How to Float in Water

Series Summary

Whether it is in a pool in the backyard or a pool in the Olympics, a river in the woods or the endless oceans, swimming is one of the world's favorite pastimes. Not only is swimming a great recreational hobby, it is one of the most efficient ways to exercise, both cardiovascular and muscle strengthening. Needless to say, with all of the benefits of swimming, it is a good idea to learn how to swim and the freestyle stroke is a great way to begin.

For swimming beginners, or people interested in proving their technique, it's best to begin with the basics of freestyle swimming. This is what most people see as being the basic swimming stroke. In this free video series, a lifeguard and swimming instructor will teach you how to do freestyle swimming with step-by-step instructions. You'll learn how to float, how to flutterkick, and how to use your hands and arms. You'll also learn about breathing techniques, common mistakes, and how to put all of the motions together for a great freestyle stroke. Improve your freestyle swimming technique today!

Video Transcript

"In this step, which is the first step for free-style, I'm going to be showing you how to do basics, which is just floating. The reason why, I'm sure a lot of you already know how to float. You do it like an airplane. You have your arms out. Your head is in. Your chin is close to your chest like this and you body is completely straight. The reason why I explain that to people when I teach them how to free-style swim is because a lot of times you'll see people bringing their heads up or moving side to side or later on when your learning how to breath you may move diagonally both ways so when really it comes down to just floating. If you guys just float there in the water right now your body will naturally move with the water. So, with free-style swim really it's just barely moving your arms and your legs and then of course you can intensify it as it goes later. The first thing you want to do is just get down to basics and just float. Just relax and see how your body naturally just floats with the water and has that buoyancy. Okay, and that's the first step for the free-style. Like I had said before; you go back to basics, so, floating on your face. We all know how to float on the face but I just want to show you how as I float my body will move. That's very important to remember because as you swim free-style a lot of people try to like fight the water. They feel like they can't move too much when really, in reality, if you just float naturally your body's going to move with buoyancy. So, here we go. So, see how I moved. So now, can you imagine with your arms and your legs it's only going to help you move a little bit further."