 You want to be Navy SEALs. I can tell you this. It doesn't take the reflexes of a Grand Prix driver, the muscles of Hercules, or the mind of Einstein, but what it does take is commitment. It takes a clearly defined, definite chief aim as to why it is you want to become a Navy SEAL. And today, we're here to talk about swimming. As Navy SEALs, you may find yourself doing a three-four-hour dive to a ship or swimming through the surf zone into a beach with 60-plus pounds of equipment. But your comfort level in the water or your ability to swim should be the last thing on your mind because the only thing you're focusing on in those times is the mission, the execution of the mission. Now, there are three basic fundamentals of swimming that I want you guys to remember. Balance, length, and rotation. And what is balance, length, and rotation? Balance. A lot of people, when they swim, they want to swim heads up which makes their hips fall down. When I see swimmer swimming with heads up, that's the first sign to me is they're not very comfortable in the water, okay? As you get comfortable in the water, as you push yourself to discipline yourself of putting that face in the water, you become swimming more parallel to the waterline, more horizontal, and that's the goal, okay? Those people that swim with their heads up, hips down, they have this image of swimming uphill and that's essentially what they're doing, they're swimming uphill and that's not what we're looking for. We want to be parallel to the waterline, flat. And when you learn that, it's almost as if you're swimming downhill. That's what it feels like, it feels that comfortable that you're swimming downhill and that is the goal. There are two things that affect balance in the water. Your head and your lungs. I'm going to refer to my lungs as my buoy, all right? When I want to swim flat, my head is in perfect alignment with my body. My head isn't lifting, it's not cocking, it's not ducking, it's in perfect alignment. I'm pressing on my buoy because when I press on my buoy, my hips will naturally come up. When I rotate, my body rotates around my head or my head rotates around my body, but again, I never lift my head. I never duck my head. I never cock my head. The first drill, head lead, front balance. And all I want you to do is gently lay forward in the water and start flutter kicking and focus on pressing on the buoy and focusing your eyes straight down at the bottom of the pool. Head in perfect alignment with the body. And just flutter kick along. When you need a breath, you're going to have to lift your head up. Feel what happens, you're going to sink way low in the water. Get your head back into that position and you'll feel yourself rise right back on up to the surface of the water. And stay in that position. If you were to lift your head while swimming, your suit's going to be way too low in the water. If you dip your head too deep, your suit's going to be too high in the water. So you should feel the water line coming right across the back of your head, across your shoulder blades, and across the top of your suit. That's balance swimming. On the next drill, we're going to be, the next drill is called the toe hold drill. The toe hold is a fantastic drill to test comfort in the water. It's a very relaxing drill and you need to focus on that, relaxing. You can either have a swim buddy help you or if the pool allows, you can put your heels up under the pool. But all I want you focusing on is leaning back into the water. Your swim buddy will hold one foot, the big toe of one foot. And as you lay back into the water, you're pressing the buoy between your shoulder blades. Your head, again, naturally aligned with the body, focused straight up into the air. Eyes focused straight up into the air. Now as you push back, I want the water to come up over your goggles and then I want you to lighten up just a little bit. And that water will come right across here, right around your mouth, right around your goggles, and that's where I want you to sit. You'll be perfectly horizontal, bouncing the water at that point. And now just relax. Hands at the side. If the buddy feels some shaking in the foot, that's usually a little sign of discomfort. But the more you do it, as you discipline yourself, as you strengthen your mind to comfort, you'll just be able to just relax and lay there all day long. And that's the goal. The next drill, head-lead back balance, is taking the toe hold just a step further. Now we're going to be self-balanced. Nice, easy flutter kick. Hands at your side. Same principles. I want you to press the buoy between your shoulder blades. I want the head back focused into the sky. Let the water come up over the goggles, and then relax just a little bit so the water just comes right over here. Okay? Now the next drill, we're going to bring ourselves to our side. Head-lead side balance. And remember, we're going away from a wide beam balance to more of a narrow beam balance. It's a little bit, you're going to be a little bit more unstable in this position. It takes a little bit more coordination. Okay? So what I want you to do is start off on your back balance. As you're starting off on the back balance, I just want you to rotate to one side. Okay? While focusing, while keeping your eyes focused, straight up into the air. In that nice even spot. Maintaining pressure on your buoy. All right? Your arms should be dry to the waterline. Your hips should be right on the surface of the water. Okay? Now when you're kicking along and you're feeling comfortable in this position, go ahead and rotate your head down, focusing your eyes straight down at the bottom of the pool. Allow your body to follow yourself a little bit. And remember to not keep yourself directly on your side while you're doing this because you're going to sink a little bit, all right? I want you to be either just short of 90 while you're looking up to the sky or just further than 90 when you now rotate down looking at the bottom of the pool. Again, the buoy shifts a little bit whenever you make a body move in the water. So now you've got to find that sweet spot, press on it, keeping head in perfect alignment with the body. When you need it, breath, you exhale that air, you rotate the head up, you inhale, and now you allow your body to rotate back towards your back a little bit, but again, not all the way on your back. The next drill, just focus on 360-degree head lead balance, and it's basically bringing the front, the back, and the side balances all into one component. Start off on your stomach, pressing with your buoy, leading with your head, head in perfect alignment with the body, focus directly at the bottom of the pool. Go ahead, rotate to one side, making sure that you stay focused on the same direction, same areas of the pool. When you need your breath, go ahead, exhale, rotate your head to the surface of the waterline, allowing your body to follow yourself a little bit. Go ahead and finish the roll to your back. Again, continually shifting where your buoy is, where you're pressing down into the water, adjusting your head, making sure it's always stays in perfect alignment. Rotate to the other side, making sure your head stays up, looking to the sky. When you're comfortable, you feel stable. Now, rotate your head, letting your body follow yourself a little bit, focusing back down to the bottom of the pool, and then finish the roll to back to flat. Now, we've talked about balance. Balance, again, is the basic foundation. Now, let's talk a little bit about length. The average Olympic sprinter who competes in the 100 meter event, his average height is 6 feet, 6 inches. Why is that important? Well, it just shows the longer you are, the taller you are, the faster you're going to be. So, when you're in the water, just be thinking that you want to be stretching out as long as you can, each and every stroke. The length that you can create for yourself, the taller you are, the less drag you're going to have, the more streamlined you're going to be, and the faster you're going to be, and that's the goal. Rotation. A lot of people think that their hands, their arms, and their leg action is their only engines. And they basically just stay in one spot, and they just work this one spot. Okay, kicking and kicking. But think of this example. Think of a baseball, a power hitter from baseball, stepping up to the plate, okay? And he wants to send this ball over the fence. He's not walking up to the plate, just utilizing his arms with the swing action. No, he is stepping into it, cranking his hips, engaging his core muscles, and sending that ball over the fence line. You can name any sport, that's the way it is. It's a lot of hips. It's a lot of core muscles. It's the same thing with swimming. Rotation. You need to engage your hips, your core as another engine, which is your most powerful engine. It's going to be the last engine that tires out. Your arms, your legs are going to tire out before your rotation. These muscles will. So on these next drills, we're going to introduce this. Okay, we're going to introduce a little bit of length. We're going to introduce the rotation, and these drills will develop, and lead into the full side stroke. Okay. The first drill that we're going to go over, is the hand lead side balance. Okay? All we're going to do is start off on our backs, as if we were doing a back balance. I want you to sneak one arm above your head, or forward of your head. And I want you to, once you're stable on your back, go ahead and rotate to that side. Whatever side your hand is up, go ahead and rotate to that side. Once you're comfortable, you're faced up. You're stable on your side with your hand out in front. Now I want you to rotate your head down, focusing straight down at the bottom of the pool, allowing your body to follow yourself a little bit. Okay? And again, we're doing all these drills with the flutter kick. Once you've mastered that drill right here, go ahead and add a scissors kick. Okay, go ahead and add a scissor kick. All right? Nice. And when you scissor kick, go ahead, take your top leg, always comes forward. Always remember, your top leg comes forward in the water. Your bottom leg always comes back. A lot of people, when they're scissor kicking, they'll have one leg going forward, and then when they flip to the other side, their bottom leg will be coming forward. When you're doing the side stroke, your top leg always comes forward. Okay? So, after you've mastered that drill with the flutter kick, you've got the perfect balance, go ahead and incorporate the scissor kick with it. The half side stroke, okay? Starting off with the flutter kick, and again, once you've mastered with the flutter kick, you build into it with the scissor kick. All right? What I want you to focus on is, again, getting as long in the water as you can, okay? Starting off, front balance. I want you to kick. I'm going to start from the extended position. Nice and easy flutter kicking, okay? I pull my arm, and as I pull my arm to full extension, I'm now rotating my head to breathe, as well as I'm rotating my body to breathe. It's all one fluid motion. I pull, body rotates, head rotates for the breath. Once I have my breath, I immediately start bringing my head down, and I bring my hand forward of my head, and right here is where I crank my hips around so I can flat, okay? I relax here. I get my full extension. I make sure I get my full extension. I don't short stroke this, okay? I get full extension. I make another pull, rotate my body, rotate my head to breath, focusing on not lifting my head. I'm constantly having pressure on the buoy so I can stay horizontal in the water. And then I recover my head, looking straight down to the bottom of the pool. I bring my hand forward, keeping my hand nice and tight to my body, palm towards my body, and I bring my hands right past my face. And as I do that, right when the hand comes past my face, I snap my hips back flat so I can get the full extension. The last stroke. The last stroke is full side stroke. The only difference now is now we're going to pull our lead arm down into our body, okay? So starting from the fully extended position, your arms fully extended in front of you, pressing on your buoy, eyes focused directly to the bottom of the pool, initiate that first pull, rotating your head and body to breath, okay? Once you're at this position, go ahead and initiate pull number two, your lead arm, all right? At this point, you can either leave your head up breathing or as you make pull number two, go ahead and bring your head back down, looking at the bottom of the pool. If you're more negative, I recommend that you bring your head back down, looking towards the bottom of the pool, okay? Meaning more negative in the water, meaning you're less apt to float, okay? You bring the head back down to the bottom of the pool. Now, your hands and scissor kick initiate at the same time. As you bring your arms forward, you bring your top leg and your cocking of your scissor kick forward at the exact same time, ensuring that you bring your hands tight to your body and up, up past the face. And as the hands come past the face, this is when you initiate your scissor kick and that scissor kick will corkscrew your body around the flat again. And once you're flat, you immediately initiate pull number one, rotation of the body to breath, pull number two, head back down or you can leave your head back up. Initiating the next portion of the stroke, hands up, scissor kick up, corkscrewing yourself around to flat. Okay, now that's the full side stroke. And the last side stroke I want to introduce is more the sprinter side stroke, okay? Now the sprinter side stroke, the only difference between the full side stroke and this side stroke is rather than bringing that lead arm, that pull number two all the way down, all you're going to do is half stroke it, okay? But arms will still go out together. It's just a little bit of a timing difference, all right? So I pull, I rotate myself to breath and as I'm coming forward, as I'm bringing my head back down to the water, I initiate the lead arm, I scoop down into my armpit and my hands meet again. I fully extend back out to flat, cranking the hips around with that nice, good, strong scissor kick. It makes me flat again and I get full extension, pressing on the buoy, face down in perfect body alignment. Now the difference is between the full side stroke and the sprinter side stroke. The full side stroke, it's going to be a lot less strokes going across the pool. My heart rate's going to be down a little bit lower. I'm going to be getting more distance with each pull because now I'm having two pulls, okay? My stroke count's going to be a little bit lower. Now the sprint side stroke, my stroke count's going to be a lot higher but I'm going to be going across the water a lot faster. So if you're doing the screen test, 500-yard screen test, you may want to do the first 400 yards doing the full side stroke but finish the last 100 with the sprinter side stroke depending on your, on number one, your swimming ability and your fitness ability. So in closing, I'll leave you with this. There's no trick, there's no easy way, there's no self-stituting for good old-fashioned hard work, okay? That hard work, that preparation time, you guys need to be putting in now prior to buds will give you the confidence for when you are in buds. You're going to have that confidence level and that comfort and the chances of your success through buds increases dramatically. Above all else remember, balance, length and rotation. If you discipline yourself in practicing these skills, you're going to find yourself swimming faster and more efficiently. This video is designed to help you get ready for buds training but you can't learn the drills and swim strokes by just watching the DVD. You have to get in the water. We recommend hitting the pool at least three days every week. Try to spend a minimum of one hour in the water each session. Your goal should be to swim up to 500 yards doing the side stroke in under 10 minutes. If you can't swim that long or that far, don't worry. Cut back and work your way up to the goal with desire and hard work and we'll take long before you're swimming like a Navy SEAL.