SWIMMING SKILLS
We are Olympians Amy Smith and Joe Roebuck a pair who have created swim Swift elite. Together we offer a variety of ways to improve your swim skills and offer our services to individuals and groups of competitive club swimmers striving for county level and beyond to maximise your speed and performance in the pool.
Swim Camps UK & EU
We hold affordable UK swim camps at various venues around the UK & Europe. Many camps are organised for the school holidays throughout the year. It’s your chance to experience a top-class Swim Camp with the in-depth coaching to help you perfect your stroke techniques, improve your starts & turns, work on your race tactics and more.
Swim Training Nationwide
You can book our Swimming Masterclasses, Triathlon Swim Masterclasses or Personal Appearances in most parts of the UK – Mention us to your club. We are also now planning our Swim Camps for the next 12 months so keep an eye out for our latest news and the locations for our next swim camps in your region.
InCroatia Swim Swift Elite Freestyle Tips
5 TIPS FOR IMPROVING YOUR FREESTYLE TECHNIQUE
BY AMY SMITH
Amy Smith is one of the top British sprinters of the early 21st century. A multiple European and Commonwealth Games medallist, Amy also represented GB at the 2012 Olympics, finishing 5th in the 100m freestyle relay and 9th in the 50m freestyle! Today she runs Swim Swift Elite with fellow Olympian and life partner Joe Roebuck, helping youth and masters swimmers from around the globe improve not only their technique but their confidence and understanding around the sport.
Maintain a neutral head position with the eye-line always looking down, never straight forwards. Imagine you are wearing headphones, the water line should be where the band goes. This will keep your neck relaxed and stop you arching your back. Think about keeping the back of your neck long.
Tilt your hips and engage your deep core muscles, these being your pelvic floor, diaphragm, transverse abdominis and other smaller muscles. This will flatten off your back and stabilize you in the water. It could take practice to get the hips to tilt posteriorly and flatten off the back, but try this on land first. Lay on your back with your arms above your head in streamline, and tilt the hips so that you can try to feel the floor with your lower back whilst keeping the rest of your body relaxed. Then try to transfer this to the water (now on your front), floating with a pull buoy between your ankles. Don’t allow your head to dip and your bum to rise, it’s all about the hip tilt. Keeping your core engaged whilst you are swimming will keep your upper and lower body connected and working as one unit, thereby preventing swimmers from wiggling or bouncing. You will also get more power in your stroke
To See all the tips CLICK HERE
The British School of Brussels Partnership
We’re very excited to announce our partnership with BSB!
We will be visiting the school a number of times throughout the year delivering masterclasses and swim camps, CPD for the coaches, offering advice and interacting with students in the school. We hope to add our insights to the swim program, sports in general and to be a valuable resource for the school in general.
For more info please check out the link.
https://www.britishschool.be/news/news/aquatics-partnership/
INCroatia Partnership
More exciting news as following our 3rd successful swim camp in Rijeka this summer we have partnered with INCroatia.
INCroatia pairs international sports and education programs with the superb logistical and economic conditions of Croatia.
We are very fortunate to work with extremely well organised and passionate people who are providing world-class facilities through their local knowledge
and trusted partners in stunning locations!
For more information on INCroatia please visit the following link.
https://www.incroatia.co/
Wellingborough A.S.C.
We were also back to Wellingborough this September to visit many of the swimmers at the club for the 3rd time. Thank you very much for inviting us back. J
This time, we worked with 4 groups for an hour each on touch turns. This is a great skill to improve as it is used so much in swimming. It is used for Breaststroke, Butterfly, and during the Individual medley events, so to make it quicker and more efficient can have a huge overall impact on your swimming in general. There were some unusual drills to try, but all became clear once we explained how they relate to the full turn. Again, coaches and parents became part of the session and were welcomed onto poolside to help with certain aspects of the session.
Thank you again for hiving us at the club Craig, and everyone at Wellingborough SC! We hope to see you soon.
Oswestry Otters.
This September, we visited swimmers at Oswestry Otters Swimming Club for a session on Dives and Breaststroke.
It was great to work with swimmers across a wide age range, and we hope that they all took away advice and top tips for their technique on these two aspects of swimming. Even some of the parents were able to get involved during the dives to test their own reaction times!
Thank you to Tim, the head coach, for inviting us to the club and to meet everyone. We hope to see you all again.
Gold Coast – Australia!
This September, Amy had the amazing opportunity to travel and work with the GB Paratriathlon team at their World Championships out in Australia.
There as team support, handler in transition, and soft tissue therapist, I was able to watch the team prepare for their final race of the season, and be part of the action! Every member of the team that raced achieved a podium finish which is the best result that the team have had at major championships yet! Congratulations! A very impressive and friendly bunch of athletes and staff to work with. There was even some time to meet the locals (kangaroos!) and to make sure that I quenched my own need to be in the water by trying my hand at surfing after the race. I’ll stick to the swimming!
Plivački klub Medveščak – Croatia
During our time in Croatia this summer, we were also fortunate enough to spend 2 and a half days working with PKM, a swimming club based in Zagreb. We worked with the coaches, and around 40 swimmers ranging in age from 9 to 14 years old, on technique for all 4 strokes, starts & turns. There was also a chance to look at some video analysis work with the swimmers to help them better understand the workings of each stroke. With our Croatian speaking skills being pretty non-existent, the coaches were able to help with translation for those swimmers that needed it, the demonstrations helped too. Every swimmer did a fantastic job, and we hope to see you all again in the future! With the Croatian language class that the swimmers were giving us at the end of the camp, hopefully, by next year we will know a few more words!
INCroatia Swim Camp 2018
THE INCROATIA SWIM CAMP 2018
Sorry Now Sold Out
Age Group Swimmers: August 26 – 30
9 sessions, accommodation at Hostel Link and all meals
The INCroatia Swim Camp marches on into the third year, applications now open for Youth Swimmers!
Standard procedure: the sooner you book, the less you pay.
Check out videos from previous years and apply!
http://www.incroatia.co/croatia-swim-camp/
Swim Camp March 2018
‘March 2018 SWIM CAMP!
Great news! We have our first swim camp of 2018 at Wellbeck Defense College in Leicestershire, come and join us!
The camp will be held on the 24th & 25th March and will cover all 4 strokes over the 2-day camp, including live demonstrations.
There will also be land based sessions focusing on pre-pool work and injury prevention, and classroom sessions where swimmers will be able to get involved and ask Amy and Joe any questions they may have.
The camp will cost £75 per day, and you will get a free Swim Swift Elite swim cap. You will be able to attend either one or both days.
If you would like to sign up for the camp or would like any more information, please get in touch either by email at info@swimswiftelite.co.uk or by phone on 07815 021591.
It will be here before you know it so secure your place soon! We hope to see you there!’
Croatia camp 2017
It was brilliant to be back out in Rijeka for our 2nd camp partnered with INCroatia. We thoroughly enjoyed working with all the new guys – age groupers & masters! The different age groups and nationalities all came together over the 3 days and bonded in and out of the pool – thanks to Ivan running many games of ‘mafia’!
Loads of content was covered, all 4 strokes, dives & turns. Thanks to Perro, there was somehow even time for individual filming and sitting down for 1-1 discussions with each swimmer to analyse their footage.
The facilities in Rijeka are outstanding and who doesn’t like training in the sun?! Huge thanks to Ivan and the INCroatia team for organising and making this a fantastic event!
We will be back next year around similar dates, so keep checking for updates!
Živjeli!
Uzdravlje!