How To Swim Backstroke With Perfect Technique

How to swim perfect backstroke. I'm Mike Kohler, owner of Nitro Swimming in Austin, Texas. 11 time NCAA All-American. I've taught thousands how to swim. We've coached a ton of kids how to swim and adults. In this video, I will show you how to swim perfect. I don't know about perfect. How about close to perfect? I don't believe there's anything that's perfect in swimming. We can get close to it. We can become efficient. We can become better. First things first, body position and backstroke. Body position. The higher my legs and hips can be, the better, right? So if I'm gonna swim, practice first on my back only. Hands by my side, stretch out nice and tall. I'm gonna get myself in a great body position to eliminate as much drag as I can. Watch. Nice and tall, stretching out tall. I don't wanna sit in the water, which a lot of folks do. They sit down and their heads come out. Heads in the water, neutral position, body stretched out nice and tall. That's the first thing. So let's just get good at that. Next thing you wanna do, let's start incorporating more of a kick. Now, am I gonna kick really hard my knees out of the water? Don't want to. Watch what happens when my knees come out of the water. Hint, hint. Watch my hips. So far so good. Now what? Bringing those knees up out of that water brings the hips down. So we wanna stretch out nice and tall. Instead of knees, why don't we use more hips when we kick and more toes and ankles when we kick. So watch this. If I flip the water from the hip, great example, here's your hip, knee, leg, foot, ankle, whatever, and toes. Look at the power coming off the toes. You ever taken a towel and whipped the towel against the wall? You know what I'm talking about, right? That's the power that you can generate from your hips through your leg, through your lower leg, through the foot, ankle, through the toes. Watch what I mean. I'm gonna kick this way. I'm gonna flip, flip, flip, flip the water like I'm trying to flip peanut butter off the tops of my toes. Watch. Look at that. So if you look, the water's getting shoved that way, which means my vessel, my boat, my ship is going that way. Make sense? Flip, flip, flip, flip, nice and tall. So body position, legs, and how you kick is huge to start backstroke. Notice, haven't even touched the arms yet. We're just getting nice and tall with nice body position, practicing kicking. So before you move on to trying to figure out the arms, just get really good at that. Get good at that first. Another common mistake that people make in backstroke with the arms, they do backstroke arms, right? But they kind of collapse their arms and they're not really grabbing much water. I look at this way. I've got a paddle, I've got a paddle, and I've got a paddle. As I reach back in that water, I wanna grab as much as I can grab. And instead of moving my arm down towards my body, I wanna think more about moving my body towards the wall. So if I reach back, again, all three parts, arm goes in, all three parts, instead of me sliding, instead of me pulling the arm back, I am moving my body forward. So that's huge, the arms. Here's what it looks like when you're actually swimming. Oh, and by the way, on the recovery of backstroke, recovery means the arm comes out and the arm goes back in. Technically, people always say thumb comes out first, right? And the pinky goes in first. Well, a lot of folks spend too much attention and too much time worrying about that. They're thinking, okay, let's see. Thumb comes out, thumb comes out, and pinky goes in. If the arm is straight, if the arm is straight and it brushes up against that ear and you keep the elbow straight, and as I rotate a little bit and turn, what happens automatically? The pinky ends up going in the water. So now I'm gonna do that and use all three parts of my arm to move my body. Backstroke should look something like this. If I'm super tall, ears under, watch. That's not bad backstroke. Notice how low my head was. I had water coming over my eyes a little bit. I'm gonna grab my goggles real quick right here. And I'm gonna swim backstroke again. And I'm gonna have a little bit of water actually coming over the top of the goggles, watch. So, good backstroke. Head position, body position. Get the kick first when you add the arms. Straight arm recovery, straight arm recovery. The pinky goes in automatically by itself if you keep the arms straight enough. I've got one more mistake in the next shot. Two more common mistakes that people make in backstroke. Number one, they're just too slow on the recovery, right? Watch what happens when I'm slow on the recovery. Hint, hint, watch my body safety, watch. Slow recovery. So, if I wanna be in a hurry at all in backstroke, I wanna be in a hurry from here to there. If I'm in a bit of a hurry and when this arm starts, this arm's gonna chase. When this arm starts, this arm's gonna chase. Watch what happens to my body position as a result, watch. So, the body stays up, I'm no longer sinking. Now, the final mistake that I see a lot in backstroke are folks do this. They take one arm, then they wait. And another backstroke arm, and they wait. When both arms are down below this part of your body, it starts bringing your legs down. I'll illustrate right now. It's called like reverse catch-up almost. Watch this. One arm down here, watch my legs. Look at my legs, they're down. However, if I get arms up here, the legs stay where? The legs stay up, simply because I changed my balance point. My balance point now has got more weight. More of my body weight is up toward the top of my body and not so much at the lower part of your body. So, like and subscribe for more content like this. But those are some great tips for backstroke. If you want, in that very beginning step of learning how to kick, if you're really, really a beginner grab a kickboard, hug it, float in your back. Watch this. Nice and easy, I'm just gonna flip the water towards that wall. Kind of like a flip with peanut butter off the tops of my toes. Flip, flip, flip. I wanna go a little faster, pick up the tempo. So, that's a great early beginner tip to start learning backstroke. Start with the kick first. Get comfortable, get better and better. Don't forget, folks, like and subscribe. Only two lessons I teach swimming. That is pretty good backstroke. Again, I don't think there's anything such thing as perfect backstroke or perfect freestyle, perfect stroke. I don't believe it's perfect. We can try to get there, but there's always something better you can work on. Another element that a lot of people don't really know about backstroke. We've got backstroke flack. You walk in any pool, a lot of times you'll see flags, right? Well, if it's a 25-yard pool, those backstroke flags are five yards from the wall. Five yards. They become your eyes and ears for where the wall is. So, if you're doing backstroke and you're swimming this way, for instance, and you see those flags right above you, how do you know where the wall is without really looking? Well, you count the number of backstroke strokes. For little kids, I like to say six strokes. If you're an adult just learning, let's start with a really small number because we don't want you smashing your arm on the wall, which you've probably done before if you've done backstroke, or worse yet, smash your head on the wall doing a backstroke finish. So, let's just say it's gonna be three strokes. Let's play three to play it safe. So, I'm gonna swim backstroke right now, and I'm gonna take three strokes, which is gonna give me a whole bunch of room. I'm not gonna be that near the wall, I don't believe, but let's just play it safe. Let's get used to it. So, if I start stroke number one when those flags are right over my chest or so, and if it's my left arm is stroke number one, and my stroke count is an odd number. In this case, I'm gonna say three. Get to try it, right? If this is number one, this will be number two, this will be number three. Kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, and I reach for the wall. However, what if this arm is number one? Interesting. If my stroke count's a three, play it safe. There's a one, there's a two, now there's a three. Kick, kick, kick, kick on your back, touch the wall with your fingers, not your head. So, you gotta be good at touching the wall both arms. Do not have a favorite arm on backstroke. Now, if my stroke count was a three, I told you I have a lot of room here. Watch what it's gonna look like. My stroke count's a three. I'll start counting when my chest is right underneath those flags. Watch. One, two, three. Kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, kick, and there's the wall. More realistically, probably better, my stroke count's probably a four, but if you're new at trying a backstroke finish, don't start with a high number, and don't try to figure it out by trial and error of smacking your arm or smacking your head. Try it the other way around. Try it with a smaller number first, and then build, maybe it's four. I'll try four right now, watch this. I'll go four strokes. Remember, I'm not gonna start counting until those flags are right above my chest area. Some folks prefer chin, some folks say belly button. I prefer right there on the chest area. I'll take four strokes, watch. One, two, three, four. So, I feel better taking four strokes, not three, probably not five. If I take five, I'm probably gonna be cutting it close, a smack in the arm or a smack in my head. So, that's why flags, you'll see them in swimming pools, they're really for your eyes and ears for backstroke, so you don't have to spend time doing this, looking for that wall or looking over your shoulder for where is that wall. You get those things figured out, get good at it, do not get frustrated, be patient, practice, practice, practice. I've got one more backstroke tip coming up. All right, the last backstroke tip. Backstroke is a long axis stroke, meaning we rotate a bit this way. Freestyle is also a long axis stroke. Your body's moving this way, the long way. Butterfly, what do you think? Long axis or short axis? Rest stroke, what do you think? Long axis or short axis? Short axis. Now, for the last video segment on backstroke, this is backstroke by the numbers, backstroke by the numbers. We wanna rotate a little bit. In the older days, we were teaching people to really rotate side to side, like 90 degrees almost. Well, then people said, 90 degrees, that's too far. Let's try 45 degrees. So if I turn right now 90, how far would 45 be? About there. Hips, feet, 45 degrees, 45 degrees. Well, I met a guy named Aaron Pearsall a few years ago, world record holder backstroker. Aaron Pearsall says, remember these two numbers, 30 and six, 30 and six, all right? Aaron, what's the 30 for? 30, he says, is this. Instead of rotating 90 or 45, it's 30, 30, 30. Nowadays, watching the world-class backstrokers, honestly, it's close to 25 degrees for 20. There's not a lot of rotation happening. Not 90, not 45, not even 30, it's close to 20, 25. 20, 25, 20 or 25. That's the rotation now for backstroke. However, my friend Brayden Holloway over at NC State says, belly button up, we wanna rotate. Belly button down, you don't wanna rotate. Belly button up, you wanna rotate. Belly button down, you don't want to. I'm gonna try it. Let's see what a 61-year-old can do with this. Let's see. Tell you what, I'll swim right now, backstroke that way, with rotating from the belly up about 20, 25 degrees maybe. I'll try not to rotate from that belly button down, watch. Tell you what, that's hard to do, but I can see why it's effective. Notice, lower body, not so much rotation. Upper body, 25, 20, 25, 20. Now, the last number I told you about, six. What's a six in backstroke? Aaron Parasol says, that paddle, three parts. Three parts of your paddle, we're gonna get that hand about six inches below the water. Six inches below the water. About a half of a ruler below. We don't want to be up here with a whole bunch of air bubbles and pushing air. You also don't want to go way down there either, because that's gonna cause you a little bit more movement and it's not that efficient to go too deep with the backstroke arm. Aaron Parasol says, six inches. Good enough for Aaron, good enough for me. Let's try it. I'll go back towards the wall. I'll try to go six inches, rotate upper body, lower body, not rotate as much. Let's see. Tell you what, that's not a bad backstroke. You put those tips together, I don't know if you'll have a perfect backstroke, probably no such thing, but you'll have a pretty good one. Folks, like and subscribe for more information. We'll send you more content. I love doing this, hope you enjoy it. Have a great day.