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As swimmers and swim coaches, we’ve all had the experience of coming down to the wire of a race and not knowing if you’re going to win or lose. This is the moment when all of your training comes down to how well you can finish and if you can out-touch your opponent. As a younger swimmer, I always found myself getting stressed in these situations and wishing that I had focused more time in practice on making sure that I could out-touch any opponent. While swimming in college, I broke down the swim finish of all 4 of my strokes and got really, really good at winning races.
Today, I want to teach you to do the same for your swimmers! After all, some of the greatest races in swimming history are decided by 0.01 seconds at the finish… like this one.
From a young age, swimmers learn that Butterfly requires a two-handed finish. Because we spend so much time drilling this into swimmer’s heads (and for good reason – this is an intimidating rule for new swimmers), we oftentimes leave out a lot of other crucial coaching cues.
To out-touch an opponent on Butterfly, swimmers need to keep their head down, touch the wall on the extension of the arms, not dive down, and use the flags. It’s a lot to keep in a person’s head all at once.
The Butterfly Swim Finish Coaching Cues Are:
The Backstroke Finish might be the trickiest of all. For starters, Backstrokers can’t see their opponents so it becomes tricky to try and “out-touch” someone. Unless of course, a swimmer takes a peek underwater or turns their head to the side, which I do not recommend for speed.
Writing a list of coaching cues to give you changes depending on the swimmer, and multiple different choices they need to make regarding how they are going to finish their Backstroke Races. As you likely know, the rules and regulations surrounding the Backstroke finish have changed quite a lot in the last few years. You can read about the current, LEGAL style of Backstroke finish HERE!
The reality is that to complete a legal Backstroke Swim Finish, swimmers can now be fully submerged underneath the water or choose not to be. Mostly, we still see a lot of swimmers finishing their Backstroke races on the surface and we have a BLOG POST that goes more in-depth about these style of finishes.
Finishing a Breaststroke Race comes with extremely similar challenges to the Butterfly Races. The main difference is that you’re dealing with the “Frog Kick” versus a Butterfly Kick. But, if you look at both the image above with a Breaststroke Finish and then, scroll back up to a Butterfly Finish image – you will see how these finishes look entirely similar within their body position. In both images, Coach Abbie’s upper body is still descending down, as their hands are reaching for the wall. While, the main difference seen is in the legs on their lower body, but hey – their toes are pointed in both images, so it is kind of hard to tell which is which – right? That was entirely our point with picking these two still frame shots! 😏
For Breaststroke Finishes more specifically, we’ve all seen swimmers finish their Breaststroke races without bringing their legs all the way around. The type of finish can look short and stubby. On the other hand, if swimmers are finishing and decide to glide in with a long stroke, they can lose the race after losing momentum underwater.
The Breaststroke Swim Finish Coaching Cues Are:
Swim coaches – what’s the funniest way you’ve ever seen a swimmer finish their Freestyle Race? One of my swimmers once miscounted their race and then realized it halfway through their Flipturn – their time was recorded when they hit with their bum. That was pretty funny.
The ideal Freestyle Swim Finish is all about carrying momentum through the wall. And yes, technically physics demands that the wall will stop you. But the fastest Freestyle finish hits with the fingertips and doesn’t stop kicking until contact has been made with the wall. Swimmers must combine those motions with keeping their eyes down as well.
The Freestyle Swim Finish Coaching Cues Are:
No matter what stroke you’re talking about, finishing well comes down to creating a culture on the team of finishing strong. Swimmers should encourage one another to finish with strong kicks, eyes down, and pride in the race they just swam! This includes close races and even races where the next swimmer finishing still has a half lap to go. How we finish is a reflection of who we are as competitors. It’s an aspect of the race to take pride in.
Once a swimmer has their swim finish technique down pat, it comes down to who wants it more. Swimmers should also practice pushing their exhaustion and sharpening their mental toughness at practice.
Until Next Time,
Abbie Fish and the Swim Like A. Fish Team
One Response
Thanks. Excellent