Nearly every self-taught freestyle contains the same handful of faults, in roughly the same order of expense. Work through them in this order — fixing a later one while an earlier one is still present rarely holds.
1. Sinking legs
The most expensive fault in swimming. A swimmer whose hips and legs hang below the surface is towing a wall of water. No amount of arm strength compensates for it.
How to recognise it
- Exhausted after one length despite being fit on land.
- The kick feels frantic but produces nothing.
- Someone watching from the deck sees your feet well below your shoulders.
Why it happens
Almost always head position. Lifting the head — to look forward, or to breathe — acts like a seesaw and drives the hips down. Holding the breath makes it worse, because full lungs at the front and empty legs at the back tips the whole body.
The correction
Look down, not forward. Press the chest very slightly into the water. Exhale continuously rather than holding air. Most swimmers find the legs rise on their own once the head goes down — no extra kicking required.
2. The dropped elbow
The most common propulsion fault. Instead of holding water with the forearm and hand, the elbow drops first and the arm sweeps through with almost nothing to push against.
How to recognise it
- High stroke count — you need many strokes to cross the pool.
- The pull feels like slipping rather than gripping.
- The arm exits early, near the ribs rather than past the hip.
The correction
The catch is set by the wrist and forearm before the upper arm moves. Think of reaching over a barrel: the fingertips angle down while the elbow stays high and near the surface. Sculling drills and single-arm work make the difference between grip and slip obvious.
3. Lifting the head to breathe
Turning into the breath is efficient. Lifting into it is not — it drops the hips, stalls the stroke and turns one breath into a full reset of the body line.
The correction
Rotate the whole body along its long axis and let the head come with it, keeping one goggle in the water. There is a trough beside your head created by your own bow wave — the mouth clears the surface inside it without the head rising at all.
This only works with continuous exhalation. A swimmer who arrives at the breath with full lungs has to exhale and inhale in the same instant, which forces the head up. Breathe out steadily the whole time your face is down.
4. Crossing the centre line
The hand enters the water past the midline of the body. It makes the swimmer wobble, wastes energy on correction rather than propulsion, and loads the shoulder in a position it does not like.
The correction
Enter the hand in line with the shoulder, fingertips first, and extend forward from there rather than sweeping inward. Swimming with a focus on tracking straight down the black line is a simple and effective self-check.
Crossover is often a symptom rather than a cause — a swimmer who is rolling too flat reaches across to find leverage that rotation should have provided.
5. Kicking from the knee
A bicycling kick with bent knees and stiff ankles produces drag and very little propulsion, while consuming a disproportionate share of the swimmer's oxygen.
The correction
The kick starts at the hip with a relatively straight leg and loose ankles, and stays inside the body's shadow — feet should not break far above the surface or drop far below the line of the body. Ankle flexibility limits many adult swimmers here, and it improves slowly with consistent work.
The order matters
Fix body position first, then the catch, then breathing timing, then the entry path, then the kick. A high-elbow catch built on top of sinking legs will not survive, because the swimmer is still fighting drag that no arm technique can overcome.