Learning the American Crawl

Learning the American Crawl  is taking a major step toward increasing your agility, mobility and confidence in fresh and salt water swimming situations.  Though many beginning swimmers regularly execute aspects of the American Crawl, most have major flaws in their arm and leg movements or fail to appropriately coordinate all parts of the stroke to produce speed and power . Like learning any swim stroke , the best way to approach learning the American Crawl is by dividing the stroke into parts, learning and then practicing each part separately and then doing the necessary work to bring  individual elements together into a coordinated whole.  As with the learning of all water skills, learning the American Crawl should only be attempted under the supervision of a certified Water Safety Instructor, a qualified Lifeguard or a mature and experienced swimmer.  

Begin  by working on the leg kick which for the American Crawl is called the" flutter kick"  because the feet in this kick appear to flutter by one another through the water.  In the American Crawl the flutter kick provides the bulk of the propelling force and so should be learned first and practiced regularly to build endurance and strength.  This kick can be learned and practiced  independently from the full stroke by lying on your stomach, braced by placing your hands on the bottom with legs fully extended on a straight line back from the hip.  The flutter kick requires the swimmer to drive the legs separately in alternating kicks from the surface of the water to about a foot or more below the water's surface.  Kicking should be done rhythmically and legs should pass each other moving in opposite directions.  When you kick, your heels should barely break the surface of the water while your knees and ankles should be relaxed but not bent.  Continue practicing your kick in shallow water or bracketed to a dock or at pool side until you feel comfortable enough to try it in slightly deeper water.