Today we're going to work on a problem and freestyle, which is an out sweep of the lead hand during extension. Typically, this happens for a couple reasons one is imbalanced to is looking or seeking more resistance, feeling like you're going to pull more water. But the balance issue is typically when someone breathes to one side, they're going to sweep that hand out to the other side for stabilization. So we're going to look at what the issue is, and then we're going to look for a couple solutions to help fix that. So first, I will illustrate the incorrect. And you can consider this a contrast drill. In that I'm going to purposely sweep the left hand out quite a bit when I breathe to the right. And so you'll see kind of the stabilization impact of the hand. And what happens with the hand when the body is not balanced.

The next step is to get a feeling of what it's supposed to be like to have the hand path path be straight. So you're going to think about the fingers, almost dropping them into the flow of the water and having the water press the hand back. So you're thinking about a very linear path of the hand, the fingertips drop ever so slightly, so they almost feel like they're falling in the water, rather than that supportive mechanism that you've built with the feeling of the out sweep. So the fingertips slightly down, again, feeling like you're falling into the water, rather than that bracing. Now I'm doing this with a no breather, you can do this for a few strokes, no breather, or if you have a snorkel, you can practice it a little bit more. But again, no out sweep on the fingers whatsoever, but they dropped slightly into the water flow and then just pull back. The next step is a contrast drill in which every other stroke you can sweep out and then have the hand go straight back, you want to see as much difference between these two movements as possible, showing what is incorrect, which is the out sweep, and what is more correct, which is a straight down or a linear path of the hands. So alternate them as best as you can, again, I'm doing no breather, you can use a snorkel or just go for a shorter distance. And the final pure swimming version of this is that you're now going to read every fourth, you're going to alternate the nonbreeding with the breathing, and you're really focusing on the way the hands are moving during the non breathing part. So focus on how the left hand falls directly down into the flow and then mimic that when you go to air. This is going to have a feeling of falling or slipping like you're not connecting with the water. That's mainly because you've already built this feeling of support. And so that that out sweep of the hand braces, it actually slows your rotation a little bit, it pushes you up a little bit. And so it's this feeling that you've built in that you feel is right, because it feels you have connection. The problem is is that there's a lot of detrimental things that go with it. So memorize the fingers down falling, and then carry that into the breathing.

And finally, one last idea is to use a pair of big or oversized hand pads. And these make it harder to move the hand from side to side because of the surface area. So the larger the hand paddles, the more direct they're going to be pushed through the water. So make sure you're doing this with an ease of swim rather than trying to go really fast. So let the hands fall in, let them fall straight back and use the size of the paddle to keep the hand as directly as possible. Here's just a couple of different ideas that can help make sure that we're not sweeping out too far with a bracing hand or sculling at the beginning of freestyle. So good luck. Let us know how it works.

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Freestyle - Sculling Hand