Freestyle technique can change according to the distance you are swimming. We will talk about some general differences of the stroke at different speeds.

In a 50 freestyle your arms should spin as fast as they can, but also grabbing as much water as possible. The legs play a very important part of sprinting freestyle technique.

If you are swimming the 100 or the 200 freestyle however, you should get into a smoother technique. You should be in a very fast pace, but a more rhythmic one. A fast pace that you can hold on for the whole race.

The 400, 800 or 1500 are swam in a very different stroke technique. Swimmers use the legs very little. The reasoning behind this is that the legs use up a lot of the oxygen in your blood. If you have them close to the surface by doing small timely kicks, you can swim longer distances in a constant speed. However, this only works if you have a high horizontal position in the water.

While you are practicing in the pool, you should try all of these different techniques at different paces. You will start to see how you adapt to each one by repetition.