5.1. Should you rotate your torso when swimming freestyle?

Do you think the body should rotate in freestyle?

Maybe this will be news to some of you, but it’s essential to realize that in freestyle, you’re basically always swimming on your side – either on one side or the other.

We don’t swim on our stomachs like we’re lying on a surfboard and only moving our arms. On the contrary, we roll over the core to the other side and then back again. Swimming on your side is much more hydrodynamic and efficient than swimming flat on your belly.

When rotating, we don’t twist ourselves – we try to rotate the entire body like a skewer, like a rotisserie spit.

The shoulders, hips, and legs all rotate together in the same direction.

In practice, it looks like this: as soon as my hand enters the water, I stretch forward with it, and my whole body rolls onto that side and glides along.

Then I switch arms, enter with the other hand, stretch forward, and roll onto the other side and glide again.

This is important to master so you can float and glide on that extended arm for as long as you want — because gliding flat on your stomach simply doesn’t work.

So, once again — we rotate the shoulders, hips, and legs. The only stable point is the head, which keeps looking straight down, and the body rotates around it from left to right like a skewer.