What is tread water in the first place? Treading water is a basic swimming technique and also a key survival skill, where you move your arms and legs to keep your body afloat in a vertical position, and with your head above the water. Aside from learning back-float, learning to tread water is the other potentially useful technique that can keep you afloat and potentially prevent you from drowning! However, many swimmers learn the wrong technique and end up doing it the wrong way or expending more energy than what is required to stay afloat. 

Shh…let me tell you 4 secrets that can help you tread water better…

Stay Calm and Relax!

Before going into any technical secrets, one very important point to remember when treading water is to stay calm and relax! Why is this so important?

If you are too anxious, your muscles will tense up, which could hinder your treading technique or even cause muscle cramps. Therefore, it is vital for your body to be relaxed enough to move fluidly, and always remember to breathe gently and deeply in order to conserve energy and maintain your position for much longer.

Sculling

Contrary to popular belief, your arms are as important as your legs when it comes to treading water and sculling is one arm movement that can help you with treading water.

This move involves moving your forearms back and forth, slightly below the surface of the water. On the outward stroke, tilt your palms away from your body and body on the inward stroke, tilt them back towards your body. While performing these movements, do stiffen your wrists throughout the motion.

Start by practicing in the shallow end of the pool. Once you get the hang of sculling, sit on a swimming pool noodle and see if you can lift yourself by moving your arms back and forth in this sculling motion.

Eggbeater

For those of you who are used to doing flutter kicks to tread water, don’t you feel that it is very exhausting? And for those who are used to doing breaststroke kicks, is the bobbing motion annoying you? Is that why you are reading this article, hoping to find a more efficient kick to tread water?

This is it! Eggbeater is your solution. Eggbeater is the most complicated technique as compared to flutter kicks and breaststroke kicks but it is also the most energy efficient one. As the name suggests, it involves rotating your legs in opposite directions in a circular motion just like your kitchen appliance at home.

To learn the eggbeater technique, you can either start by practicing the kick on-land. First, sit at the edge of a chair. Start rotating their right lower leg anticlockwise with your thigh fairly still. For your left leg, do the same but in the opposite direction. After that, try doing both legs together. If you’re getting confused, always remember this pattern for both legs: Back, outside, front, inside.

It might be difficult to master in the beginning but once you do, you will realise that this move can allow you to tread water much longer than you usually do!

Timing and Coordination

In addition to the coordination between the arms and the coordination between the legs, the timing and coordination of your upper and lower body is also required to improve your water treading techniques. The secret to achieve this? PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! Old but gold.

You can use the help of a swimming noodle to train on your techniques until you are able to tread confidently. Do so by placing the swimming noodle around your back and under your armpits. At the same time, perform the arm and leg movements. Keep practicing until you can feel yourself being supported without help from the noodle. Once you have gained enough confidence, remove the swimming noodle and tread water on your own.

Conclusion

So, now that you know the secrets of treading water, start getting down to work to improve your treading techniques! However, if you are just starting out to learn to tread water, be sure never to swim unattended. Have someone nearby to watch over and assist you whenever required. You could also sign up for our Private Swimming Lessons to learn the most efficient way to tread water!

Hi all! I am an avid traveller, baker and avid childhood education writer. Being able to share my experience through words has always been a passion of mine. Through my writing, I hope you will gain more knowledge of the swimming world and share my passion for swimming too!