Use A Smiley Face To Improve Your Swimming

Here's a super-simple visualisation to improve your swimming - it might seem really basic but it can help any level of swimmer from beginner right through to elite competitor:

The Smiley Face Visualisation

Start by grabbing a sharpie to draw a smiley face on the palm of your hand:

Now, when you jump in the water and swim, think about where that smiley face is pointing. During your pull through underwater, focus on keeping the palm of your hand showing the smiley face directly back behind you, to the wall you pushed off from:

By pressing the water backwards in this way you are propelling yourself forwards. But press water to the side, down (or even up) and you will working hard but not gaining any forward movement from the effort.

Keep Things Super Simple

Compared to other sports, it's extremely easy to over-coach swimming with too much complicated advice. Having too much to think about at any one time is a sure fire recipe for slow progress.

Much better to work on one simple thing at a time and really focus on it. That's why visualisations like this are so effective.

Try this one the next time you swim!

Swim Smooth