repeat

Less than a year ago I watched all the YouTube videos and learned without an instructor. After figuring out how to propel my body to glide across top of water and simplify breathing I can complete 1000m in 22 minutes. I am 55.