Learn Front Crawl
We may earn commissions for purchases made through links on our site. Learn more on our about us page.
We are taught how to front crawl pretty early on in swimming classes. It is one of the basic lessons that they teach and one of the first. However, that doesn’t mean that learning is easy.
It is quite the opposite. Many children are taught it early on because it can take them years to learn.
However, that doesn’t mean it is impossible to teach yourself. Keep reading below to learn more about how to learn the front crawl and the best way to teach yourself.
What’s the Best Way to Learn Front Crawl?
The best way to learn the front crawl is to take each element and practice them first by themselves. This means you should take the time to understand where your head and body should be. Then, practice your arm movements, breathing, and legs.
By focusing on them individually, you can make sure you get the techniques down right. Once you feel confident you have the techniques and individual parts down, you should be able to start working on combining them all.
If that is too intimidating, try doing two of them at a time and slowly adding more steps. For example, you can practice your head location and kicks, adding arm movements and breathing when you feel more confident.
It’s also important to remember to take things slow. You can’t learn anything overnight, and trying to rush will only make everything worse.
How Long Does it Take to Learn Front Crawl?
Every person is different when it comes to learning. It also depends on how much experience you already have with swimming. However, studies show that, on average, it could take an adult about 20 hours of learning before they can do the front crawl.
Children can learn much faster, but their hours are often more stretched out. Therefore, learning the front crawl properly could take children several years.
As a note, that 20 hours is just to learn the front crawl. That doesn’t mean to do it well or to have nothing else to practice. Even professional swimmers continue to practice even the most basic parts of the front crawl on repeat.
But after 20 hours, you should understand and remember the basics enough to be able to practice on your own. You may also have a good idea of what feels right and what doesn’t, so you understand when something isn’t feeling the way it should.
Can You Teach Yourself Front Crawl?
Yes, you can teach yourself the front crawl swimming technique. There are online classes, videos to watch, and even drills to practice to make sure you get the movements right. All the tools you need to teach yourself the front crawl are available at your fingertips.
Sometimes, it can be helpful to at least have someone come with you while you are first doing the drills. That way, they can help point out when your movements aren’t quite right, or you are forgetting a step.
This doesn’t have to be a professional. Even a friend or sibling can help you. However, like with anything else you are trying to learn, it is hard to understand what you are doing wrong and what you are doing right if you’ve never done it before.
You don’t yet know what should feel right and what should feel wrong, but you will.
If you don’t have someone to watch you and help, you can try to record yourself at the least.
That way, you can go back and watch your movements to see where you went wrong and what needs improving. This is a pretty common technique used among athletes to help them learn their weak spots.
Why is the front crawl so hard?
For the most part, the front crawl isn’t that hard. Each step is fairly intuitive, especially if you have ever been taught how to swim properly before.
However, trying to remember to combine all of the movements at once can be difficult. The timing can be a struggle as well. You can’t just kick freely like you can when first learning.
Instead, you need to learn to time your kicks with your arm movements for maximum propulsion and speed.
Another area people find the hardest to learn is breathing. It can be difficult to understand when to take a breath. For example, some people want to breathe every arm movement, while others feel they have to lift their head more out of the water to breathe.
Sometimes, people find that they lose their timing when moving to get a breath or struggle to add one more thing that they have to remember to do at once.
Many people tend to believe they can multitask. However, when it comes down to it, there aren’t that many people that can do it properly.
Until you properly learn and practice the front crawl enough to become muscle memory, you must try and multitask. This in itself is difficult. But that doesn’t mean you should give up.
Once you practice enough, you will find yourself able to do a lot of the movements based on muscle memory alone. That way, there are fewer steps you have to actively think about at once, which in turn makes everything flow together better.
Final Thoughts on Learn Front Crawl
Learning the front crawl takes a long time. Even for invested adults, it can take upwards of 20 hours, and that is just to learn it. You have to also practice and strengthen your crawl.
However, if you have the patience and dedication to teach yourself, it is more than possible to do so. You can use many drills and practices to help improve your swimming.
If you don’t know where to start, there are plenty of articles and videos online to help you out. The biggest tip is to practice each step individually before trying to combine them all together.
That way, you can be sure you understand the basics and can work your way up to trying to get the timing together.
