How to Swim Backstroke: A Step-by-Step Guide for Adult Beginners

Backstroke is the stroke most adults leave until last, and plenty never learn it at all. Lying back with your face to the ceiling and no view of where you are heading feels exposed in a way the face-down strokes do not. That is a shame, because backstroke is the only one of the four main strokes in which breathing looks after itself. Your mouth and nose stay above the surface for the whole length, which removes the single biggest reason adult beginners stop after a width. What holds people back is not fitness or coordination. It is trust: trusting the water to carry your head, trusting your hips to stay up, and trusting that the wall will not arrive unannounced. This guide builds that trust one piece at a time, in the order we would build it with you at the poolside.

By the Swim Design Space Team  ·  October 2026  ·  22 min read

Why backstroke deserves a place in your swimming

Ask an adult which stroke they want to learn and the answer is usually front crawl, because that is what proper swimming looks like in most people's heads. Backstroke, sometimes called back crawl, rarely makes the list. Yet for a lot of adult learners it is the quickest route to a full, unbroken length, and it earns its place for three reasons.

• Breathing never gets in the way. With your face clear of the water there is no breath to time, no head to lift and no mouthful to swallow halfway down the pool. If breathing is what makes swimming feel frantic, our guide to breathing technique for beginners deals with it on the face-down strokes. Backstroke simply steps around the problem.
• It gives you somewhere to go when you are tired. Rolling onto your back mid-length to get your breath back is one of the most useful habits a developing swimmer can have. Backstroke turns that resting position into one that still moves you forwards.
• It balances the rest of your swimming. Front crawl and breaststroke both draw the shoulders forwards and round. Backstroke works the same areas in the opposite direction, which is one reason coaches suggest it to people who spend their working day at a keyboard. Our breakdown of the muscles each stroke works has the detail.

If a sore back is what brought you here, our article on swimming for back pain and joint pain explains why backstroke is usually the kindest stroke for the spine. This guide is about the mechanics: how to actually swim it, from your first float to a full length. It completes our set of adult technique guides, alongside front crawl and breaststroke.

Start here: the back float, and getting back to your feet

With a nervous adult, the sensible place to begin is not backstroke at all. It is lying back in the water, and then standing up again. The second half matters more than the first. Most people who panic on their back are not frightened of floating. They are frightened of not being able to stop.

Getting into a back float. Work in water between waist and chest deep, close to the wall or a lane rope you can reach.

• Crouch until your shoulders are covered, then ease backwards as if lowering yourself into a reclining chair.
• Let the back of your head settle into the water until the waterline sits around your ears. Your face stays dry.
• Lift your tummy gently towards the surface and let your arms drift out to the sides, palms up. Arms held out wide make the float steadier, the same way stabilisers steady a child's bike.
• Keep breathing normally. A full breath held in your chest raises you a little and a long breath out lowers you a little. Neither will sink you.

Expect your legs to drift downwards. That is normal, and section four explains why. A float with your feet hanging lower than your hips is still a float.

Standing up from a back float. Learn this until you could do it half asleep.

• Tuck your chin towards your chest.
• Draw your knees up towards your tummy, as though sitting down into a chair.
• Sweep both hands from beside your hips round to the front of you and up towards the surface, scooping the water.
• Your hips drop and your feet swing underneath you. Put them flat on the floor and stand.

Practise it ten times in a row, slowly, until it bores you. Once you know you can stop whenever you choose, lying back stops feeling like a gamble, and the rest of this guide gets much easier. Do this in water you can stand in, with a lifeguard on duty. The back float is also the position the RNLI recommends if you ever end up in cold water unexpectedly, which our guide to cold water swimming covers in more depth.

Body position: let the water hold your head

Backstroke is built from the head downwards. Your hips take their orders from your head, and the hips are where most adult backstroke comes unstuck.

• A still, heavy head. Rest the back of your head in the water as if it were a pillow. The waterline runs across your ears, and your eyes look straight up or very slightly behind you. If you can see your toes, your head is too high.
• A neutral chin. Neither pressed to your chest nor thrown back. A chin that tips back points your nostrils at the water, and a chin that tucks lifts your head and sinks your hips.
• Hips up, not sitting. The most common shape in adult backstroke is the deckchair: hips low, knees bent, the swimmer half sitting in the water. Push your belly button towards the ceiling and your whole body lengthens.
• Long rather than flat. You are aiming to lie close to the surface, not dead level on it. A gentle slope from head to hips is normal, with the legs kicking just below the surface.

A useful test: push away from the wall on your back, arms resting at your sides, without kicking, and count how long you glide before your feet start to sink. Each session, try to stretch that glide by a second by lengthening through the crown of your head and lifting your hips. That glide will teach you more about your body position than any number of lengths swum badly.

Why your legs sink, and what actually fixes it

Nearly every adult who lies back in the water finds their legs sliding towards the pool floor. It does not mean you are doing it wrong, and it does not mean you are one of the people who cannot float. It is about where your weight sits.

Your lungs make your chest the most buoyant part of you, while your legs are mostly muscle and bone, both denser than water. The water pushes up hardest under your chest, your weight is spread further down towards your feet, and so your body tips like a seesaw with the chest as the pivot. Lean, muscular builds tip further than most, which is why some very fit people struggle to float at all.

You cannot change the physics, but you can move the balance point.

• Shift weight towards your head. Stretch your arms out beyond your head, or at least out to the sides. Moving weight towards the chest end of the seesaw lifts the other end.
• Lift your hips, not your feet. Raising your belly button straightens the whole body. Trying to raise the feet on their own usually just folds you at the waist.
• Let your head go back further. A lifted head is the quickest way to sink your hips. Let the water come over your ears.
• Keep a small kick going. Backstroke is not a still float. Once you are moving, a gentle kick from the hips is enough to hold the legs up, which is why the stroke often feels easier than the float.
• Wear fins while you learn. Fins give a developing kick enough lift and drive to hold the legs up, so you can work on the rest of the stroke without fighting gravity. Short training fins such as the FINIS Positive Drive Fins do the job without overloading the ankles.

If your legs still settle at an angle the moment you stop kicking, do not worry. Plenty of strong swimmers cannot hold a motionless horizontal float. The stroke only asks you to be level while you are moving.

The kick: small, quick and from the hip

The backstroke kick is a flutter kick, the same alternating up and down action as front crawl, turned over. For a beginner its main job is not speed. It keeps your legs up and your body steady while the arms do the travelling.

• Start the movement at the hip. The whole leg moves, beginning at the top of the thigh. The knee softens as the leg drops and straightens as it kicks up, so the leg works like a long, loose whip rather than a bicycle pedal.
• The upward kick does the work. On your back, the propulsion comes as the foot flicks up towards the surface. Point your toes and keep the ankles loose so the top of each foot can push water upwards and back.
• Keep your knees underwater. Knees breaking the surface mean you are cycling. Keep the kick inside a narrow band so that the water above your feet simmers rather than splashes.
• Feet close and slightly turned in. Let your big toes almost brush as they pass, with the feet turned very slightly inwards. That gives the top of the foot a bigger surface to push with, and a narrow kick wastes less effort sideways.

Keep the legs going all the time, including while the arms are moving. Experienced backstrokers usually settle into six kicks for every full cycle of the arms, but you do not need to count yet. What matters is that the kick never stops, because a kick that pauses each time an arm comes over is the main reason beginners grind to a halt mid-length.

Stiff ankles hold back a lot of adults, especially runners and cyclists, whose ankles are rarely asked to point. Fins help here too. They hold the foot in a pointed position while you kick, and the extra drive lets you feel what an effective kick is supposed to feel like.

The arm action, phase by phase

The arms turn like the sails of a windmill, always opposite each other, so that one is pulling under the water while the other travels over the top. The easiest way to learn the movement is in four parts, joined together once each one makes sense.

1. Exit, thumb first. As your hand finishes beside your thigh, lift it out of the water with the thumb leading. Coming out thumb first lets the hand slip out cleanly instead of scooping water up with it.

2. Recovery, straight over. Swing the arm straight up and over, passing close to your ear, with the elbow straight but not locked. Around the top of the swing, turn your hand so the palm faces outwards. The recovery is the arm's rest, so keep it relaxed and let the shoulder do the lifting.

3. Entry, little finger first. The hand goes back in little finger first, palm facing out, roughly in line with your shoulder. A clock face helps. With your head at twelve o'clock, your right hand enters at about one o'clock and your left at about eleven. Entering behind your head, at twelve, sets you snaking from side to side. Entering out wide, towards three or nine, gives away most of the pull.

4. Pull and push. Once in, the hand presses down and slightly outwards to find still water. Then the elbow bends, so that as the hand passes your shoulder it is roughly level with it, fingers pointing towards the side of the pool. From there, push the water towards your feet until the arm straightens and the hand finishes beside your thigh, palm facing down. Then it is thumb first out again.

Beginners often pull with a straight arm, sweeping the hand round in a wide, shallow arc. It does move you, slowly, but it tends to drag the hips sideways as well. The bend at the elbow in the middle of the pull is what turns the arm into a paddle.

Rotation: roll the body, keep the head still

Watch a good backstroker from the side and you will see the body roll gently from one side to the other on every stroke, while the head stays as steady as a glass on a tray. That roll is not decoration. It lets each arm pull from deeper, stronger water, and it lets the recovering shoulder lift clear of the surface without strain.

Roll your shoulders and hips together, as one piece, towards the arm that is pulling. You need less than you might think. Enough that the recovering shoulder comes clear of the water is plenty for an adult learner.

The head does not roll with you. If it does, your hips snake and you drift sideways. The classic check is to balance a plastic cup of water, or a small float, on your forehead and take a few strokes without spilling it. It sounds like a party trick, and it is one of the best drills there is.

Too much rotation causes problems as well, mostly in people who come to backstroke from front crawl and roll right over onto their side. If you find yourself looking at the lane rope, roll back towards the ceiling.

Breathing, rhythm and water up your nose

Backstroke lets you breathe whenever you like, and that freedom catches people out. Without a rhythm, most beginners either hold their breath, which stiffens everything, or snatch at small breaths, which leaves them gasping after a width.

Tie your breathing to your arms. Breathe in as one arm travels over the top and breathe out as the other one does. Breathe in through your mouth and out through your mouth and nose. A steady pattern keeps you relaxed and gives the whole stroke a tempo.

Water up the nose is the other common complaint. It is worst straight after pushing off the wall and when water washes over your face as an arm goes in. Three things help:

• Hum out through your nose whenever your face is under the water or water is sweeping over it, especially on the push-off. A gentle stream of air keeps the water out.
• Stop your chin tipping back. A thrown-back head points your nostrils straight at the water.
• Wear a nose clip while you learn. It is a perfectly respectable piece of kit, and you will see good backstrokers wearing them.

If water up your nose sends you into a panic, you are far from alone, and it can be undone. Our guide to overcoming water anxiety as an adult is a good place to start.

Swimming in a straight line without hitting the wall

Not being able to see where you are going is what makes backstroke feel risky in a busy pool. Swimming straight is a skill like any other, though, and it relies on the information above you rather than ahead of you.

• Follow a line on the ceiling. Most indoor pools have roof beams, light fittings or ceiling panels running the length of the pool. Pick one directly above your lane and keep it in the same place in your view. If it drifts, you are drifting.
• Keep the lane rope in the corner of your eye. You do not need to stare at it. A rope that creeps towards the middle of your vision is telling you to steer away.
• Check your entries. A hand that enters behind your head steers you towards that side on every stroke. If you always drift the same way, that arm is usually the culprit.
• Count your strokes from the flags. Pools marked out for competition hang backstroke flags across the water five metres from each end. Count how many arm strokes it takes you to get from the flags to the wall at an easy pace, and use that number every time. Until you know your count, reach one arm back beyond your head as you pass under the flags and swim the final few metres with that hand leading, so it meets the wall before your head does.

Outdoor pools and lidos are harder, because the sky has no lines in it. Lean on the lane rope more, glance over a shoulder every so often, and ease off as you approach the ends.

A word about public sessions. On your back you cannot see swimmers coming towards you. While you are learning, choose a quieter lane or a quieter time, keep to the lane's direction, and stand up rather than drift if you are unsure where you are. Nobody minds a swimmer who is careful.

Common mistakes and how to fix them

Most backstroke problems trace back to a handful of habits. Find yours in the left-hand column.

Drills to practise, in order

Each drill isolates one part of the stroke. Work through them in order, a few widths of each, and move on only when the current one feels easy. Fins are welcome for the first four.

1. Kickboard hug. Hold a kickboard flat against your chest, lie back and kick. The board looks after your balance while you find a steady kick and a still head. A compact board such as the FINIS Alignment Kickboard is easy to keep in place.

2. Arms by your sides. No board this time. Rest your hands on your thighs and kick a width with your head still and your hips high. When that feels comfortable, try it with your arms stretched beyond your head, one hand on top of the other. It is harder, and it teaches you to lie long.

3. Cup on the forehead. Balance a plastic cup or a small float on your forehead and kick a width. Then add a few slow arm strokes. If the cup falls, your head moved.

4. Single arm. One arm stays by your side while the other swims full strokes for a width. Swap arms on the way back. You can concentrate on a clean entry and a bent elbow without coordinating both arms at once.

5. Double arm. Both arms recover and pull at the same time, like butterfly turned upside down. It keeps the body flat, makes a crossing entry obvious and builds a strong push to the thigh.

6. Six-kick switch. Kick on one side with the lower arm stretched beyond your head and the other resting on your thigh. Count six kicks, then take one arm stroke to roll onto the other side. It teaches rotation and patience in equal measure.

7. Full stroke, counted. Swim the whole stroke slowly, counting your arm strokes for each width. Then try to take one fewer without kicking harder. Fewer strokes for the same effort means a longer, better pull.

If you swim two or three times a week, a month is a sensible span for the full set. Give the drills ten to fifteen minutes of each session and swim the rest however you like.

Elementary backstroke: the gentler version

Not everyone needs, or wants, the full overarm stroke. Elementary backstroke is a slower stroke swum on your back, with the arms and legs moving together under the water. Nobody races it, yet few ways of moving through water are more restful, and it is worth knowing for days when your shoulders are not keen on overarm work.

Teachers often describe the arm action as chicken, aeroplane, soldier:

• Chicken. Slide both hands up the sides of your body towards your armpits, elbows bent.
• Aeroplane. Reach both arms out sideways, a little above shoulder height, palms turned to face your feet.
• Soldier. Sweep both arms back to your sides together, pushing the water towards your feet, then glide.

The legs make a breaststroke kick turned upside down. As the hands slide up, let your heels drop and draw back, keeping the knees low in the water. As the arms reach out, turn the feet outwards. As the arms sweep back, the legs whip round and close together. Then hold the glide for a moment, arms by your sides, before the next stroke.

It makes a good bridge for nervous swimmers, because nothing ever leaves the water and the glide leaves time to breathe and think. It is also a sensible way to cover a distance slowly while saving energy, which is why it is often taught alongside water safety skills. For a side-by-side look at the main competitive strokes, see our quick guide to the swimming strokes.

Kit that helps, and what you can skip

Backstroke asks for very little: a costume, a cap if your hair is long, and a pool. A few items make the learning quicker.

• Fins. The single most useful item for a backstroke learner, because they hold the legs up while the rest of the stroke comes together. For most adults the FINIS Positive Drive Fins fit the bill: an all-stroke training fin with a short blade, much closer to a natural kick than a long snorkelling fin.
• A kickboard. For the kickboard hug and the early kicking drills. Any board works, and the FINIS Alignment Kickboard is small enough to hold flat against your chest.
• A nose clip. If water up the nose is what stops you. We do not sell them, and any inexpensive clip from a sports shop will do the job.
• Goggles, if you like. Your face is out of the water, so many people swim backstroke without them. They help if splashes sting or you mix strokes in one session, and our swimming kit guide covers choosing a pair.
• A rotation trainer, later on. Once the stroke is in place, the FINIS Tech Toc straps round your waist and makes an audible click as your hips roll, which tells you whether you are rotating evenly to both sides. It is a tool for improvers, not a first purchase.

One honest note before you spend anything. Leave hand paddles alone until every entry lands in line with your shoulder. A paddle magnifies a wide or crossing entry, and the shoulder pays for it. You can also ignore anything sold as a backstroke start wedge or ledge. Those are for racing starts and have nothing to do with learning the stroke.

Frequently asked questions

Is backstroke easier to learn than front crawl?

For most adults it is, at least to begin with. Breathing is the hardest part of front crawl, and backstroke removes it completely because your face stays out of the water. What makes backstroke harder is not being able to see where you are going, and trusting the water to hold your head. If you can float on your back and stand up from it, the stroke usually comes together sooner than front crawl does.

Why do my legs sink when I swim backstroke?

Because your chest, full of air, floats far better than your legs, so your body tips like a seesaw. Lifting your head makes it worse. Rest your head back until the water covers your ears, push your hips towards the surface, keep a small kick going the whole time and wear short fins while you learn.

How do I stop water going up my nose on backstroke?

Breathe out gently through your nose whenever water washes over your face, particularly after pushing off the wall, and stop your chin tipping back, which points your nostrils at the water. A nose clip solves the problem completely while you build the habit.

Should I breathe through my nose or my mouth on backstroke?

Breathe in through your mouth and out through your mouth and nose together. Link it to your arms: in as one arm travels over the top, out as the other one does. A steady pattern stops you holding your breath.

Is backstroke good exercise?

Yes. It works your shoulders, upper back, core, glutes and legs, raises your heart rate like any continuous swimming and puts no impact through your joints. Because the breathing is easy, many adults can keep backstroke going for longer than front crawl, and time spent swimming matters more than the choice of stroke. Our guide to how many calories swimming burns compares the strokes.

Is backstroke good for posture and back pain?

It is often recommended for both. It works the muscles that draw the shoulders back, and it keeps the spine close to neutral with no head lifting at all. Our article on swimming for back pain and joint pain explains how to use it when your back is sore.

Is backstroke bad for your shoulders?

Not when each arm enters in line with its shoulder and your body rolls with the stroke. Trouble usually comes from an entry that swings out wide or crosses behind the head, and from adding hand paddles too early. If a movement pinches, stop doing it and have the shoulder looked at rather than swimming through it.

Is backstroke the same as back crawl?

Yes. Back crawl is another name for the same stroke, so called because it uses front crawl's alternating arms and flutter kick on your back. Elementary backstroke is a different, slower stroke in which the arms and legs move together under the water.

How do I swim backstroke in a straight line?

Follow a line on the ceiling directly above your lane, keep the lane rope in the corner of your eye, and make sure each hand enters in line with its shoulder rather than behind your head. In pools with backstroke flags, count your strokes from the flags to the wall so you know when to reach for it.

Can I learn backstroke if I cannot float?

Yes. Plenty of people who cannot hold a still float swim perfectly good backstroke, because the kick holds the legs up once you are moving. Start with a kickboard held against your chest and fins on your feet, and learn to stand up from your back before anything else.

Of all the strokes, backstroke is the one where a coach changes things fastest, because every fault is invisible from inside the stroke and obvious from the side of the pool. Our adult lessons cover everything from a first wobbly back float to polishing a stroke you already swim, in Cheltenham, Gloucester and Blakeney. Not sure whether a group or a teacher to yourself would suit you better? Weigh up private versus group lessons for adults first. Then book a class, and we will start you on your back.