Backstroke Skills - The Fundamentals

The fundamental backstroke skills, located in one place for your reference.

Swimmers who perform the strokes well and with apparent ease do so because they execute the fundamental skills well. Their strokes are clean, direct, fluid, continuous, and harmonious. There are no unnecessary movements, no unwanted pauses or interruptions, and the parts fit together nicely and beautifully.

Below is a breakdown of the fundamental backstroke skills. Performing these skills well and at the right time in the stroke will ensure you are on your way to a seamless, smooth, and well-executed backstroke.

For Balance and Stabilization

• Head steady and level

• Body Long and Taut

• Entry – Aggressive shoulder and pinky in (lead with back of shoulder on entry)

• Exit – Aggressive hip and thumb out (roll out with hip and torso)

• Body roll: most with shoulders, medium with hips, least with feet

• Recovery – Thumb up, easy relaxed easy recovery

• Six Beat Metronome Kick - should be constant and straight up and down.

For Propulsion - High Elbow Catch and Pull

• Slice in, Grab a hold

• Wrist/Rotate/Press

• Square the blade, fingertips to the side

• Press and accelerate through the pull, keeping the blade square, engaging and squeezing the lats

Notes on Propulsion in Backstroke

At the entry, the swimmer should slice in aggressively with the back of the shoulder, incurring almost zero resistance. At the catch, the swimmer should grab a hold of a "mountain" of water, and feel an infinite amount of resistance (thus the expression "'zero to infinity").

Once the swimmer has a hold of "massive water" and feels great resistance against the hand and forearm, he should press and accelerate through the pull, using the lats and pecs to do the heavy lifting.

To ensure propulsion, the fingertips must stay pointed toward the side wall during the pull, and not upwards toward the ceiling or sky. The palm should face the back wall, always pressing backwards, always propelling the body forwards.

Notes on Backstroke Underwaters and Finishes in Practice

It's important to work on underwaters your back – it's not the same as doing it on your front or side. Many swimmers practice pushing-off on their stomachs and do almost no underwater kicking on their backs.

It's also important to work on backstroke finishes in practice - it's nowhere near the same as finishing on your stomach or front side. Many swimmers turn onto their stomachs when finishing to the wall in backstroke in practice.

These are both skills that need to be practiced well to be done well in a race!