Top 3 homework activities for basic skill progression between lessons

Top 3 homework activities for basic skill progression between lessons

Muscle memory is the most important element for children completing their learn to swim journey. As their body grows at a rapid pace, regular practice is essential. We all know how busy it can get at home, especially raising young children, although we would love for you to come to our free family swim times, sometimes that's just not feasible in the weekly schedule. In this article, we hope to give you some ideas of simple things to practice at home, while doing other things like reading, watching TV or exercising.

Freestyle/Backstroke kick

1. Lying down on the floor, point your toes and raise each leg one at a time keeping the leg straight and foot pointed this will help to ensure that you are engaging the glute muscles, a common mistake is that the kick starts from the knee instead of the hips. This weakens the kick and decreases buoyancy meaning that the swimmer will not move very far.
2. Sitting in a chair, at the dinner table or on the couch, lift the legs in front of you and kick them as fast as you can. Again, remember to keep the legs straight and point your toes.
3. Sitting on the floor, put socks halfway on your feet. Kick your legs as fast as you can trying to get them to fall off. To make this fun, make it a challenge between siblings and see who can get them off the fastest.

Breath control

1. In the bath at home, practice blowing bubbles for as long as you can, pop up for a breath and go back under. This will help to develop a breathing pattern that will help in freestyle, butterfly, breaststroke and the kick and roll.
2. For younger children, learning the concept of bubbles, use a straw in a cup of water or the sink and show them the difference between breathing in and breathing out in order to create the bubbles and ensure that they do not drink chlorine once they are back in the pool.
3. For a fun game, take a small piece of paper and scrunch it into a small ball. Sitting the swimmer and yourself or a sibling across the table from one another, play air soccer, blowing the ball back and forth trying to get it to fall off of the other side of the table for a point.

Rolling

1. Lying on the floor, with your hands by your side, roll across the room ensuring you are using your head and shoulders to drive the roll over and not the arms or legs.
2. Standing in the mirror, stand sideways and practice turning your head to look at yourself in the eye in the mirror and then back forward to a flat straight position. (can turn shoulders as well)
3. Lying on the floor have all swimmers/players on their front or back. Once you say pancake flip, they must race to roll over on to their opposite side. Can play elimination mode but ensure they are rolling over, not using their arms or legs to push. 

Basic Freestyle/Backstroke arms

1. To work on timing, stand in front of the mirror and watch as each arm circle comes up and over and ensure that one hand is up while the other is down, one is back while the other is forward etc. Keep arms straight and fingers together to practice strong swimming hands. // Repeat the same for backstroke arms.
2. Stand an arms length away from a door or wall, facing it. Start doing arm circles reaching forward and making sure your fingertips reach the wall each time. You can also do this facing away from the wall to practice making sure the arms come up and out of the water when swimming. // Complete arms in the opposite direction for backstroke arms.
3. To get rid of a cross body pull technique, take two different objects e.g. An apple and an orange and hold one in each hand. Standing up, practice smooth arm circles keeping the orange on the orange side of the body (right) and the apple on the apple side of the body (left). // Complete arms in the opposite direction for backstroke arms. Using heavier items in this activity will also increase their strength, helping to create a more effective underwater pull.

Breaststroke kick

1. Walk around the room keeping your toes off of the ground and if you can, the balls of your feet, keeping the angle of your ankle at 90 degrees. To make this more challenging balance something on your head while doing so.
2. Sitting on the front of a chair or the couch, put your legs out straight pointing your toes so your whole foot is touching the ground. Bring your feet towards you, keeping legs together and then sweep them out and around back to the start position. By ensuring their feet stay on the ground throughout the whole motion, you are able to practice turning their feet out for the kick and pointed toes for the glide. 
3. Lying face down on the ground pick your feet up and flex your ankles until you feet create a flat surface. Balance something such as a book on the feet while you watch TV, read a book or draw etc.

Breaststroke arms

1. Lying down across the bed with your shoulders and head hanging off of the end, reach your arms out straight into a superman position. Start to complete a breaststroke stroke including the out sweep keeping elbows high and hands down until they reach the bed, then the arms should come together before reaching back out to a superman position. This activity will not only help promote a strong underwater pull but ensure that the sweep is not too wide. To develop the stroke further practice breath timing as well by looking up as your arms come outwards, looking back down as they come to the front and glide. By practicing breathing in this position you are also forced to use your neck muscles to reach out to look forward which will help create a smoother movement in the water.
2. Standing in front of the mirror with your hands out in front, look down at your toes (this will imitate the glide position) before completing a breaststroke arm sweep, looking at yourself in the mirror during the out sweep and back at your toes during the rest.

Butterfly arms

1. Lying face down on the floor, lift your chest up and practice swinging your arms back and forth around you, make sure the back of your palms are coming forward each time. To make this harder, start stacking books or similar on either side and work to get your arms up and over without touching them by lifting your chest higher.
2. Measure the distance of your foot + 1 half away from the wall and stand there, facing away from the wall. Start practicing your full butterfly arms in a standing position, focusing on making sure your pinkies are dragging along the wall as you bring your arms back to the top.
3. To practice a stronger underwater pull, lie down along a bed or the couch with 1 arm and shoulder hanging down the side. Start to complete 1 arm butterfly, keeping the elbow high through the pull phase and arm long, thumb down, pinkie up on the forward swing.

Butterfly kick

1. Standing up with your feet together, practice a body roll movement starting from your chest, moving all the way down to your feet.
2. For younger children or beginners, standing up and practicing sticking their hips backwards and forwards in a consistent rhythm will help them start to understand the movement.
3. Practicing core exercises will also help to directly improve a butterfly stroke. Planking, sit ups, push ups and Russian twists are all great ways to strengthen the core and create a stronger swimmer. In butterfly the core is used to keep the body movement consistent in the kick and to push the chest and arms out of the water.

Regular practice of these activities in between lessons will help to build the muscle memory and strength needed in the relevant muscles to complete a more effective swim once they get back into the water. For further explanation and demonstrations, visit our YouTube channel: Aquatots Swim School Canberra

(https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYAusLEm0KriNxKNDnEAOrg)