Drills to Learn Swimming Sidestroke

The sidestroke is an old swimming stroke that, as its name suggests, is swum in a sideways position.

Although this stroke is not used much nowadays, its swimming technique is still interesting, and it is also fun to swim this stroke.

A sidestroke swimmer floating in the water — Sidestroke is an old swim stroke worth rediscovering

This article proposes a series of exercises that you can use to learn this swimming stroke with relative ease.

By practicing these drills, you should be able to learn the sidestroke over the course of a few swim sessions.

Drill #1: Dry-Land Scissor Kick

1) Lie down on the floor on the left side.

2) Extend the left arm forward, the palm turned towards the floor. The head rests on the extended arm.

3) Maintain balance by pushing against the floor with your right hand.

4) Bend your knees and bring your legs towards your chest until your thighs make a 90° angle with your torso.

5) Now spread your legs, with the upper leg kicking to the front and the lower leg to the back.

6) Extend your legs, then bring them back to the initial position.

7) Restart the cycle.

8) Change sides after a few repetitions.

Drill #2: Dry-Land Arm Stroke Movements

1) Stand upright.

2) Extend your left arm straight above your head, palm turned to the right.

3) The right arm and hand rest at the side of the body, palm turned towards the body.

4) The head slightly rotates to the right.

Now, this position is the initial position that you would use if you did swim the side stroke on the left side.

5) Now bend your left elbow and bring the arm down until the hand reaches the chest as if you were stroking down in the water.

6) At the same time, bend your right elbow and bring the forearm up until both palms meet in front of the chest and were exchanging something.

7) Now extend the left arm again above your head to the initial position as if it were piercing the water.

8) At the same time, the palm of the right arm turns downward, the arm straightens back to its initial position, and the hands executes a sweeping motion as if it were stroking the water.

9) Restart the cycle.

10) Switch sides after a few repetitions.

Drill #3: Dry-Land Sidestroke Movements

Lie down on the floor in a side position as in drill #1 and now execute the motions of drill #1 and drill #2 simultaneously.

To synchronize arms and legs, bring the upper leg towards the chest at the same time as the upper arm moves towards the chest to meet the lower arm.

Don’t forget to switch sides after a few repetitions.

Note: In the above video, the arm motions may seem different in drill #2. This is because when lying on the floor, the shoulder range of the lower arm is limited.

This doesn’t change the fact that drill #3 is very useful to learn the proper coordination of hand and leg motions before trying them in the water.

Drill #4: Scissor Kick in the Water with a Swimming Noodle

At the swimming pool, grab a swimming noodle and place it under the armpit of the side you want to swim on. Push off the wall and take on the initial position of the sidestroke:

1) Lying on the side.

2) Head aligned with the spine and slightly rotated upwards so that the face clears the water.

3) Legs extended.

4) Lower arm extended to the front to the end of the pool.

5) The upper arm is lying on the side of the body.

Now practice the scissor kick in this position. Switch sides after each pool length. When this becomes easy, try the drill without the swim noodle.

Drill #5: Sidestroke Arm Movements in the Water with a Pull Buoy

At the swimming pool, grab a pull buoy and place it between your legs. Push off the wall and take on the initial position of the sidestroke.

Now practice the arm movements only, again switching sides after each pool length.

Drill #6: Swimming sidestroke with a swim noodle

Now let go of the pull buoy and grab the swim noodle again and place it under the armpit of the side on which you will be swimming.

Then push off the wall and try to swim the sidestroke with both the arm and leg motions.

Swimming Sidestroke

Finally, once you have practiced all the swimming drills above, you can try to swim the stroke without any flotation devices.

Drill #7 Alternating Sidestroke and Breaststroke

An additional drill I like to do when swimming sidestroke at the pool is to alternate sidestroke and breaststroke. Do it like this:

1) Start doing three cycles of sidestroke on the left side.

2) Switch and do three cycles of breaststroke.

3) Switch and do three cycles of sidestroke on the right side.

4) Switch back to breaststroke and so on.

This has the following advantages:

As you regularly switch from sidestroke to breaststroke, it is easier to orient yourself. This is especially useful in crowded pools.
It is possible that you have a strong and a weak side while swimming sidestroke. This is my case. Switching often from one side to the other allows me to analyze how it feels to swim on the strong side, and then I try to reproduce the same sensation on the weak side.

Additional Tips

It is possible that you have trouble maintaining balance in the side position.

In that case, the following sequence of drills helps to improve balance and to get used to swimming on the side:

You may also be interested in the following articles that cover the sidestroke’s swimming technique: