Swimming Balance
A Key to Technical Control and Efficiency
What Is Balance and Why Is It Important?
Balance refers to a swimmer’s ability to remain level at the water’s surface. While buoyancy plays a role, balance also involves stability and control over swimming mechanics. It reflects how a swimmer’s body orients movement to stay afloat or drive forward.
Key Principle:
Balance refers to how your swimming mechanics adapt to maintain control at the water’s surface as they orient to keep you at the water surface or propel you forward. It’s the dynamic relationship between staying stable on the surface and continuing to move forward efficiently.
When balance is poor, swimmers unintentionally redirect propulsion to stay at the surface, instead of using it to move forward. This misallocation of effort disrupts stroke mechanics and increases energy waste, especially in beginner swimmers.
Balance vs Body Position
Balance and body position (alignment) are not the same. Body position is a result of good balance. Without balance, the body instinctively compensates, causing what many identify as “bad technique.” When balance improves, stroke mechanics naturally shift toward efficient forward propulsion, without needing corrective cues.
What Happens When You Improve Balance?
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Stroke mechanics are oriented to create forward propulsion.
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Technique issues fade as compensations disappear.
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Swimmers experience automatic improvements in form and propulsion.
Crucially, poor balance disrupts load.
Each stroke that does not carry the optimal load (water volume) is no longer conditioning a swimmer to be faster in the future.
Balance ensures a consistent load per stroke. Without it, even a strong stroke fails to condition performance.
Who Should Work on Balance?
In short, everyone.
Beginner
Swimmers
Balance becomes the most important focus area and the defining principle of your swimming practice.
Intermediates Swimmers
It dramatically shortens the time it takes to improve pace as you ensure your stroke mechanics are oriented only to create forward propulsion.
Advanced
Swimmers
Prevents technique discrepancies under fatigue and ensures each stroke contributes to maximum conditioning.
How to Improve Balance
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Use Challenging Drills:
Choose exercises that force the body to stay level while moving forward. The struggle reveals balance issues and helps the swimmer adapt.
Beginner: Sculling, form strokes (non-freestyle), streamline kick, slow arms + fast or build kick.
Intermediate: Sculling, form stroke, lateral kick, side stroke, super slow single arm, slow polo.
Advanced: Sculling, super slow drills, swimming with shoes, fist swim and sculling.
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Practice Swimming Slowly
Kicking isolates propulsion to the legs. Without arm support, balance must come from the core and posture.
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Kicking:
When the head sits correctly, the stroke doesn’t reorient to “fix” your body line. That means less wasted motion, increased efficiency, and consistent propulsion.
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Sculling:
Sculling strengthens the connection between muscles in the arm, legs and torso and trains your mechanics to stabilise whilst exploring feel and effective arm movement to create propulsion.. It develops the coordinated muscle control needed for balanced and effective stroke.
Final Takeaway
Balance is not optional—it’s the foundation of all effective swimming. It determines whether your stroke mechanics are oriented to move you forward or waste energy keeping you afloat. Without balance, technique fails, propulsion misfires, and performance stalls.
When balance improves, everything else starts to work. Stroke mechanics align naturally, conditioning improves through consistent load, and technical errors often resolve independently.
Whether you're a beginner or an elite athlete, balance is the key to unlocking efficiency, control, and long-term progress. Every swimmer should make it a central focus of their training.
Balance makes technique possible. Without it, nothing else holds.
Important Note on Elite Technique
Avoid comparing your technique to elite performance swimmers.
Performance swimmers can alter their technique in unique ways while still maintaining balance and consistent propulsion, but for most swimmers, replicating these adaptations causes the stroke to collapse, as the resulting loss of balance forces the body to reorient mid-stroke, breaking the connection between mechanics and forward movement.
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