Freestyle looks like thrashing your arms until you reach the far wall. Swim it that way and 25 metres leaves you hanging off the lane rope. The gap between exhausting and almost effortless is not fitness, it is a handful of technique fixes, and they come in a specific order. Get the early ones right and the rest fall into place. Here is that order.

Body position comes first

Before the arms, before the kick, get flat. Lie long on the surface, press gently on your chest, and keep your head neutral with your eyes down at the bottom. A lifted head sinks your legs and turns your body into a wall the water has to shove aside. Float high and level and you have already removed most of your drag.

Rotate, do not swim flat

Freestyle is swum on your sides, not your stomach. Rotate your hips and shoulders together toward each arm, roughly 45 degrees each way. That roll does two things: it lets you reach longer, and it hands the work to your big back and core muscles instead of your smaller shoulders. Power comes from the rotation, not from yanking with the arm.

The catch and pull

Reach forward and extend, then, without dropping your elbow, tip your fingertips down and press the water back with your whole forearm, like grabbing a rung and pulling your body past it. Pull straight back to your hip and finish the stroke fully. The one thing to avoid is your hand crossing past the centre line on entry, which makes you snake down the lane and fight your own drag.

Kick from the hip

Keep the kick small and steady, driven from the hips with loose ankles, not bending at the knee like you are pedalling. For anything beyond a sprint, the kick is there for balance and body position more than propulsion. A giant, leg-burning kick just drains you and buys almost nothing.

Fit the breath into the stroke

Breathe by rotating, not by lifting your head. As your body rolls, turn to the side, keep one goggle in the water, and sip air from the pocket beside your head, then exhale steadily the whole time your face is down. Breathing is where the panic lives for new swimmers, so it gets its own guide: how to breathe while swimming.

Groove it with drills

You cannot fix all of this at full speed. Slow down and drill: catch-up and fingertip drag for a clean high-elbow stroke, and kicking on your side for rotation and balance. A phone filming from the deck will show you which fault to chase first.

Fix body position, add rotation, then clean up the catch, and freestyle stops being a fight. Sort the breathing next in How to Breathe While Swimming, and drill the details with Swimming Drills to Reduce Drag.

This is technique guidance, not medical advice. If a stroke causes shoulder or neck pain, stop and get it checked rather than swimming through it.