Get yourself a damn fine coffee, read on and see if you could benefit from our investigative observations.

Here comes a frontcrawler, training with hand paddles and flippers making an aggressive splash splash splash. Try making less noise. Slip through the surface like a predator.

Another frontcrawler, wearing a nose clip and twisting his neck to breathe, making a Popeye shape with his mouth. By rolling the weight of your body down into one side more, your face won’t have so far to turn to cross the surface. So you won’t need to stretch the side of your mouth, and probably won’t need the nose clip.

Who’s this breaststroke swimmer, with her head pulled back against her spine, constantly looking forward but seemingly in a hurry. Your movement forward will be easier if the weight of your head drops down, to look at the floor.

A parent is encouraging their child to pull harder with the arms. Doing a bit less work with the arms will let the legs join in more effectively.

This young lad is hoicking himself high out of the water in breaststroke like he’s seen Olympic swimmers do. Don’t just think ‘up’ – When you drop your weight down, the water will send you up to the surface. Give it a chance to do this so you’re not doing all the work yourself.

This swimmer is doing a hybrid stroke, face up breaststroke at the front end with a crawl kick. Keeping both ends up is creating a lot of strain in her back and more work for her arms and shoulders supporting her head. Take the strain out of your back – If your front end’s up, let the back end drop. If the back end’s up let the front end drop.

This powerful frontcrawler is slapping the water with his arm – straight and above the surface till fully extending it in front of him. Let the hand drop back into the water closer to your shoulder, then it can go forwards without you holding the weight of your arm up, straining your shoulder and compromising your buoyancy.

This looks like a lovely breaststroke coming along. He’s seemingly easily getting his face out and his kick is effective. But he’s just keeping the brakes on by holding his head back a bit. Just let your head drop that final notch and feel the new freedom of falling forwards through the water.

And a man swimming on his back, pushing his rib cage up through surface and kicking to keep his legs afloat. When you push your chest up, your back isn’t back anymore – your head, shoulders and legs will be sent back, behind your back. Your back is called back because that’s where it belongs. Settle into your back and your legs won’t be forced down.

Now go and earn that cherry pie.