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Teaching someone how to swim
JeffH
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
So, one of my friends that we work out with doesn't know how to swim, and we've convinced him to come with us tonight as we have a free lap pool at our work, in the hopes that he'll regularly come with us to swim as well. We're both around 25.
The lap pool is 5 feet deep max, so there's no chance of him drowning or anything.
I'm a good swimmer (swam competitively since 9 years old, swam until end of college), but I'm not a great teacher. I was wondering if anyone had pointers on where to start, what techniques to try and teach first?
The lap pool is 5 feet deep max, so there's no chance of him drowning or anything.
I'm a good swimmer (swam competitively since 9 years old, swam until end of college), but I'm not a great teacher. I was wondering if anyone had pointers on where to start, what techniques to try and teach first?
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Probably the best idea, but this guy is very stubborn and I know he wouldn't go for that. Just getting him to swim at all was a challenge.
Of course, get a second opinion from a teacher, you don't want to be running off my advice alone.
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Though grown up floaties (kickboards, pullbuoys) is what I have in mind for right now.
I would suggest using similar techniques to younger students: Start by teaching him to learn to float properly (this allows the student to get adjusted to the feeling of being in the water and dissipate any fears of drowning that they may have), and then progress into the doggy paddle. Once they have that down effectively, teach the breast stroke. It is much easier to learn than the proper swimming technique, but it also allows the student to swim fairly effectively (faster, smoother) than the doggy paddle and gives the student a feeling of improvement.
Here is where it gets tricky: Many people, including myself for many years until going for lifeguard training, stop learning here. While it isn't the most effective swimming technique, it IS quite good for casual swimming, such as at the beach or in a pool, and for this guy it may be okay to stop here. Let him decide if he wants to learn further.
Start Simple, just a freestyle crawl. Left arm up and over is on the 1-2-3, pull the arm back and repeat with right on 4-5-6. Kick on every beat.
when he is practicing make sure you are a human metronome, constantly calling the beats
1-2-3-4-5-6-1-2-3-4-5-6-1-2-3-4-5-6. once your friend is able to maintain a steady pace then you can move on to learning how to take breaths while moving.
You need to teach him how to exhale underwater and how to hold his breath. This may seem easy, but for someone who's never learned it, it's key. It will allow him to relax more in the water so that he can learn the other stuff.
The way I was taught (as a very young child) involved first holding onto the edge of the pool, and bringing my legs up to practise different types of floats, then later, kicks. Once we had that down, we progressed to learning the breathing by stretching out (arms extended) with our hands on the side of the pool, and we would be told 'breathe in' put our face into the water, breathe out and create bubbles in the water then, face up and out to the side, breathe in, face down, bubbles, face out again. Over and over to learn how to breathe.
Then, we moved to holding a kickboard and chugging around the pool with hands on the board, practising the kicks still. Then we would do the breathing with the board, then, we would take one hand off the board and do a stroke, back to the kickboard, take the second hand off, practise the stroke and then put it back on the board over and over.
Obviously take away the board when ready.
Also, I personally found that stuff on your back, while you can hold a kickboard over your stomach is more 'scary' as your head tends to dip underwater unexpectantly while learning. I recommend keeping things right-side-up.
EDIT: if the side of the pool is too high, feel free to replace it with holding the bars of an exit ladder or one of the rungs when possible.
I agree with the points about holding on to the side of the pool and trying to tread water, as well is trying to make him comfortable with the water.
If you're trying to have him tread water out in the open, possibly have him push off the side of the pull so that he doesn't try to tread and start sinking right away.
Don't underestimate this.
I'm pretty sure the statistics say more people drown in shallow water than deep water, or at least a much higher proportion than people might think.
You can drown in foot high water, you know.
Sure, it's possible, especially if you hit your head.
But yeah, pretty much what everyone else said is good. Kicking with a kickboard/holding on to the edge of the pool is good to learn kicking. Also, learning to breathe out underwater is KEY! As for practicing strokes, my mom used to hold us in the water while we practiced (not really feasible with an adult) so I don't have much advice there. But once you learn to put your face in the water and breathe out, crawl isn't that far away.
He was very pleased though, by the end he was noticeably a whole lot less afraid of the water and we made good progress with breathing/floating.
As far as drowning goes, I'm also trained as a lifeguard, so no worries
Everyone can float, without having to do even minimal treading? I can't.
If I'm floating on my back, as flat as possible, I still have to move a little to keep my legs from sinking down and pulling me vertical.
Wow that takes me back. Great advice.
I've trained as a lifeguard/swim instructor as well. Basically, kicking is the key.
Start this up on the side of the pool, and when buddy can keep his body more or less level with the water, switch it up to kicking while on a flutterboard/floatie.
Once this is down pat, because buddy is older, I'm tempted to suggest learning the frog kick and a simple breast stroke. Keeps the head out of the water at all times, and although its not as energy efficient, nor particularily competitive, should be groovy for recreational swimming.
Heads up breast stroke and the crawl are the two essentials, heads-up lets you take a breather and recover if your choking or blind, and the crawl is good for getting somewhere without getting real tired.
If you get nowhere straight away, this might be useful.
Discussing which strokes to learn, breathing and kicking techniques is all very good for someone who can already swim, but is badly missing the point for a total beginner - what's more, I've seen way too many teachers skim over the comfort part on some prescribed lesson plan, and advance on when their students clearly aren't comfortable. All that does is convince people they are bad swimmers; actually, they had a bad teacher.
Repost of something on this subject I wrote on another forum ages back.
Been swimming and diving (almost) constantly since I was about 3, and like you said it's an effortless thing with good swimmers, it is instinctive. That isn't to say, however, that it cannot be learned
Also very hard to teach without being there and hands on, but I'll give it a go.
First, dispel a myth. Body fat or muscle mass has nothing to do with your ability to float. Look at all the Olympic swimmers, they have 0 fat and are built like a pile of bricks. Put anyone motionless in water and they will sink (either that or they are holding in a huge breath which they will eventually have to let out...then they will sink). No matter how you are built, you can float, tread water, swim.
Second, you have to become comfortable in water. From what you have written, and from what I have seen of people learning to swim, the biggest hurdle to overcome is the feeling that you are going to slip underwater and drown at any point. Like most things, learn to walk before you, er, swim.
There are several steps to do this. Do them in order, and do not progress to the next until you are 100% happy doing each one
1. Become comfortable under the water, so that you don't feel like being underwater is automatically dangerous (most strokes, done properly, require being underwater). Do this, at first in the shallow end, by simply sinking your head under the water while holding your breath. If you like, do it by lying flat down in the water (warn lifeguards!). Do this for 10-20 seconds, then increase the time.
Next, sink underwater and sit on the bottom. You can easily push off the bottom and right up to the surface in one motion. When comfortable with that, move around as much as you can underwater. Work out which motions are the most effective for movement, which are best for turning, how to go fast, etc. All underwater. When you are comfortable with this, try it in the deeper water. Just play around!
Also try being underwater having exhaled all your breath. Do this in the shallow end only. You will be able to tell a huge difference between how your body moves and your buoyancy (how you float) when holding a breath and without a breath. Try this exercise: In the shallow end of your pool, sitting with your legs crossed or kneeling so that you are submerged to your chin. Try and have your legs as relaxed as possible so you can bob up and down. Then take in a huge breath quite slowly, and let it out at the same pace. Feel how much your whole body will rise and fall in the water.
This will be important for step 2...
2. Treading water. It's a misnomer. Your legs have little to do with it. First, what keeps you afloat?
Three things. Air in your lungs, your movement (both obvious) and your mind (opinion). The air in your lungs gives you 99% of your buoyancy which keeps your body afloat (on the surface) or at a level (underwater).
Breath Remember the effect your breath had on you floating. Become used to, when treading water, always keeping your lungs half full. Only breath out about 1/2 way, and hold the rest in your lungs - this should give you more than enough buoyancy to keep afloat.
Movement Think of a water-boatman on a pond (those thin insects which skate on the top of the water), that is how you want to move while treading water - it is very much like being in a swamp or quicksand, you want to spread yourself on the surface as much as possible.
Arms. Practice this at first with your legs on the floor in shallowish water. Move your arms in a long sweeping motion with your palms facing down at chest height - your hands sweeping out from your chest in a semi-circle and back again (remember wax-on, wax-off from Karate Kid? a little like that). Practice it until you can feel the lift created by your arms (like the water is pushing up against them). The faster you do it, the more lift it will create, and the more it will keep you afloat (but the more tired you become). You can actually do it very slowly when practiced.
Legs. Various ways to do this, do what you are most comfortable with. I personally use a scissor kick (not footballing, a breastroke kick), kicking your legs out like a frog quite slowly. If you are doing the breath and arms correctly, your legs are barely needed. The normal way people are taught to tread water (paddling your legs to and fro) is actually the worst way, see below if interested.
Mind If you think you will sink, or are in danger, then you will get uncertain or panicky. Your natural panic response in water is to lash out and breath fast. Both of these things, as shown above, will only make you sink further. That is how people can drown even in shallow water; however, I have never heard of a good swimmer drowning because they panic treading water - they drown from injury, cramp, overstretching themselves or being stranded and tiring. Once you learn to tread water comfortably, you break a huge psychological barrier where you no longer feel the need to hold onto something in the water to relax. It is your safety net, and once you can do it, learning to swim strokes will become a thousand times easier. Get your breath and movement right treading water, and your head will fall in line.
Stick all these three together, and you should be treading water comfortably. You must be comfortable underwater and treading water to begin to swim. The major error of swimming teaching is to rush kids to 'real' swimming strokes before they are comfortable in water. They then never become comfortable with any of it, and don't like swimming.
Technical stuff inc quite helpful for understanding how all this works: to stay afloat, you need to your buoyancy to be greater than your mass. Mass = your weight dragging you down. What you are doing with movement and position is off-setting your mass and spreading it over a large area, so less pressure is pushing down / weight pulling down at any one point, causing you to sink (this is why you lie spread out on quicksand). Thus the worst thing you can do while trying to float is to make your body like an arrow pointing straight down - conversely, think of a high-board diver, that is exactly the position they hit the water for, because it offers the least resistance. Ironically, this is the position most people are taught to tread water in. The teachers are wrong, ignore them.
3. Once you are treading water, you can start practicing strokes. The most important thing here, in my opinion, is to play. Just mess around in the water, feel it out for yourself. Once you feel comfortable in water, you will teach yourself to swim. Four basic maxims though.
Rule 1 - Remember the water-boatman / quicksand position. Always while swimming you want to keep your body just floating on top of the water with the momentum of your stroke keeping you there. Always keep your body as level and horizontal as possible (arching your back or anywhere else, as described above, will just upset your centre of mass and make you sink).
Rule 2 - Get your head wet. So many people, particularly doing breastroke, but also crawl, try and keep their bloody heads out of the water. Again, this is puts the balance of your body out of whack, and forces usually your torso or lower back further under the water. This makes you sink, and makes it a struggle to swim. I would also guess it is none too good for your spine.
Crawl, the head should be flat down in the water, looking at the bottom of pool, turning to breath only so you are looking sideways and your mouth breaks the surface. You should NOT be moving your head from side to side above the water with each stroke.
Breaststroke, when your arms start the stroke, your head should follow them under the water, breaking the surface again to breath as your arms come past your chest to start the next stroke. You should NOT have your head always above the water with your arms moving in tiny circular paddling motions, at least not unless you are a 65-year old matron along for her monthly aquaerobics class.
Rule 3 - The path of least resistance is the best 90% of the time when I see someone swimming badly, it is because they are making a huge effort to little effect. Make the smallest motion and cover the shortest distance neccessary to get the effect.
Rule 4 - Momentum Since you are going to be breathing hard and full while swimming, air in your lungs no longer plays such a large part in keeping you afloat. In it's place is the momentum you have in the water (this is why it is easiest to start with a dive or pushing off the side of a pool). Whichever part of your body is doing the work is propelling you forward and pushing you up against the water to keep you afloat at the same time: you can swim crawl with only your arms so they are the engine pulling the rest of your body along; you can just use a scissor kick (frog kick) to push yourself forward. Most strokes combine the legs and the arms working for speed, ease and so that the forces pushing your pody up to keep you afloat have no dead weight dragging you down. Remember though, that any motionless part of your body is potential dead weight, and will cause drag if out of the horizontal position (ie stop moving a leg and let it fall downwards, see how it tries to pull the rest of your body with it). To prevent this make sure your entire body moves with the flow of your stroke; do not actively try to move your torso by arching your back or so on, but let it gently twist or rock with a crawl stroke, or ripple like a dolphin moving with breaststroke or butterfly. Try and be aware of how this works while learning strokes, and you will quickly feel how to instinctively streamline your body.
Aside from that, you need someone there with you to teach actual strokes, explaining them is one thing, but you need someone to correct mistakes. Watch competition swimming if you see some on tv, the underwater shots give you a great view of stroke techniques. Also (and here it gets a bit Sun Tzu Art of Swimming) have a look at how dolphins, whales, sharks, submarines, frogs, eels, and so on, move underwater - every human stroke has stolen technique from various animals, as there are actually very few efficient ways of moving yourself through water.
If you do the above three steps, however, you can learn to be comfortable in water. After that you will no longer be a bad swimmer, as you will no longer be fighting against the water every second. After that, you should hopefully enjoy it! Just play around, have fun, and learn for yourself
Not really, it's the air in your lungs that provides most of your buoyancy, breathe out completely before going underwater and you can sit on the bottom of the pool quite happily (don't try and breathe in at this point though
Myself if I try floating on my back I pivot about my chest till I'm vertical, though I have very little fat so that probably helps/hinders.