The Sports Archives Blog

If you want to be involved in competitive swimming, you must learn how to do the butterfly stroke.  Furthermore, you want to be able to do it very quickly.  Naturally, you cannot learn to swim without actually swimming, but hopefully reading the guidelines below will help you to perfect your stroke at least somewhat.

Steps to Doing the Butterfly Stroke

1. Learn the butterfly stroke last.  You have to have a very strong body and your stamina and endurance needs to be very high.  You should have built this up through your other training.
2. Get an instructor.  You can learn to do the butterfly yourself, but it is a whole lot better to have someone who knows how the stroke goes watching you and giving you hints and tips on how it actually works.
3. Work on the kick first.  The butterfly kick is the most important part of the entire stroke.  You have to keep your legs together and move in the way you would imagine a mermaid to move.  Basically, the movement is like a fluid wave.  Most people find it easiest to learn this by wearing flippers, which can work.  Do not, under any circumstances, use a kickboard.  This will force your body in the wrong shape.  The kick is in two parts as well.  The first is  medium in size, when your hands go in the water, and the second is a larger one, which happens when you have to lift your body up.
4. Get the arms right.  As soon as your head comes out through the surface, your hands need to move forward.  Take a breath and then tuck in your chin, touching the top part of your chest.  This way, your arms will get much higher.  You need to make a round, swooping movement, starting at the back and bringing your arms together in front of your face.  It is best described as a keyhole shape that you do continuously.

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