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Teaching Swimming Body Shape and Position: Mastery

When your kids have learned how to glide in streamline position, you can start to teach them the idea of rolling in the water to make their swimming stronger. This land exercise is the precursor to a lifetime of rolling in the water.

Teaching Your Kids to Roll When They Swim

Eventually, most of your child’s time swimming will be spent rolling from side to side, slicing through the water, instead of on his stomach, pushing through the water. Because of the way the shoulder joint moves, swimming on your side allows you to be even longer. You can give your child a feel for this on land. Have him stand facing a wall with his body touching it. Ask him to stretch both hands up. Have him keep his fingertips against the wall and twist his torso from side to side.

When the side of his body twists close to the wall, that arm reaches higher than it does when his torso is flat against the wall. The same thing happens in the water. Doing this will also help him feel how his core and back muscles move when he rotates. Eventually, that’s what your child will aim for in the water.

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Teaching Swimming Body Shape and Position: Stage 1

When fish swim, they’re graceful. They’re balanced. They’re slippery. They move efficiently, with each motion propelling them through the water. A well designed boat slices through the water, creating as little resistance and drag as possible. What does this have to do with teaching kids to swim?

Importance of Body Shape and Position in Teaching Kids to Swim

The shape and position of the body in the water make a huge difference to how well the body moves through the water. Before even considering teaching your child strokes, you have to teach him to feel his body in the water and to shape his body in the water. This is a great swimming skill to start to teach even before you get into the pool.

The First Stage of Teaching Swimming Body Shape and Position

You’re aiming for a long, balanced body position. The longer you can make your body in the water, the faster you’ll move. Kids tend to revert to a dog paddling position, with their bodies close to vertical in the water and their arms bent and close to their bodies.

Have your child lie on the ground outside the pool or at home, on his back or his stomach. Don’t forget to put a towel down to make him comfortable if you’re practicing on hard ground. Ask him how his body feels while he’s lying down. What’s the feeling in his limbs? How about in his belly? What about his head? Compare this to how it feels to sit or stand.

Practice the streamlined position until it feels natural. Have your child practice not just lifting his arms overhead but stretching them as if he’s reaching for something just beyond his fingertips. Keep the body in a streamline position, with the arms reaching forward, the arms and head in line with the torso, the chest pressing down into the water, and the legs in line with the torso. Practice it on the ground outside the pool.

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Teaching Kids to Glide in the Pool: Stage 1

When your kids can put their heads under the water and kick, they’re ready to learn the streamline or torpedo position. This position will help your kids learn to keep their bodies in a position that minimizes the amount of drag their bodies create and helps them to move through the water with less resistance. Teaching your kids to glide through the pool in this position will give them their first taste of what it really feels like to be able to swim. Here’s how to teach your kids to swim in the torpedo or streamline position.

Teaching Kids to Swim in the Torpedo or Streamline Position—Without Even Getting Wet

Start teaching your kids to swim in torpedo position without getting in the pool. On dry land, have your child lie on his back and look straight up at the ceiling. Ask him to extend his arms overhead so that they’re flat on the ground and his body is a straight line from the tips of his fingers to the tips of his toes.

Have your child place the thumb of one hand where the thumb and first finger of the other hand meet. Then, have him rotate his hands slightly so that the fingers overlap. The shape of the hands is like a triangle, with the overlapped fingers forming a point.

His head should be in line with his arms, not tucked down or tilted back. When he’s lying on the ground looking straight up at the ceiling, this will be the position his head naturally assumes. In the water, kids have a tendency to lift the head up and keep it out of the water. A guideline that helps the head position is to make sure your ears are touching your upper arms. Ask you child to squeeze his ears with his arms to feel their position.

Have him practice the same position standing straight up and looking straight forward. Keeping his body in this position without the guidance of the floor is only slightly harder.

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Teaching the Swimming Kick: Stage 1

When you’re teaching your kids to kick, you can take advantage of time outside the swimming pool to work on this skill.

How to Teach Your Kids to Kick without a Swimming Pool

Have your child sit in a chair and follow these steps to teach him the important points of the swimming kick.

  1. Demonstrate what it means to flex and to point, and have him practice it without any kicking motion.
  2. Have him hold still while you move his feet for him from flexed to pointed and back again, so that he really feels the ankle and can isolate that feeling.
  3. Have your child sit on the edge of the chair and brace himself with his hands. Ask him to lean his torso back slightly for balance and kick from the hip, keeping his legs straight, his ankles loose, and the kick small and narrow.

Use this opportunity to touch his upper thigh to show him where the work is being done. He won’t get a great sense from this exercise for how important the ankles are, because air resistance is so much less than water resistance, but he will get a good feel for keeping his legs straight and for the range of motion from the hip.