Swim Coaching: It's All In the Hips!

(Illustrative Only)
Strong
core muscles
form from swimming.
Hula Hoops
work great for this.
The history of 
the Hula Hoops

September, 25th, 2026

IN THE POOL-Swim coaching is going pretty well. It’s also giving me a good excuse to brush up on my own swimming skills. I’m a good swimmer, but competitive swimming is a different animal. Apparently, just getting from one end of the pool to the other isn’t enough anymore.

There’s a surprising amount of fine-tuning involved—how your fingers enter the water, the angle of your body, finding the most efficient line through the water, and reducing drag. All those little details add up, and unfortunately, they require practice.

One thing we worked on recently was rotation. Some swimmers were having trouble rotating enough to generate power while also reducing drag. You don’t want to swim flat across the water like a floating board. There needs to be a noticeable rotation through the hips and torso.

That rotation helps generate power and forward momentum while making the stroke more efficient. Of course, getting all those body parts to cooperate at the same time is where the fun begins.

I found a video that explained the concept pretty well, so I watched it and thought it was a useful demonstration of what we were working on.

The conditioning of the athletes continues, along with the never-ending quest to make swimming look effortless—which, as any swimmer knows, usually means working really hard to make it look easy.