Backstroke hand movement

Hey guys, and welcome back to my swimming blog. As most of you may know (especially the people who have been consistently reading my posts), this week we're discussing about the backstroke. Last week I made a post about my history with the backstroke (which was not a very good one, I can tell you that). Now today, we're going to discuss about the correct hand movement in the backstroke. I'm pretty skilled in this backstroke business now that I've already mastered it(like I said a few posts ago for those of you who read them), so I'm pretty confident that you guys can trust me on this.

However, how can I guarantee you guys a (almost) foolproof guide to execute the backstroke hand movement without a good video to help support these facts? As usual, you can find the link of the video used for this post here. This video will prove quite useful for the post, and most of this post's information will rely on it, so you may want to watch it. If you don't, well, heed my infamous saying: “good luck on making sense of the rest of this post starting from the next paragraph”. So anyway, enough talk, let's just get straight into it!

Before we start, let me give you a very important tip about the backstroke that will help you immensely; the backstroke (especially the hand movement) is pretty much just the freestyle executed backwards. In other words, pretty much the whole meaning of backstroke is to just turn your body 180 degrees from your original position when you're swimming freestyle. That means the hand movement is reversed; instead of lifting your hands from the water starting from your hip and back into the water with your hands near your head (like you'd do in freestyle), you would instead do the same thing, but upside down (I know it doesn't sound that different, but believe me, it really is) along with a few modifications (as you're about to see in the next paragraph).

Anyway, here's how the video explains it; when lifting your hands out of the water in backstroke, lift your hands up to the surface, with your thumb being the first to be lifted up from the surface of the water. In midair, spin your hand (that's right, only one hand at a time while swimming backstroke, for those of you who didn't know) 180 degrees from its original position in the air, resulting in your pinkie being the first to enter the water as your hand falls back down into the water. After doing this, simply push your arm back into its original position way before you lifted your hands in the air and repeat the procedure again over and over until you reach the end of the pool/ until your coach/trainer tells you to stop.

So that's the basic method for executing the backstroke hand movement. I hope that I had made a significant improvement over my recent posts a few days back, where I either didn't relate the video with the post at all/related the post with the video, but only a fraction of it. When I return, I will be back with some more tips about how to maximize your backstroke skills. But for now, it's time to say farewell. Goodbye people, and see you until the next post!