Freestyle Swimming: How To Swim A Smooth  

What's your biggest takeaway from Dan's stroke? Let me know in the comments below ⬇⬇⬇

I'm in awe of how smooth your strokes are. I look like I'm possessed by demons when I swim.

I am a 26-year-old guy that never learned how to swim while younger. I've been learning how to on my own now at my local gym pool, I am about 1 month into my journey. So far I can stay afloat (I was scared of letting go at the beginning lol) learned the breaststroke and I am ok at that, the one style however that I want to learn and perfect it so badly is the freestyle but I cannot get the hang of the breathing! Today though I finally managed to swim an entire 50M lap without stopping doing the freestyle while taking breaths by pulling my head up, I am proud of myself of how far I've come into my swimming journey and I love it I cant wait every morning to go swim when I have the time.

How do we thank you for such a deep explanation? Details, pauses, and explanations for each part?! A great video that makes us independent of a hundred other videos. Thank you very much for your time, effort and expertise.🙏🙏🙏

One of the best swimming videos I’ve seen on RU-vid

he swimms so fast that 50 m that it seems like a 25 m pool

as a beginner who wants to have a good speed not on a competitive level this video helped me alot thank you

Love the explanation of the shoulder, elbow, wrist all in a line - I use this to explain the optimal propulsive position

Thank you for the thorough analysis and stroke break down. I'm focusing on my breathing and rotation this week.

Brilliant! I may never get to 1:10/100 - but fantastic to see the breakdown - ALL of your Effortless Swimming tips can be seen here - Dan's stroke is simply TEXTBOOK beautiful form and it's great to see it in action and broken down into detailed components... I'll keep working! Thanks!

I was watching his hand entry, one thing I have been working on lately. I tried it today and man, improvement in speed and efficiency was mighty. Will be watching this over and over till I get it perfect.

This video is a masterpiece that all swimmers should see.

Excellent video. Really like that you slow down and reverse sections whilst explaining a point. Recently put my GoPro in an outdoor pool while I was on holiday and found it so useful to see where I was going wrong and now compare it with this. Thanks.

I know this isn't race pace but this is one of the best front crawl strokes I've ever seen. Never mind competition, though I have done a bit, I'd just be really happy to be able to swim something like this

Tremendous analysis. So many points to practice and improve. Thank you so much!

Great video, thanks for making it! I will be watching this once or twice a week now onwards.

This is brilliant analysis. It’s been transformative for my freestyle. Thanks Effortless Swimming

This is an outstanding video showing the foundations for a smooth and energy-efficient freestyle from an elite Olympic "Ozzie" swimmer (Dan Smith). The narration is superb and this course will provide many young career, mid career and older swimmers with new tools to help improve their freestyle, especially in moderate and long distance trainings. Thank you very much for posting this series!

There s no turbulence around his hands - amazing

Awesome analysis. I've been doing laps for 40 years and didn't know any of this.

The best explanation on the whole Freestyle knowhow so far, thank you very much.❤

Brenton - Such a thorough analysis, well done!!

So helpful to have you explain these techniques. Thank you

Thanks for taking the time to explain all that. This video is very beneficial for all of us!

Excellent commentary. Thanks for doing this.

Loved the way you broke that down. thanks for making me faster without actually having to swim!

Wow! I watched this video yesterday. Today I applied the best I could its teachings to my 1 km practice. The improvement was amazing! I think that rotating the hip made a big difference, but all details added up to increase speed for the same amount of effort. Still a long learning track ahead, but I'm eager to swim it. Thank you very much!

Awesome analysis & breakdown 💪🏼. Always quality content. Tnx

This is super helpful! Please do more of these but with multiple angles so that we can see e.g., the power triangle from the front, and get more info on the catch!

The glide movement is well described thanks.

Thanks! Your way of explaining is very clear. There are so many areas where I could improve:-)

Awesome. This is such a useful channel. I have ‘taught myself’ with Brenton’s expert help and had my first compliment on my stroke from a young guy at my pool about two weeks ago. I was so made up - I’m 54!! It has taken about 3-4 years to get here :-) Thanks to Brenton

watching that video got my 100m time down to 1:25 and I still feel space to improve. Thanks a lot!

Really good analysis!! I coach new/youth swimmers to always have one hand pointing where they’re going. And also, keep your head down....look where you are...not where you’re going!!

Great video. I need to look at your membership for sure. Thanks

This really demonstrates to me as a beginner swimmer how much technique is everything, hes not moving his arms and legs fast but is moving theough the water fast

Thanks for this generous video! Amazingly helpful for a terra firma athlete trying to learn to swim. It's hard! Who knew drag coefficients matter so much!

Superb explanation and tutorial. Great help. Thank you

Smooth doesn’t mean easy. Even for a professional swimmer it is pretty tough to swim at that pace. There is a lot of work being done in the water. It just looks easy.

Thank you so much, the most beautiful freestyle swimming. I watch this video again and again. I try to practice from this video,

Excellent tuitional video. Many thanks for sharing for all like me who wish to improve their swimming strokes. If only I could glide like that !

A really great video! So many thinks to remember/improve.

Perfect explanation. Thank

This is a great video. Thank you for uploading.

Thank you so much for this breakdown! All swimmers, no matter the skill level, can learn from this.

Very very nice analysis!!! Thank you 🙏

The kicks seems so relaxed and effortless

Great video mate! Keep up the good work.

Aprendo muito com vcs, nas academias não passam exercícios como vcs!!

Thank you so much for such a detailed explanation of part of the technique.

thank you very much from Barcelona. I appreciate a lot!

Muchas gracias muy buen trabajo sigue así.

Most beautiful swimming iv ever seen. Piece of art

Perfect video ! Thx

Outstanding analysis and explanation of every part of an ideal freestyle technique. I have watched this many times, and I'm sure I'll come back to it again and again as I work on different parts of my form. It's also very cool how much the instruction matches with one of my other favorite videos on freestyle technique here on RU-vid, called "Freestyle Swimming: Arm Movement. Complete."

Brilliant thanks Brenton!

this is a masterclass. thanks mate

Would be fantastic to see this as a split screen against your “average” slower swimmer (a 1:30 or 2:00 swimmer)

congratulations on your understanding of how humans can best propel themselves through water especially the little understood timing of the down kick with the catch on the same side, the essential element for power generation

Awesome! Thank you Brenton.

Super analysis thanks good tips 👍🏻

best swimming channel ever

I picked so many gems from this vid. Thanks so much

Thank you, great video! Helpful! 😊

My most watched video for the last several years. By a LONG way! So much to take from this, and so very glad Brenton got this on tape. Inside the Effortless Membership, there's the expended filming of this same session, where Dan swims at race paces as well, for those who wish to see how all of this comes together. It's amazing, that he can swim 45spm and do 70s/100m, but his *all-out* effort's at, say, the Olympics, will get him "only" 54s/100m (200m pacing) relative to this demonstration. Just goes to show that pure technique and efficiency gets you a LONG way and then fitness, strength, elite training and aerobic capacity take you the rest.

Very good. Learnt a lot!

Thank you! I can't wait for next swim so I can try to improve my arm movement.

Excellent explanation

An excellent video particularly the slow motion and annotation part

6:14 dropped elbow in background :D

Thanks coach. Thanks to you I can maintain a 1:35-1:40 pace for a triathlon when before I couldn't get across the pool.

this video is legendary!

the tennis ball from thighs to feet and ankle flexibility on the dolphin kick - just started working on them, also 'slow to fast', and shoulder position. all great tips i will try to remember on my next swim! thanks!

This is a work of art.

Great video!

Just so beautiful. Like a perfect golf swing or a really clean run of giant slalom.

Amazing!

Great video

glad to see you point out the key factor for power generation at about the 14:45 minute mark and that is the down kick on the pulling side to allow body rotation to augment the power of the pull; that is, down kick with left leg as the left arm moves from catch to pull; a must movement for sprinters

Great tutorial ✓

Thanks!

GOLD! Thank you!

The worked definition of Effortless Swimming!

Love that kicking. Very light, very efficient 6 beat kick.

Regarding timing of kick/arm. I used to think, and perhaps it's a different view, the timing was kick and pull same side: right kick right pull etc… Got this from Total Immersion initially but observed it in Sun Yang's swimming too. Great video and it's such an impressive example of perfect swimming, something to aspire to!

Thx for this video :)

감사합니다!!!! 느낌이 팍팍 오네요 thank u bro:)

Crazy efficiency

What's even more impressive is the cameraman holding the camera while swimming a 100m freestyle in 1:10

So smooth!

Fantastic analysis, very impressive technique. His ankle flexibility is amazing, any flex/stretch exercises recommendation? And the observation about keeping the shoulder close to the face is excellent. Thanks Brenton, as usual this is pure gold! Please keep up with the great work!

Learned so much from this! Thank you a bunch! Looking forward to get back into the water and try this out

Thank you for the video analysis! I hope you can also show the front and rear view of the his strokes...

Impressive technique

Super video

Love it...

The best video 👍

good to see Dan back in the pool kicking butt

Excelent video and analysis. Thanks for your time for do this. Also i want to ask you, add in description about music that you use in background video :)

thanks