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Front crawl, also known as The Australian Crawl, is usually regarded as the fastest swimming style developed. It is one of two long axis strokes, the other being the backstroke. Unlike the backstroke, butterfly, and breaststroke, the front crawl is not regulated by FINA, but it is nearly universally swum in freestyle competitions.
Technique Freestyle (Front crawl)
 The initial position in freestyle is on the breast, with both arms stretched to the front and the legs extended to the back.
Arm movement
The arm movement in freestyle is alternating, i.e., while one arm is pulling/pushing, the
other arm is recovering. The arm strokes also provide most of the forward movement in
freestyle. The move can be separated into three parts, the pull, the push, and the
recovery.
From the initial position, the arm sinks slightly lower and the palm of the hand turns 45
degree with the thumb side of the palm towards the bottom. This is called catching the
water and is in preparation for the pull. It also gives the muscles a brief rest during
swimming. The pull movement follows a semicircle with the elbow higher than the hand and
the hand pointing towards the body center and downward. The semicircle ends in front of
the chest at the beginning of the ribcage.
The push pushes the palm backward through the water underneath the body at the beginning
and at the side of the body at the end of the push. The movement increases speed
throughout the pull push phase until the hand is moving at its greatest speed shortly
before the end of the push.
Sometime after the beginning of the recovery of the one arm, the other arm begins its
pull. The recovery moves the elbow in a semicircle in a vertical plane in the swimming
direction. The lower arm and the hand are completely relaxed and hang down from the elbow
close to the water surface and close to the swimmer's body. This gives the muscles a brief
opportunity to rest. The beginning of the recovery looks similar to pulling the hand out
of the back pocket of a pair of pants, with the small finger upwards. Further into the
recovery phase, the hand movement has been compared to pulling up a center zip on a
wetsuit. The recovering hand moves forward, with the fingers trailing downward, just above
the surface of the water. In the middle of the recovery one shoulder is rotated into the
air while the other is jumping backwards to avoid drag due to the large frontal area which
at this specific time is not covered by the arm. To rotate the shoulder, some twist their
torso while others also rotate everything down to their feet.
Beginners often make the mistake of not relaxing the arm during the recovery and of moving
the hand too high and too far away from the body, in some cases even higher than the
elbow. In these cases, drag and incidental muscle effort is increased at the expense of
speed. Beginners often forget to use their shoulders to let the hand enter as far forward
as possible. Some say the hand should enter the water thumb first, reducing drag through
possible turbulence, others say the middle finger is first with the hand precisely bent
down, giving thrust right from the start. At the beginning of the pull, the hand acts like
a wing and is moved slower than the velocity of the swimmer (this may look like a brief
rest) while at the end it acts like a scull and is moved faster than the velocity of the
swimmer.
A recreational variation of front crawl involves only one arm moving at any one time,
while the other arm rests and is stretched out at the front. This style is called a
"catch up" stroke and requires less strength for swimming. This is because the
immersed length of the body is longer and more streamlined. This style is slower than the
regular front crawl and is rarely used competitively: however, it is often used for
training purposes even by professional swimmers, as it increases the body's awareness of
being streamlined in the water. Total Immersion is a similar technique.
The leg movement
The leg movement in freestyle is called the flutter kick. The legs move alternately, with
one leg kicking downward while the other leg moves upward. While the legs provide only a
small part of the overall speed, they are important to stabilize the body position. This
lack of balance is apparent when using a pull buoy to neutralize the leg action.
The leg in the initial position bends very slightly at the knees, and then kicks the lower
leg and the foot downwards similar to kicking a football. The legs may be bent inward
slightly. After the kick the straight leg moves back up. A frequent mistake of beginners
is to bend the legs too much or to kick too much out of the water.
Ideally, there are 6 kicks per cycle, although it is also possible to use 4 kicks or even
2 kicks. Franziska van Almsick, for example, swims very successfully with four kicks per
cycle. When one arm is pushed down the opposite leg needs to do a downwards kick also, to
fix the body orientation, because this happens shortly after the body rotation.
Alternatively, front crawl can also be swum with a butterfly kick, although this reduces
the stability of the swimming position. A breaststroke kick with front crawl arms (the
Trudgen) is awkward, because the breathing pattern for front crawl needs a rotation, yet a
breaststroke kick resists this rotation.
Breathing
Normally, the face is in the water during front crawl with eyes looking at the lower part
of the wall in front of the pool, with the waterline between the brow line and the
hairline. Yet, currently, many are debating whether the head should be kept down too.
Breaths are taken through the mouth by turning the head to the side of a recovering arm at
the beginning of the recovery, and breathing in the triangle between the upper arm, lower
arm, and the waterline. The swimmer's forward movement will cause a bow wave with a trough
in the water surface near the ears. After turning the head, a breath can be taken in this
trough without the need to move the mouth above the average water surface. A thin film of
water running down the head can be blown away just before the intake. The head is rotated
back at the end of the recovery and points down and forward again when the recovered hand
enters the water. The swimmer breathes out through mouth and nose until the next breath.
Breathing out through the nose prevents water from entering the nose.
Standard swimming calls for one breath every third arm recovery, i.e., every 1.5 cycles,
alternating the sides for breathing. Some swimmers instead take a breath every cycle,
i.e., every second arm recovery, breathing always to the same side. Since breathing
slightly reduces the speed, most competition swimmers breathe every 1.5 cycles. Swimmers
sprinting the last few meters of a longer distance may breathe even less, and sprint
swimmers rarely breathe at all- e.g. in a short-course 50 m race, most competitors prefer
to breathe only 3 times for the whole race, once on the first 25 and twice on the final 25
after the flip turn.
In water polo, sometimes the head is kept out of the water completely for better
visibility and easier breathing, at the price of a much steeper body position and higher
drag.
Body movement
The body rolls about its long axis with every arm stroke such that the shoulder of the
recovering arm is higher than the shoulder of the pushing/pulling arm. This makes the
recovery much easier and reduces the need to turn the head to breathe. As one shoulder is
out of the water it reduces drag, as one shoulder falls it aids the arm catching the
water, as one shoulder rises it aids the arm at end of the push to leave the water.
Side-to-side movement is kept to a minimum: one of the main functions of the leg kick is
to maintain the line of the body.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article
"Front crawl"
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How to swim the freestyle (front crawl) with a good technique 
freestyle Pictures
