What principle of training would you apply if you wish to improve your backstroke in swimming? *

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1. Maintain neutral body position
2. Kick from your hips
3. Maximize your pull
4. Ensure proper rotation
5. Follow a breathing pattern
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Learning to swim backstroke isn’t an impossible task. Once you’re able to float on your back, everything else comes fairly easily with enough practice. But, actually swimming backstroke well can be slightly more challenging.

Here are 5 ways to optimize your backstroke technique:

1. Maintain neutral body position

Proper body position is critical in minimizing drag and improving propulsion, for any stroke. In backstroke, a neutral, horizontal position also helps prevent water from getting all over your face and up your nose.

Keep your head steady, looking straight up at the sky or ceiling.

Tucking your chin down or tilting too far back will not only slow you down, it will also cause unnecessary strain on your neck. A neutral head position will also make it easier to prevent the hips and legs from sinking. Combine this with good kicks and pulls, and you’ll move through the water more efficiently.

2. Kick from your hips

The key to good backstroke kicks is to kick from the hips, not the knees.

Kicking from the knees means you’re bending them back too much, which will increase drag. One way to tell if you’re kicking from the knees is when your knees break the surface of the water. You want to make sure that only your toes are breaking surface on the upward motion of the kick.

3. Maximize your pull

Maximizing your backstroke pulls starts with good hand entry, to properly set up for the catch. Ideally, you want your pinky to enter the water just slightly past shoulder width. Crossing your arms over the midline, or entering too far out makes it more difficult to initiate the catch.

Set up for the catch with good hand entry, and time your rotations just right.

Once your arm is in the water, bend your elbow so your forearm is facing the back end of the pool and push the water straight back through the water, rotating to your opposite side. As this is happening, your other arm will be moving through the recovery phase of the stroke, leading with the thumb as it exits the water, before rotating outwards for the entry.

Time your strokes just right - this will help with rotation, and lead to a faster stroke rate.

4. Ensure proper rotation

Rotations and pulls go hand in hand. Rotating the right amount (ideally around 30 degrees) sets you up with a good catch position, without causing your shoulders to twist at a weird, straining angle.

When you properly rotate with each stroke, you're able to utilize your back and core for power.

This will enable you to propel yourself farther through the water, increasing your distance per stroke and improving the efficiency of your strokes.

5. Follow a breathing pattern

Just because you’re on your back with your face out of the water, doesn’t mean you should breathe whenever you feel like it.

Just as with freestyle, breaststroke, and butterfly, matching your breaths with your strokes will be better for your technique than breathing at random intervals.

One reason to follow a breathing pattern is to prevent water from getting into your nose or mouth. Breathing at the moment with the least water splashing around from your pull keeps your airway clear. Following a breathing pattern also makes it easier to stay in your rhythm and be consistent with your pace.

Improving your technique is one of the most important ways to swim faster. And when you’ve learned the proper backstroke technique, you will be able to put more focus into training for strength and speed once training intensity starts to pick up for the season.

Jasmine Ong

Jasmine has over 13 years of competitive swimming experience and is a marketing professional by trade. Jasmine enjoys merging her swimming history with her natural marketing abilities, to deliver valuable swimming and performance content.

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What principle of training will you use if you want to improve your backstroke in swimming?

Specificity is a very important principle in training. Basically it say you have to do the thing you want to improve at to get better, so to get better at swimming you need to swim.

What are the principles of swimming training?

If you want to get the most out of swim training then you need to consider the four key training principles of specificity, individualisation, progression and overload.

What are principles of training?

Training means engaging in activity to improve performance and/or fitness; this is best accomplished by understanding general sports training principles: overload, reversibility, progression, individualization, periodization, and specificity.

What is the specificity principle?

SPECIFICITY PRINCIPLE. The principle of specificity of training states that the way the body responds to physical activity is very specific to the activity itself. For example, someone who jogs can expect that their jogging performance would approve as well as their aerobic conditioning.