Basic Back Crawl Strokes For Older Children (7-10 Years)
Learn a few techniques from our expert swimming teacher, to build up your child's confidence in the water and their knowledge of the back stroke or back crawl. An ideal video for children of 7-10 years old on the basics and more technical aspects of swimming the backstroke.
Step 1: Practise 1Once your child is in the water, get them to practise doing some surface dives. This will warm their muscles up. Surface dives are good to know, especially when they start learning tumble turns, that's where they change direction on completing a length.
Step 2: Practise 2Next, move on to the leg practice. Get your child to push off from the side and glide across the width of the pool on their back with their arms together and strongly kicking their legs. This is a good preparation for the back crawl.
Step 3: Practise 3If your child is happy with the first practice, now introduce the float. They need to hold it on their stomach and practice the arm cycle with the free hand. It should move backwards over their head and through the water in a circular movement. Guide your child through the water so they don't bang their head! And make sure they practice on both arms.
Step 4: Practise 4Once you can see that your child is comfortable and confident with the movements, try getting them to swim a width of back crawl without the float. Look at their technique and see how it can be improved.
To end the session, try helping your child to do somersaults in the water. This is another good practice for learning the tumble turns. The more confident they are at this, the easier it will be for them to learn tumble turns and other more advance swim techniques.