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Rotate or Rotate Not. There is No right way

By Abbie Fish, Ritter Sports Performance, 02/19/19, 12:00PM PST

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The goal of less rotation is for a swimmer to get into their catch sooner, so they can start moving water backwards faster and more frequently.

Just like everything with swimming technique, there is NO one size fits all recipe for swimming fast. Whether or not you rotate in Freestyle should be seen the same way. While, there’s definitely a few questions to answer when it comes to rotating in Freestyle—all of these points should be answered by EACH coach and swimmer before changing your current stroke. Let’s dig into them:

1.) What Type of Freestyler are YOU?

The easiest way to think of this is by your race distance. Obviously, we discussed that a flatter Freestyle generates a higher tempo, so if you’re a mile swimmer—a high tempo would not be what you’re going for. A sprinter on the other hand—you definitely want a higher tempo, so swimming flatter would be more beneficial for you, as you really ramp up your stroke rate.