Brendan Hansen is 2 time Olympic gold medalist and was the captain of 2008 Beijing Olympics U.S. swimming team. Brendan shares his techniques for breaststroke swimming. The equipments needed for swimming are goggles, a swimming cap, kickboard and flippers. Hansen shares the swimming benefits which involves weight loss, increases metabolic activity and aerobic threshold and there are many other benefits.
Before diving into the pool one must brush on the strokes familiar to the swimmer himself and avoid improper breathing while swimming. One should try and swim calmly and not try and speed up. Focus should be on swimming technique and not the speed. Streamline every time while pushing off the wall; this is the most important technique for beginners. This is a great technique to save energy and increase efficiency. One should try and make full use of fins during the first few weeks of workouts to learn the ropes. Beginners find it tough to keep the lower half of the body from sinking to the bottom after some tiring hours in the pool. One can also use a kickboard to keep the arms resting in the front.
First of all, warm-up is advised. 4 x 1 lap freestyle which means1 lap is repeated 4 times. One should try and take a 15 second rest after each lap at each side of the pool. After the completion of 4th and 8th lap check the heart rate which should be 30-50 beats per minute below the maximum heart rate (maximum beat rate is the difference of 220 and the swimmers age).
Then is the work out phase. 6 x 2 laps flutter kick. One should take a 5 second break between 4 laps or two sets. Place the hands on front side of the board, put the arms straight and the head should be out of the water. Be sure to breathe normally. In 4 x 1 lap strokes one should take a 10 second rest after each lap and try and combine successive fast and slow laps. In butterfly kick 2 x 1 lap one should maintain the position of hands on the stomach in streamlined position. Similarly in 2 x 1 lap flutter kick one should keep the stomach tight with a slight bend in the knees. After this heavy workouts one should relax with 3 lap freestyle swimming. In this one should take least amount of strokes per lap covering the maximum distance per stroke.
One should be sure to have the presence of mind, as to where extra force is required. This is known as, “to get a feel of water” in professional swimming terms. One should be patient with swimming and not try and rush off. It will not be an easy task for the first few swimming experiences in water. In swimming, one will not experience any sweat and hence rehydrating after swimming is critical.