Our New Year swimming intentions

Mastering all four main swimming strokes, improving catch and pull, and practising underwater dolphin kick: the Outdoor Swimmer team share their swimming intentions for 2025. And for a team of wild swimmers, it’s all surprisingly pool based!

To master front crawl kick

“So far in my front crawl I’ve only really been using my arms. In 2025 I’d like to learn how to master a good kick and see if that improves my speed. I’d also like to work on balancing my stroke because it’s a bit lopsided and I tend to veer off to the right. Ooh I also fancy learning butterfly, it looks fun!”

Abi Whyte, Digital Editor 

To learn all four main swimming strokes

“This year I’ve really gotten into pool training. I mean, I’ve always enjoyed swimming in pools and lidos, but I really got into it this year after putting in regular hours to complete the WaterAid Swim Marathon (26 miles over 12 weeks). I thrive on the motivation provided by a goal or a swim set to work through, and accountability of it. After the Swim Marathon finished, I joined a SwimFit group at my local leisure centre and it’s been game changing. I love having a set to work through, a coach to introduce me to new strokes, swimmers to learn from. So in 2025, I’ll be putting even more hours in at the pool. As well as building up my fitness and endurance, my intention is to master all four main swimming strokes by the end of the year.”

Jo Tinsley, Gear Editor

To improve my underwater dolphin kick

“If you watch elite level pool swimming races you will see that underwater dolphin kicking is now massively important. This is a huge change to how I learned to swim 40 years ago. Top swimmers swim faster under the water than on top. I’ve been working on this and want to reach a level where it makes a measurable difference in my pool races. While it’s not immediately obvious how practising this can help your open water swimming, I’m sure it does. Underwater dolphin kicking forces you to strengthen your core and practise streamlining, both of which should help you swim better generally, including long distance open water front crawl.”

Simon Griffiths, Founder & Publisher

To improve my catch and pull

“I first learned to swim front crawl in the eighties when we were taught thumb-first entry. I re-taught myself front crawl as an adult, but I’ve never managed to get my catch and pull quite right. I’m also very rear-driven, our ‘quad dominant’, as my PT friend calls it, but my hefty kick isn’t much use for a distance swimmer. So, my aim for 2025 is to work out what I need to do to get better propulsion by improving my catch and pull. I also want to strengthen my core with more mono-finning.”

Rowan Clarke, Features & Marketing

What are your swimming intentions for 2025? Share them with us by tagging @outdoorswimmer