Embracing Individual Rhythm for Performance

TL;DR (in summary this week)

* Plenty of video analysis insights for the swim geeks out there this week!

* See how Tobias learns to improve his body position and pace awareness

* See how Pernilla couples the improvement of her catch with her stroke rate

* See how their coach, Anna-Karin Lundin (aka @simcoachen) turned from Overglider to Smooth to Swinger for the stroke that has made her an international phenom with over 420,000 followers on Instagram!

Watch the video below and then read on for the full breakdown:

Hey Swimmers

This week has been quite an interesting one. I had two swimmers from Sweden - Pernilla and Tobias - book in for back-to-back video analysis and stroke correction sessions on Monday.

Tobias:

Tobias was relatively new to swimming and needed some work on both improving his body position and his pacing control. Check out these two short clips to learn how we worked with Tobias to improve these aspects if these are issues for you:

Body Position:

Pacing Control:

The exciting thing though was that Tobias was already capable of swimming under 1:30/100m (if only for the first 50m of the 200m recording). Nonetheless, the tools were already in place for some very promising potential if we can work to refine these aspects.

Pernilla:

Pernilla had a beautiful looking stroke above the water, but was frustrated that she had plateaued at about 1:50/100m for quite some time. Often the worst thing you can tell a swimmer who is frustrated with their stagnation is that they “look great” - the response is usually along the lines of:

“If I look so great, why aren’t I any faster?”

And for Pernilla, this all boils down to improving both her catch and her rhythm and stroke rate. Here’s a short clip of how we did that:

(Don’t be) Blinded by Aesthetics

Pernilla and Tobias are visiting Perth for a few weeks and normally swim with Coach Anna-Karin Lundin (aka @simcoachen) over in Gothenburg, Sweden.

I first met Anna-Karin in March 2015 in the UK when she was selected to attend our 3-day Swim Smooth Coach Education Course and later qualified to travel to Perth to sit our full Swim Smooth Certified Coach program in 2017.

When I first watched Anna-Karin (over) glide down the pool at just 46spm, you could have been forgiven for thinking her classic “Smooth” style was the epitome of freestyle perfection. Long, graceful strokes, impeccable body position, and textbook symmetry — it’s easy to be blinded by aesthetics. But here’s where the magic of Swim Smooth’s philosophy — coaching the swimmer, not the stroke — truly comes alive, something which we covered in a 2017 blog with Anna-Karin when she first joined the Swim Smooth team:

Evidence-Based Stroke Rate Ramp Test

When Anna-Karin first attended that course and I started coaching her, she was swimming at about 46 strokes per minute. It looked elegant, yes, but something didn’t quite feel right.

Through one of our stroke rate ramp tests, we quickly discovered that her natural rhythm was much higher:

The moment she lifted her tempo, paired it with a light, instinctive two-beat kick, and stopped fighting for control, everything changed. Suddenly, the stroke that looked less “pretty” to the untrained eye flowed. The connection, the rhythm, the joy — it all clicked.

At the end of that first true Swinger swim on our Certified Coaches course in Perth in 2017, Anna-Karin surfaced with a grin and simply said:

“I’m reborn!”

You can watch that moment right here with our clip on Instagram this week that (finally!) went viral, overseen by Anna-Karin’s swimmers, Pernilla and Tobias:

Unleashing the Inner Swinger

That’s what happens when you stop forcing yourself to fit an idealised version of what swimming “should” look like, and instead embrace what swimming feels like when it’s truly yours. Some swimmers move like Smooths — long, measured, and patient in their rhythm. Others, like Anna-Karin, come alive when they tap into their natural tempo and unleash their inner Swinger. Both are beautiful. Both are efficient. And both are right — for the swimmer who owns them.

In fact, Anna-Karin used the Swim Smooth GURU for her preparations for the recent UltraSwim33.3 event in Montenegro - this is an awesome clip of that Swinger style in action and also her adaptability in style for such an event:

You can also listen to Anna-Karin talking more about this on our podcast from back in 2019:

Hey Paul, Change Your Name!

People often joke,

“Why not rename the company Swing Smooth?”

after seeing how much praise we give to the Swinger style. But that misses the point. Even Swingers can look Smooth — just in a way that’s entirely their own. That’s the beauty of individuality in the water.

At Swim Smooth, we believe that true performance and enjoyment come from understanding who you are as a swimmer — not mimicking someone else. When you embrace your natural rhythm, connect with your own movement, and stop chasing the aesthetic ideal, that’s when real progress begins.

Just ask Anna-Karin — the swimmer who became world-famous not by changing who she was, but by becoming even more herself.

Thanks for reading!Your Coach, Paul.

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