Swimming Videos for Front Crawl or Freestyle Training and Technique

Published on Friday 9th 2006f June, 2006 - Updated on 2006-06-19

While a good population of multisport athletes come from a swim background, I don't (and I'm not alone). So I've been searching the web for some (free) swim videos to help with developing an understanding and visualization of proper front crawl technique. The following include videos of Popov's stroke, Ian Thorpe and front-crawl swimming technique.

Swimming videos

The following links include underwater swimming videos and swim stroke videos of the likes of Alexander Popov, Ian Thorpe, Inge De Bruin and there's more to be found if you follow the links. Some of these clips are worth downloading and reviewing once in a while, especially for swim rookies like me!

Swimming: It's not all meters, unfortunately for those of us who don't have any, it involves good technique...

• Alexander Popov: This 13+ minute video of Popov includes some great underwater clips and close ups of his form. There's a bit of cheese in the video, but if you can handle that, this is worth a watch.
• The WA Swimming website videos: WA has a video section that requires registration to get in, but it's worth it as you can select videos from a whole range of styles, including some technique videos and races featuring the likes of Ian Thorpe and Alex Popov.
• Ian Thorpe: Cool video, in slow motion, Thorpe is in the full suit. Watch after the flip to see the pause before the catch; I stink at that.
• Ian Thorpe 2: A bit of a weird angle, this one, but you can see how his stroke progresses from the catch on backwards.
• Ian Thorpe 3: A short but useful video of Ian swimming towards the camera.
• Swim City Freestyle Videos: A bunch of videos incliding some excellent slow motion, underwater videos of Thorpe (1, 2, 3, 4), as well as more videos of Popov and Benett.
• Total Immersion Swim Videos: TI's website has some great videos for people who are learning how to swim. These are instructional videos, so there is voice over advice to help grasp what is being taught. There's also some promo speak and videos; these are free, after all!

Bonus Images: Over at Crucible Fitness, they have frame-by-frame images of Ian Thorpe's freestyle stroke.

Honerable Mention: Swim.ee has a whole whack of videos but the site was extremely slow when I was trying to access them. Going by the titles they look very promising, including Hackett, Thorpe, Popov and De Bruin (the "Popov style stroke" video is quite good). The videos are mostly quite short in length.

Now, time to get busy and visualize proper front-crawl swimming technique!!

Tags: inspiration, swimming, training, triathlon, videos

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