"Our culture would like us to believe that change occurs in an instant. Everywhere we look we see promises of improvement in no time. The movies are filled with stories where the hero seems to flip a switch and become invincible. The classic, Rocky I, is a great example. One day Rocky is a washed-up bum and the next he is the Heavy Weight Champion of the World. I love the triumph of the spirit genre and Rocky deserves credit for showing that Rocky's "overnight" success took commitment and daily work on the fundamentals.

The fundamentals in any endeavor, when practiced with precision, lead to mastery. In swimming, if you improve one percent each time you swim, the improvement starts to stack up. You end up with more than one percent improvement each workout.

The challenge is that most of us work on the fundamentals for a time and then get lazy. If you skip working on a particular area of your stroke in which you once were making progress, then the improvements must start over from the beginning again. This explains the frustration of many swimmers who feel they are constantly starting over.

While there are arguably better ways to swim, or better ways to teach swimming, there are some basic fundamentals swimmers should work on - the mastery of which will improve performance.

1. Sreamline Push-Offs
The streamlined push-off is at the core of great swimming. Work on gliding off the wall as far as possible to teach yourself how to move your body in such a way as to reduce drag. If done correctly, the push-off gets you moving faster than at any other point in the lap. This is important because it teaches your muscles how fast pace feels. Many of the better swimming programs are using a rowing device to allow swimmers to experience faster swimming. You can get this every time you push off the wall.

The technique for working on this is simple. Push off the wall with your arms stretched over your head, one hand on top of the other, with the top hand's thumb locked over the bottom hand. Practice this (standing) on the pool deck first to get the feeling of really being stretched out. As you come off the wall, point your toes. Try different body angles to see which gets you out further. Do five of these each practice and see how far you can go without kicking.

2. Flip Turns
These go hand-in-hand with streamlined push-offs. Flip turns allow you to keep your momentum and not start each lap from a standstill. Many swimmers can do these, but choose not to. Some have trouble with them and skip them. Teaching a flip turn is beyond the scope of this article. This is one area where the instructor sometimes needs to be in the water with the swimmer. The first few flips will not be pretty, but commit to a set number every practice and build from there.

3. Bilateral Breathing
Even if you are more comfortable breathing on only one side, you still need to practice breathing on both sides in workouts because it evens out your stroke. Bilateral breathing also helps you rotate better. There is not much to say about the technique of bilateral breathing other than to rotate into the breathing as opposed to turning your head.

4. Maintain a High Elbow
(Under the Water.) This is probably the single most agreed upon technique tip coahes from around the world agree on. When the elbow drops, you stop exerting force backward and swim slower. I can not describe the importance of a high elbow any more elegantly than "you simply lose power". The best drill to help maintain a high elbow (while pulling) is the fist drill. Swim a lap with fists and a lap of regular swimming. Repeat this several times until you can feel pressure on your forearm.

5. Longer Strokes
There have been more than a few good articles on hip rotation in this publication. Longer strokes help you get more leverage from your muscles and help you swim faster because of the increased length of your "vessel". Work on rotating your entire body from your hips to allow for a longer stroke on both sides.

Try working on these five fundamentals every practice and you will see the benefits stack up."