Freestyle leg movement

Hey guys, and welcome back to my swimming blog. As most of you (at least the people who read my posts about swimming, that is) may have known, due to a chain reaction of mistakes- Okay, you know what? I'll just tell you the whole story so you know what went wrong and how. So here's the story behind this repetition of posts about the same style...

So basically, I forgot to complete my posts about freestyle, which led me to make posts about breaststroke, butterfly and backstroke with no idea that I ever forgot one of updating my posts about most important styles in the art of swimming: the freestyle. So by the end of the week (of making posts about freestyle, that is), I only managed to complete (wait, hold on, let me check... One, two, yep. Only two posts, as it turns out) two posts out of the six posts about swimming freestyle I was supposed to do.

I do NOT remember the cause of my missing out on those posts, and it doesn't look like I'm going to remember why anytime soon. Maybe because I forgot to do them? Maybe because I thought that I was doing some other style? I don't know why, but one thing's for sure: I'm going to let by-gones be by gone by finishing up something I was supposed to finish up weeks ago. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the reason behind the creation of this post. So anyway, enough missing out; let's just get this topic over with.

Maybe I should have told you this long ago, back at the the beginning of my VERY FIRST post about swimming freestyle. Maybe I should have told you that I'm kind of what you'd call a “semi-pro” at the freestyle, having been taught this style for so long (the reason I said “semi-pro” and not “pro” or “master” is because although I've been taught the freestyle for years (almost a decade now), there was still some pretty laughable flaws that I need to fix up), so I guess you guys could trust me on the tips I give during the duration of this post.

But nevertheless, being the “semi-pro” I am at swimming (and not the “master”), I WILL require the assistance of a video to help support my tips about the freestyle hand movement. So here's the link to the video. This particular video is pretty “official” (as I like to call it), and you will want to use it in combination with the post. If you DON'T watch the video, however (whether you don't want to/can't because of any technical difficulties/whatever), I guess the information you'll be relying on is from my years of swimming and tips from my trainer. So without further ado, let's get straight to it!

As you may have seen in the video (if you watched it, that is), while swimming freestyle, the leg movement is often underestimated. Mostly it's the hands that do (almost) all the work, while the legs do some extra propulsion for the body, albeit little amounts of propulsion. The truth is, the legs can actually be “upgraded” to give you much better propulsion (this way your feet actually matters more than it originally was, being almost useless for helping your freestyle-swimming body through the water). Most successful athletes out there make use of their legs to become such great swimmers we know today; Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, these are just one of the many athletes who make use of their legs when swimming. That's what makes them so good.

That should be it for today's post, hope it was useful. Maybe this tip will (probably) give you some advice on how to use your legs to the best extent. But for now, that should be all, thanks for reading and see you by the next post (probably)! Goodbye!