How to Improve Your Swimming Technique (Five Proven Tips)

If you've ever watched two swimmers hit the same interval and wondered how one is barely breathing hard while the other looks like they're fighting the water, you've already seen the gap that swimming technique creates. Fitness closes gradually. Technique can change the way you swim within a single practice.

Research on stroke mechanics backs this up: studies show that even strong age-group swimmers only convert a fraction of their effort into forward motion, and the swimmers who convert more of that effort into speed are usually the ones with cleaner mechanics, not just more training hours.

John Hargis, Director of Swimming at IMG Academy, has spent his career turning good swimmers into elite ones. His approach isn't complicated; it's built on a handful of fundamentals that most swimmers never fully master, no matter how many yards they log. Below are the five-swimming technique fixes he prioritizes with every athlete, along with the drills he uses to make them stick.

Why Technique Matters More Than Effort

There's a temptation, especially for younger swimmers, to believe that swimming faster just means training harder. Hargis pushes back on that idea. In his view, the biggest gains often come from the smallest, most technical adjustments, the kind of changes that don't show up on a stopwatch after one practice, but compound over weeks.

Two of the swimming tips he leans on hardest with every athlete he coaches: watching video and developing general athleticism outside the water.

Film of the swimmer themselves and of top-level competitors gives athletes something to aim at that's more concrete than a coach's verbal cue.

And athleticism developed on land, through movement and strength work, transfers directly into the water. The better athlete you are, Hargis says, the better swimmer you become.

With that mindset in place, here are the five technical areas to get better at swimming the fastest.

1. Fix Your Body Position First

Body position is the foundation everything else gets built on. A swimmer fighting drag from a poor line in the water will never out-train that disadvantage — the water will always win.

Stay flat and horizontal

The goal is a flat line from the base of your neck through your lower back. Most swimmers carry a natural arch in the lower back that creates drag without them realizing it.

Hargis has athletes check this on land first: stand with your heels a few inches from a wall, lean back against it, and work on tilting your pelvis until your back flattens against the wall from top to bottom. That same flat-back feeling is what you're chasing in the water.

Keep your head neutral

A head that's lifted too high or dropped too low throws off your entire line, dragging the hips down and increasing resistance. Keep your gaze angled slightly down and let your head rest in line with your spine rather than leading the movement.

Press your buoy

"Pressing your buoy" means leaning your chest and upper body slightly downward into the water, which lifts your hips and legs into a more streamlined position. It's a small adjustment that makes a big difference in how much of your body is fighting the water versus moving through it.

2. Master Your Breathing

Breathing gets treated as an afterthought by a lot of swimmers, but Hargis treats it as its own technical skill, one that's different for every stroke.

In freestyle, bilateral breathing, which means alternating which side you breathe on rather than always breathing to the same side, helps balance out your stroke and prevents the uneven mechanics that come from favoring one side.

In butterfly and breaststroke, timing matters just as much as which side: breathing has to sync with the rhythm of the stroke rather than being squeezed in wherever it fits.

And in backstroke, where your face is already out of the water, swimmers often assume they can breathe constantly. Hargis is clear that this is actually a problem — breathing without a pattern in backstroke can hurt your performance. A deliberate breathing rhythm, even on your back, keeps your stroke efficient.

3. Improve Your Pull (the Catch)

The catch, which is the moment your hand enters the water and begins pulling, is where a lot of your propulsion comes from, and it's also where technique breaks down fastest under fatigue.

The core idea Hargis returns to again and again is holding water: making sure your hand and forearm move through the water in a way that pulls you forward rather than slipping through it with no resistance.

This is one area where video is especially valuable. Watching your own underwater footage next to elite swimmers makes it far easier to spot where your catch is slipping compared to trying to feel it in real time.

4. Add Body Rotation

Rotation through the hips and torso, not just the arms, is what generates real power in freestyle and backstroke. Swimmers who pull almost entirely with their shoulders while keeping their hips flat are leaving power on the table.

Rotation also connects directly to balance: Hargis points out that swimmers are constantly off-balance in the water in ways they don't consciously register and training the connection between your opposite hand and foot like right hand to left foot, for example, helps you rotate through the stroke instead of muscling through it with your arms alone.

5. Refine Your Kick

If there's one area Hargis believes is chronically underused, it's the kick. Too many coaches focus almost exclusively on what's happening above the water and treat kicking as an afterthought. Hargis argues the opposite: improving your kick, on its own, can make you a meaningfully better swimmer. That includes underwater kicking off the walls — a skill more and more coaches are recognizing the value of — and specifically, developing power through the first 15 meters off every start and turn, where races are quietly won or lost.

Swim Drills to Practice These Fixes

Every fix above pairs with a specific drill. Here's what Hargis has swimmers work on for each:

Body position

Practice the wall pelvis-tilt drill described above on land, then bring that same flat-back feeling into the water.

Placing a kickboard under your stomach while floating is a simple way to feel and correct your body's natural float pattern.

Breathing

Dedicate sets specifically to bilateral breathing in freestyle rather than defaulting to your comfortable side. In backstroke, practice breathing on a set count or pattern rather than whenever your mouth happens to be clear of the water.

Kicking

Kick in every body position — on a kickboard, on your back, and on your side — rather than only ever kicking face-down.

Add vertical kicking (kicking in place, upright in deep water) to build leg strength and control.

"Shooters," where you jump off the pool floor and try to kick yourself as high out of the water as possible, build explosive power.

Fins are also worth incorporating regularly; they build both flexibility and the strength needed for a faster, more powerful kick.

Catch and pull

Use underwater video review whenever possible to compare your catch to what elite swimmers are doing, and to track your own progress over time.

Beginner-Friendly Swimming Drills

If you're newer to competitive swimming whether you're working toward making your local team's top group or trying to get your first PR, Hargis recommends keeping it simple:

• Kick more, often. Kicking is one of the fastest and easiest ways to see real improvement, and it doesn't require advanced stroke knowledge to start working on it.
• Practice bilateral breathing in freestyle. Getting comfortable breathing on both sides early prevents an imbalanced stroke from becoming a habit.
• Learn stroke-specific breathing timing in butterfly and breaststroke, and a real breathing pattern in backstroke, rather than breathing on instinct alone.

Train Outside the Pool (Dryland & Strength)

Technique work isn't limited to the water. "I'm a firm believer in the better athlete you are, the better swimmer you're going to be," said Hargis. "I think it's very beneficial to create athleticism, probably more so outside of the water is going to make you a better athlete in the water."

A typical dynamic warmup before practice includes simple movement patterns like marching drills, moving stretches, and anything that challenges balance, since swimmers are constantly working against instability in the water without realizing it.

Some coaches even incorporate movements like somersaults, since anything that raises the heart rate while teaching the body to understand and control movement carries over.

Strength training matters, too. Building general strength and periodically changing up a lifting program rather than running the same routine indefinitely keeps athletes progressing rather than plateauing in the weight room.

And underneath all of it is nutrition. "Swimmers train a lot and you want to make sure you're fueling your machine like it needs to be fueled," he said.

Learn how to fuel your best no matter as a swimmer with IMG Academy Essentials and one-on-one nutrition coaching.

How to Keep Improving

Swimming technique improvement is an ongoing process, and it looks different depending on where you are in your development. Below is a sample practice schedule:

Practice technique daily.

Hargis is emphatic on this point: technique work belongs in every single practice, not just on designated "technique days." Every rep in the water is a chance to reinforce good habits or bad ones.

Change up your training when things stop working.

If your training program has looked the same for a couple of years, shifting the mix more speed work versus aerobic work, or adjusting how your week balances anaerobic and aerobic training can jolt progress that's stalled out.

The same goes for the weight room: changing your lifting approach periodically prevents the plateau that comes with doing the same routine indefinitely.

Don't go it alone.

Communication with your coach is the throughline in almost everything Hargis recommends, especially when progress stalls. Swimmers who plateau often start second-guessing their training rather than working with their coach to adjust it, and that loss of motivation is often more damaging than the plateau itself.

This is also where structured, elite-level coaching environments make a real difference.

At IMG Academy, swimmers train with support from not only swim coaching, but nutrition, mental performance, strength and conditioning, and sports science. That kind of consistent, multidisciplinary support is difficult to replicate outside of a dedicated training environment, and it's exactly the infrastructure that turns technical fixes into lasting improvement.

Learn more about Athlete Personal Development (APD) at IMG Academy.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does it take to improve swimming technique?

Faster than most swimmers expect — if you focus on a small number of changes at a time instead of trying to fix everything at once. Real, lasting change comes from repeating a correction consistently, but you can start seeing improvement within weeks of dedicated focus on just one or two fixes.

How can I swim faster without getting tired?

There's no shortcut here, but the fastest path is making your body more hydrodynamic: improving body position, tightening your kick, and pulling more effectively with each stroke. The training principle behind it is simple: if you want to swim fast, you have to practice swimming fast, so your body learns what that effort actually feels like.

How do I know if I've plateaued, and how do I break through?

Every swimmer plateaus at some point in their development — it's a normal part of the process, not a sign something's wrong. The break-through usually comes from a change: different training emphasis, a new energy-system focus, or a shift in your strength program. What matters most is staying in close communication with your coach and not letting a stall in progress turn into a loss of motivation.

What is the fastest way to get good at swimming for competition?

Prioritize the fundamentals that transfer fastest: kicking, body position, and stroke-specific breathing. These are the areas where focused, consistent work tends to produce the quickest visible gains, especially for swimmers earlier in their competitive development.

How often should I practice technique drills?

Every time you're in the water. Technique work isn't a separate category of training — it belongs in every practice, not just on days set aside for it.

When is it worth getting elite coaching or attending a swim camp?

When you've hit a point where self-coaching or a general program isn't producing the gains it used to — that's usually the moment a more structured, technique-focused environment makes the biggest difference. Programs that combine coaching with video analysis, strength and conditioning, nutrition guidance, and sports science, like the environment IMG Academy builds around its athletes, are designed specifically for swimmers ready to close that next gap.

Conclusion

Improving your swimming technique doesn't require reinventing your entire stroke overnight. It requires identifying the handful of fixes that matter the most for your current level: body position, breathing, your catch, rotation, and your kick that matter most for your current level, and training them deliberately, every single day you're in the water.

For swimmers ready to take that next step with structured coaching, video analysis, and a full performance team built around their development, swimming at IMG Academy offers exactly that environment. Keep your eye out for:

• Swimming camp at IMG Academy
• Swimming boarding school program at IMG Academy