How to Swim Faster and Stronger

Growing up as a swimmer (my parents literally put me in the pool the day I learned to walk), swimming always came second nature to me. As a young swimmer, best times came easily, which truthfully, is probably what made me fall in love with the sport in the first place. I loved the challenge of seeing how fast I could go or how far I could swim. I thought that as long as I swam as much as possible, I would continue to improve. 

Unfortunately, I was wrong. If only it were that easy. As I got older and my times got faster (and I stopped gaining inches in height), personal bests became much more difficult to come by. I also found that the seemingly endless energy I had as a 10 year old ran out more quickly. In order to improve, I had to shift my focus off of the quantity of the laps I was swimming and focus my attention elsewhere. For me, this first meant focusing on technique in the pool. How can I move my body most efficiently to conserve energy and, maybe more importantly, preserve the muscles, tendons, and ligaments that create the repetitive movements that make swimming so challenging and injury prone? Second, this meant focusing on nutrition outside of the pool to maintain energy levels and repair my body between sessions. 

In this blog, I will share my best tips for how to improve your swimming without just “swimming more.” I will first discuss technique tips to improve the efficiency of your freestyle so you can improve your times, increase stamina, and prevent injury. I will then shift to fueling advice to give you the baseline energy your body needs as well as share some supplements that may enhance recovery from long repeated practices. Nutrition was absolutely essential for me and my teammates to find the extra edge in high school and college. As with anything, swimming form and nutrition must be individualized and what worked for me may not work for you. Check in with your coach or work with a dietitian if you do not already have one if you would like advice that is specifically tailored to you. Read along to learn how I built the foundations of a strong performance during my time as a Division I swimmer.

Freestyle Technique and How to Improve It

When it comes to freestyle, the positioning of your head and your chest matter most to set up your body position. Many people tend to lift their heads up slightly, causing the hips to fall. The cue that can help you remember to keep your head in the proper hydrodynamic position is to not only press your head, but your chest down at an angle towards the bottom while keeping them both in line, so that the legs float upwards. This may feel dramatic at first, but by putting the hips in a higher position, you do not have to kick as hard, which makes your stroke more efficient. A drill that may help this is “the torpedo” where you kick with your arms at your side and rotate between kicking on your stomach and sides while keeping your head and chest in line with the rest of your body. 

Image of torpedo drill with proper head and chest alignment. 

Image by Speedo via Youtube

Once your body is in alignment, you can focus on body rotation. Focusing on pulling the water from your lats instead of the elbows/triceps helps to keep your hips in line and rotating on an axis rather than facing downward and stagnant the whole time. Remember, we want to use the whole body here, not just arms!  There are two drills that I find most helpful for exaggerating the feel of body rotation:

1. Single-arm freestyle: Keep one hand at your side and let the other do the work, focusing on rotating through the entire stroke on one side of your body, and

2. Catch-up drill: Keep one hand out front of your head while the other performs a full stroke. When the stroking hand meets the hand in front of the head, switch arms. This helps to feel extension throughout the whole body while slowing down the stroke.

Example of how a swimmer should engage his or her lats to support the right degree of body rotation.

Image by https://www.slowtwitch.com/swimming/what-is-body-rotation-in-freestyle/

Now for the breath. If you have mastered the body position, the breath is easy-breezy. Many don’t recognize this, but the breath begins with the exhale INTO the water. There is not enough time to get a full inhale and exhale when breathing to the side. Focus on breathing into the water before turning your head (not the entire body), and then inhale before dropping the head back down. 

Finally, how your arm enters the water matters. You want to focus on keeping a high elbow and entering the hand at an angle that is parallel to the bottom of the pool so that you can engage your lat and pull the water below you, like in the image above, ultimately propelling you forward. One way to focus on this is to make it a goal to get across the pool in as few strokes as possible, which requires you to SLOW DOWN the stroke so that each of the movements is exaggerated.

Again, the key to improving technique is to SLOW DOWN. Growing up, I never wanted to work on technique, I just wanted to go go go. BUT, when my coaches pressured me to fix my technique by focusing on the steps above, they held me accountable by setting up a tempo trainer at a slow pace, which forced me to actually pay attention to my body’s positioning rather than its speed. Much to my stubborn dismay, even seemingly small changes ultimately paid off in the long run when it came to preventing injury, improving endurance, and moving more efficiently. 

Recovery: It Starts Before the Swim

We have all heard the story about Michael Phelps eating 10,000 calories per day when he was training for the Olympics, and while that is not necessary for the large majority of swimmers, it is true that swimmers have HIGH energy demands, which means they have to be diligent about meeting energy needs as a whole, not just after the workout. When it comes to recovery from swimming, swimmers really need to look at the diet as a whole, rather than just what is happening after a hard effort. If swimmers go into workouts already in an energy deficit, any energy that is consumed after the workout will go toward keeping the body functioning instead of toward recovering the muscles and replenishing glycogen stores. 

Because of the aerobic demand of the sport, swimmers have high carbohydrate needs - between 5-12 g/kg depending on the duration and intensity of exercise. If swimmers are not eating enough carbs, their muscles will not have the energy to rebuild and recover. More importantly glycogen stores will not be replenished, so performance and speed will decrease. Think, if there is not enough gas in the car, it won’t go very far! Or to use a swimming analogy, if there is no water in the pool, you can’t swim!

Once the muscles have the necessary energy, the next step is to add protein so there are building blocks for new tissue. Protein needs for swimmers range from 1.4-2 g/kg/day. Of course, we want to spread these nutrients throughout the day to promote digestive tolerance, stable blood sugar levels, prevent nutrient deficits, and improve performance. 

Combining carbs and protein with fats and fiber throughout 3 meals and 2-3 snacks per day, will ensure that swimmers have the baseline energy to start focusing on the timing of these nutrients for recovery. 

Honing it in: After Practice

If baseline energy needs are met, swimmers can focus more closely on timing nutrition correctly for recovery. Ideally, to maximize recovery, swimmers need to eat a combination of carbs and protein within 30-60 minutes post-exercise, with carbs providing at least 1-1.2 g/kg at this meal or snack in addition to 20 g of protein. For instance, a 50 kg (110 lbs) athlete should eat 50-60 g of carbs with PLUS 20 grams of protein. If he or she is eating a snack, potential options may be ~20 oz of chocolate milk, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a ½ cup of greek yogurt, or a granola bar with ¾ cup of nuts. If he or she is eating a meal, this may include 4 oz of meat, fish, or poultry with 1.5 cups cooked  rice or pasta or a bagel with 3 scrambled eggs. 

If appetite is a challenge after swimming, trying liquid calories may be a helpful way to recover until your next meal. Try this recovery smoothie: add 1 cup milk, ½ of a banana, 1 scoop protein powder, ½ cup of dry oats, and a ½ cup of berries to a blender and blend on high until combined. Sip on this after practice for a tasty, recovery boosting, and appetite stimulating option! 

Fluid Needs: It’s Not Just the Pool that Needs Water

Many people do not realize that swimmers do sweat, which can cause dehydration. Maintaining proper hydration helps keep muscles and joints lubricated, maintains ideal body temperature, improves blood flow and oxygen delivery, and flushes toxins from the body, just to name a few of the most important jobs of hydration. Similar to how recovery is inhibited when energy needs are not met, not meeting daily hydration needs also impedes recovery. In general, swimmers should drink 0.5 ounces of fluid for every pound of body weight if they are not doing any activity on a given day. On days when they are doing activity, they require an additional 0.25 oz of fluid/lb of body weight 2-4 hours before exercise, plus 5-10 ounces per hour during exercise. 

Using the example of our 50 kg swimmer, he or she would need 55 oz per day if he or she were not swimming on a given day. If he or she were swimming, he or she would need an additional 27 oz 2-4 hours before activity plus 5-10 ounces per hour during activity. 

If these needs are met, swimmers can then focus on recovery hydration. To learn how much fluid needs to be replenished post-swim, swimmers can weigh themselves before and after workouts to determine how much water weight is being lost through sweat and how much needs to be replaced. Once there is a better understanding of sweat losses, they can replace these by drinking 20-24 oz per pound lost. 

Continuing our example, if our 50 kg swimmer lost 0.5 lbs during swim practice, he or she should drink an extra 10-12 oz on top of our already established fluid goals. Taking this a step further, for every pound lost, swimmers should add another 455 mg of sodium to replace what is lost in sweat. So this swimmer should add ~230 mg of sodium to their post-practice hydration, which equates to ~1 Nuun tablet, ½ packet of Liquid IV, or a Gatorade electrolyte packet. So all in all, on swim days, this swimmer has a total fluid goal of at least 92 oz per day with electrolytes. Of note, these numbers may change if he or she is a light, medium, or heavy sweater, so take these recommendations with a grain of salt (pun intended). Working with an RD can help you fine tune your hydration strategy. 

Recovery Supplements: Worth It?

Supplements can be used as recovery enhancers, but they will likely only show benefit if the baseline macronutrient and fluid needs are met (sensing a theme here?). That said, there are a few supplements with evidence to show they may enhance recovery when combined with proper nutrition, hydration, sleep, and rest:

1. Tart cherry juice: May help with overall recovery after heavy training or repeated practices by reducing inflammation and thereby soreness, but its effects on swim-specific performance are not entirely clear yet.^5,6

2. Omega-3 Fatty Acids: May support reductions in inflammation and reduce some markers of muscle damage, but clear evidence that it speeds recovery or enhances performance is not certain at present.⁷ 

3. Vitamin D: Data mostly shows improvement in recovery markers and inflammation when athletes who were deficient supplemented until adequate stores of vitamin D were achieved, suggesting that adequate vitamin D stores are necessary in the adaptation to strenuous exercise, as vitamin D is an antioxidant.⁷

4. Collagen + Vitamin C: Most data support that taken together, these can support connective tissue (tendon and ligament) adaptation and repair, but evidence is not sufficient to reliably support traditional muscle soreness recovery, and there is less data for swimmers in particular.^7,8,9

5. Creatine: In theory may improve physiological markers of stress and muscle damage through ATP resynthesis, however swimming studies do not consistently show that this translates into better recovery between repeated swim sets or faster lactate clearance.^7,10

As always, consult an RD and/or a doctor before considering supplementation of any kind so that you are taking the proper dose of the supplement as well as making sure it is from a reputable source. As a reminder, supplements do not go through the same rigorous testing that drugs do and are not required to have all ingredients and/or amounts of ingredients listed on the label. Always look for supplements that are third-party tested (i.e. NSF Certified), provide transparent ingredients and dosages, and avoid the term “proprietary blend.” 

If you are a swimmer looking to optimize performance to achieve your goals, nailing nutrition and recovery is essential. Working with an RD can help you navigate busy schedules, fueling before, during, and after workouts, and supplementation, plus SO much more. Book with an RD at SkimWellness.com or through Fay. 

Sources:

1. US Sports Camps. (n.d.). Nike Swim Camp tip: Freestyle swimming – 10 tips to improve your technique. US Sports Camps. Retrieved January 21, 2026, from https://www.ussportscamps.com/tips/swim/freestyle-swimming-ten-tips-to-improve-your-technique

2. Thomas, D.T., Erdman, K.A. & Burke, L.M. (2016). Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, Dietitians of Canada, and the ACSM: Nutrition and Athletic Performance. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 116(3), 501-528. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2015.12.006

3. Pearson, E. (2017). Nutrition for Endurance and Ultra-Endurance sports. In Sports Nutrition: A Handbook for Professionals (6th ed., pp. 493–495). essay, Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. 

4. Sawka, M.N., Burke, L.M., Eichner, E.e., Maughan, R.J., Mountain, S.J., & Stachenfeld, N.S. (2007). American College of Sports Medicine Position Stand: Exercise and Fluid Replacement. Med Sci Sports Exerc, 39(2), 377-390.

5. Tanabe, Y., Fujii, N., & Suzuki, K. (2022). Dietary supplementation for attenuating exercise-induced muscle damage and delayed-onset muscle soreness in humans. Nutrients, 14(1), 70. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14010070

6. Hill, J. A., Keane, K. M., Quinlan, R., & Howatson, G. (2021). Tart cherry supplementation and recovery from strenuous exercise: A systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism, 31(2), 154–167. https://doi.org/10.1123/ijsnem.2020-0145

7. Maughan RJ, Burke LM, Dvorak J, et al. IOC consensus statement: dietary supplements and the high-performance athlete. British Journal of Sports Medicine 2018;52:439-455.

8. Inacio, P. A. Q., Gomes, Y. S. M., de Aguiar, A. J. N., Lopes-Martins, P. S. L., Aimbire, F., Leonardo, P. S., Sá Filho, A. S., & Lopes Martins, R. Á. B. (2024). The effects of collagen peptides as a dietary supplement on muscle damage recovery and fatigue responses: An integrative review. Nutrients, 16(19), 3403. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16193403

9. van Dam, L., Terink, R., Mensink, M., de Vos, R. J., & Zwerver, J. (2023). The JUMPFOOD study: Additional effect of hydrolyzed collagen and vitamin C to exercise treatment for patellar tendinopathy (jumper’s knee) in athletes—Study protocol for a double-blind randomized controlled trial. Trials, 24(1), 768. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-023-07783-2

10. Huang, D., Wang, X., Gonjo, T., Takagi, H., Huang, B., Huang, W., Shan, Q., & Chow, D. H. K. (2024). Effects of creatine supplementation on the performance, physiological response, and body composition among swimmers: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Sports Medicine - Open, 10(1), 115. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40798-024-00784-8