How to Swim Backstroke: Why Classes Teach It Second

How to Swim Backstroke: Why Classes Teach It Second

Backstroke usually appears second in a swimming class, straight after freestyle, and there is a good reason. Your face is out of the water. You can breathe whenever you like. For a child or an adult who has spent weeks fighting freestyle breathing, backstroke is often the stroke where swimming finally becomes calm — and that calm transfers straight back to freestyle. To swim it, lie back with your ears submerged, eyes on the ceiling, hips high, and roll your shoulders. Everything else follows.

One correction before we start, because the internet is full of it. You do not turn your head to breathe in backstroke. Your face never goes under. The head stays still, looking up, while the body rotates beneath it. Any guide telling you to rotate your head to the side is describing freestyle.

Head First, Always

Put the back of your head in the water. Ears under. Eyes straight up. The water should break somewhere around your goggle straps.

Now press your chest gently down. Your hips rise. You are flat.

That is the entire foundation. A tucked chin and eyes on your toes drops the hips, and then every stroke becomes towing. In a class you will spend an entire lesson on nothing but this, floating and kicking with your head back, and it will feel like you are wasting time. You are not.

Then Rotation

Backstroke is swum on the sides, like freestyle. The entering shoulder drops; the recovering shoulder lifts clear of the water.

The head stays perfectly still while the body rolls underneath it. This is the hardest thing in the stroke. If your head rolls with your shoulders you will swim in a zigzag and your neck will ache by Thursday.

Fix your eyes on one point on the ceiling. Not a moving point. One tile.

Then the Arms

1. Entry. Little finger first, arm straight, entering at eleven o’clock and one o’clock — in line with the shoulder. Never across the head.
2. Catch. Once under, bend the elbow. The forearm is the paddle. A straight-arm pull underneath is common, weak and slow.
3. Pull. Press the water down towards your feet, past the hip.
4. Exit. Thumb first, out past the thigh.
5. Recover. Straight, relaxed, brushing past your ear. The hand turns so the little finger leads again.

One arm enters as the other exits. Always opposite.

The Kick

Small, fast, from the hip. Knees stay under the surface. Toes just break it, producing a low boil rather than a splash. Ankles loose.

A bent-knee bicycling kick is the standard fault, exactly as in freestyle, and it brakes rather than propels. Stiff ankles — the curse of runners and cyclists — make the backstroke kick feel useless for the first few weeks. It improves.

What a Coach Watches For

Swimming Straight, and Finding the Wall

Use peripheral vision to watch the lane rope on each side. If one is getting closer, correct with a slightly longer pull on that side.

For the wall, count. Most pools have backstroke flags five metres out. From the flags, work out how many strokes you need, then trust the number. Do not look back over your shoulder mid-stroke, and never swim backstroke in a crowded lane where you cannot see who is behind you.

This is the stroke in which people hit their heads on walls and swim into other swimmers. Counting is not fussiness; it is safety.

Safety

Water over the face is the main discomfort. Keep the chin slightly raised and exhale gently through the nose. A nose clip is entirely acceptable if it helps a nervous swimmer relax.

Never practise underwater backstroke starts or long submerged dolphin kicks as breath-holding exercises. Prolonged or repeated breath-holding, particularly after hyperventilating, causes shallow-water blackout — a silent, warningless loss of consciousness that has drowned strong swimmers in supervised pools. Children invent this game by themselves. Stop it every time.

Learn where a lifeguard is on duty, and never practise alone. Floating aids are teaching tools, not safety devices, and a child who cannot swim needs an adult within arm’s reach whatever they are wearing.

If your shoulder or neck hurts, stop and see a physiotherapist. Backstroke entry across the centre line is a classic cause of shoulder impingement, and it does not settle by swimming more.

Why It Belongs Early in a Class

Because it removes the breathing problem. A nervous swimmer who can float on their back and kick gently has, in effect, a rest position they can reach from anywhere in a pool. That is a survival skill dressed up as a stroke.

If you cannot yet float on your back, start there — it is the prerequisite and it deserves its own weeks. Sociable learners do well in small-group swimming classes; frightened children and adults progress far faster in one-to-one private lessons before joining a group. Practice between lessons roughly doubles the rate of progress — see learning in a condominium pool. Start your freestyle at freestyle for beginners, and once you swim lengths comfortably, look at stroke count and tempo. To find a pool nearby, use swimming near me.

Public pool timings and learn-to-swim programmes are published by ActiveSG.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I turn my head to breathe in backstroke?

No. Your face never goes underwater. The head stays still, looking up, while the body rotates beneath it.

Why do my hips sink?

Your chin is tucked. Put your ears under the water and look at the ceiling. The hips rise on their own.

How do I stop swimming into the lane rope?

Stop your head rolling with your shoulders. Fix your eyes on one point on the ceiling and use peripheral vision to check both ropes.

How do I know when the wall is coming?

Count strokes from the backstroke flags. Do it once deliberately, then trust the count.

Why does water go up my nose?

The head is dropping too far back, or you are not exhaling. Chin slightly up, gentle exhale through the nose. A nose clip is fine.

Should my arms be straight or bent?

Straight on the recovery above the water; bent underwater, pressing with the forearm. A straight-arm underwater pull is weak.