How To MASTER Swimming and Water Confidence

In 2020, an Air Force Special Tactics Trainee passed away from drowning, and a Green Beret passed away during a treading event at dive school. In 2006, a SEAL candidate died in the pool doing water competence drills – and the public was shocked to learn that countless candidates pass out in the pool every class. Sadly, some never come back.

While safety protocols are reviewed after these incidents, the fact still stands that selection – including the swimming and water confidence components – is as difficult as ever. Whether you’re going to BUD/S, A&S, or elsewhere – Underwater swims, drown-proofing, treading with weight, and multi-mile fin swims contribute to the 80%+ attrition rates. 

As a coach, I’ve trained nearly 100 candidates for careers in special operations, and here’s exactly how I recommend you build up your water confidence and swimming from scratch to get selected.

How Hard Is Military Water Confidence?

The good news is that the level of swimming and water confidence required for the military is achievable. Any swimmer will tell you that a 9-minute 500-yard swim is doable for a middle schooler; And any free diver will tell you that if you can hold your breath while walking 50 yards, you can do the same swimming underwater.

The problem is, that 90% of people apply brute force methods of increasing effort to their swimming and water confidence. But that does not and will never work because their technique is terrible.

What Gear Do You Need For Water Confidence?

Before jumping into your swimming and water confidence routine, there’s some equipment you’ll need to pick up.

While you should have significant practice with all of the equipment here before enlisting or commissioning, you do not need to purchase this all on day one. Start with goggles and short fins, and then once you’ve reached step 5, you can ease into the rocket fins and other equipment for advanced techniques.

1. Master Your Technique

Step one is to master your swimming technique. You need to find a buddy, swim coach, or club to help you in person. Don’t waste months learning from scratch what an expert can show you in 2 minutes. 

If you don’t know anyone – find somebody – or check out the Total Immersion swim channel to learn what excellent swimming looks like. And make sure when you’re in the pool, you’re really working on your technique.

If there’s anything you take away from this video it should be the importance of technique.

In 90% of cases, your endurance is not why you’re a poor swimmer, it’s your technique. So make sure you’re focusing on the fundamentals – staying long in the water, having a tight streamline, high elbow pull, and your head is staying in the water as you turn to breathe.

These basics are often overlooked and maxing them out can quickly drop minutes off your 500yd time and get you to sub 9 minutes.

Once you have the basics down, a good progression is 0 to 1650.

2. Start Bilateral Breathing

Up to this point, you may have just been breathing to one side while swimming. That’s what most great swimmers do in competition, but the difference is you need to get comfortable in the water, which involves breathing to your right and left side. 

Most beginners don’t do this because they’re uncomfortable breathing to their weak side or too oxygen-starved to hold their breath for an extra stroke.

You need to overcome this fear and start breathing every 3rd stroke.

Over time, I want you to breathe every 5th stroke for your warm-ups and cooldowns. Doing this will improve your comfort in the water and your overall technique.

3. Learn to Tread Water

The egg beater kick is the most efficient way to tread for BUD/S and A&S – don’t waste your time with scissor kicks or anything else.

The technique is actually really simple to learn with some practice. Once you have the foot, ankle, knee, and hip positions down, you’ll be able to tread water indefinitely.

Remember that if you’re not picking up these skills quickly, that’s normal. It requires deliberate, practice, and effort to learn treading and swimming. You’re learning a new skill here, this isn’t like running which everyone grew up doing as kids and which you improve by just doing it more. So, don’t get frustrated if you don’t pick it up perfectly on your first day.

Here’s a pro tip for treading once you have the basic technique down – make sure you’re holding a belly full of air as much as possible. This will help buoy you up and it makes treading so much easier.

To practice your egg beater, you just have to practice it. Tread the length of the pool, start with your hands in the water, take them out, and raise them over your head. Eventually, once you’ve mastered the technique, it’ll be a breeze.

4. Start Finning

To swim multiple miles at a time with fins at Air Force Assessment and Selection or BUD/S, you need to build up your feet, ankles, and shins. Since at this point, you’ll be a proficient swimmer, you can start with a simple progression – just set a timer for 30 minutes and fin until the alarm goes off. Every week, add 10 or 15 minutes, and before you know it you’ll be able to fin for a few hours at a time.

Now, even with very slow increases in your finning volume, you may get some ankle aggravation. This is why I recommend starting with small rubber fins. If you’ve never finned, jumping right into the big rocket fins you’ll use at A&S or BUD/S is a recipe for injury. Start with your simple short-length fins, and then slowly work into your rocket fins.

5. Underwater Finning (My Favorite)

Step 5 is my favorite trick to improve underwater confidence. And you do it with fins. Every other lap while finning, I want you to get a hard kick off the wall, a good streamlined position, and flutter kick as far as you can underwater. To start, just work on making it halfway across the pool. For the next session try 2/3rds, and before you know it you can work up to finning 25 yards underwater every other lap of your 90-minute fin sessions.

And that might sound crazy to do underwaters every other lap for an hour and a half, but it’s a lot simpler than you think since you can cover that distance in 15 seconds or less, and expend very little energy with fins.

There are several reasons why I love this strategy to build underwater confidence. 

1) One is that you have fins on, so you can move a lot faster underwater, and you’re not going to feel as oxygen-starved 

2) With fins you’re just flutter kicking, so there are no complex techniques you have to think about, just get in a good streamlined position and kick

3) There’s no pressure to make it the full 25 yards, you can always come up, so it’s a lot more relaxed and a low-pressure environment to get comfortable underwater.

The practice you get in with these fin sessions will help you immensely when it comes to real underwaters.

6. Learn Underwater technique

Now, I won’t tell you to practice this alone because many people, including elite operators, have died with this type of training. So make sure you have a buddy, lifeguard, and permission from the pool facilities before proceeding from this point on.

There are five steps to the perfect underwater swim for military training – you should be proficient in the first two already.

1. Powerful Kick off The Wall

You won’t always get a kick off the wall at selection, but when you can, take advantage of it.

2. Streamlined Body Position

As you kick off the wall, you want to be in a tight streamlined position. This reduces drag and will allow you to maintain the momentum from your kick off the wall for as long as possible.

3. Powerful Double Arm Pull

A second or two before stopping after your kick off the wall, perform a hard double-arm pull with high elbows. You’ll hold this position for as long as you can.

4. Breaststroke Kick Recovery

Next, you’ll perform a breaststroke kick as you return your arms to the streamlined position.

5. Repeat steps 2, 3, and 4

From here, you’ll repeat steps 2, 3, and 4 until you reach the end of the pool.

How to Master Underwaters

The most efficient underwater swimmers can clear a 25-yard pool with one kick off the wall and two hard double-arm pulls.

The least efficient will take 5, 6, or even 7 double arms pulls to clear the same distance. 

Your mission is to cover as much distance as possible while expending as little energy as possible.

You do this by learning the technique. Practice calmly with perfect technique for perfect execution. Where people mess up is they become panicked underwater, and they speed up. When they speed up, they lose efficiency, they use more energy, and this becomes a negative spiral. This is how you end up with someone hitting six double arms pulls during their underwaters, and then gasping for air once they hit the wall.

Remember, slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.

7. Underwater Progressions For Assessment and Selection

Build up your underwaters very slowly. Start by mastering your kick off the wall and arm pull to cover as much distance as possible. Then freestyle the rest of the 25 yards down, and then freestyle back to the starting position. Repeat this at a 3-minute interval for several rounds. 

I know you want to jump into full underwaters. Everyone does. But trust me, breaking up the component pieces and mastering them is how you’re going to get better.

Once you’ve mastered the kick and arm pull, add a single breaststroke kick. See how far you can get. You can even practice these in isolation while holding a kickboard.

Next, add your double-arm pull.

Over time, I want you to work up to several full 25-yard underwaters on a 3-minute interval. This is a great start. From there, try adding another round every week. After you’ve worked up to 10 rounds, reduce the rest by 10 seconds. Again, always be safe and have professionals around you in case of an emergency.

Pro Tip for Underwaters For Military Training

Here’s another pro tip – in practice, never attempt an underwater you are not confident you’ll hit. This is practice. It’s the time to get better. If you’re training right, there’s no rush to master underwaters. Learn the fundamentals and the gains will come.

8. Practice Water Confidence with a Mask

Up to this point, you may have just been training with goggles, and have acclimated to exhaling through your nose underwater and breathing through your mouth and nose above water after finishing your water confidence or swimming intervals.

Once you put on a mask, it will take a few weeks to adjust. The mask adds additional drag to your underwaters and also requires extra attention to your head positioning during your push off the wall to ensure it doesn’t fall off entirely.

Also, those underwaters on a 3-minute interval, may feel more difficult when you can only mouth breathe during your recovery.

In the grand scheme of things, these are relatively minor things to adjust to. But it’s important to call out that you won’t be using your normal swim goggles at A&S or BUD/S, so you should be practicing with a mask before you ship out. 

This is step 7 for a reason though, so it doesn’t mean you have to buy one now, but make sure you pick up a dive mask eventually.

Clearing Your Mask

You need to get comfortable taking your mask on and off, including clearing it in the water. The technique for this involves leaning your head back with the mask on. As you peel open the bottom of your mask, you exhale through your nose to blow bubbles and replace the water in your mask with air. If all the water hasn’t been pushed out of your mask, repeat this process until the water is gone. It usually doesn’t take more than two tries to clear your mask fully.

9. Mask and Snorkel recovery

While most of you have probably heard about underwaters before this, mask and snorkel recovery is a critical component of water confidence in the military.

You’ll take your mask and snorkel, throw it 10 – 15 yards away, and swim underwater using the techniques we’ve already discussed. From here, you’ll locate the mask and snorkel, place the snorkel between your legs, put it on, clear the mask, and then return to position. As you get better, you can progress by adding more distance or removing your kick off the wall altogether.

Once you can comfortably perform mask and snorkel recovery for 25+ yards, you can begin performing water confidence and other drills with a t-shirt and booties to add more drag.

Advanced Swimming and Water Confidence Routine

You should practice water confidence at least twice per week. If you’re already starting and finishing your sessions with drills, add 5 to 10 minutes of water confidence and treading. It won’t add more than 15 – 20 minutes per session. Additionally, I recommend having a low-intensity day which includes 30 minutes to an hour of water confidence, some finning, and then more water confidence or technique practice. Here’s what an advanced session could look like

Bonus Tip

Before closing this article, I want to share with you some little-known research the Air Force commissioned to the Rand Corporation published about 5 years ago.

The Rand Corporation audited the entire Air Force Special Warfare pipeline (A&S) to identify how they could create more qualified operators. RAND recommended the Air Force add a prep course to boost candidates’ fitness and specifically train them in water confidence – which they found was a significant driver of attrition.

That prep course actually exists now.

But despite adding the new prep course to the pipeline, the attrition rate is still 80+ percent. This explains the importance of showing up prepared and exceeding the standards. You can’t rely on anyone but yourself to get you prepared. 

If you want to learn four myths about Air Force A&S – check out this article here.