Improve your forward starts

There are four kinds of forward starts: the traditional grab start and three variations of the track start, including a leaning forward track, a full backward track, and a medium backward track. Swimmers should try each one of them and use the one that works best for them. Generally, track starts give swimmers more stability on the block, and both of the leaning back track starts allow the swimmer to use the arms to pull against the block for momentum. They also create more impulse, or greater time of force applied against the block. The forward track start is the quickest to the water but the least powerful. The full backward is slowest of the block, and often the back leg is bent to an extreme that compromises the power that the start produces. The medium backward splits the difference - it is quick and powerful.

Traditional grab start

Medium backward track start 

The start can be broken into its component skills so that coaches can teach and swimmers can understand and perform the skills more effectively.

• Be cool. When swimmers are on the block, they should not be looking around. Instead they need their  eyes forward, intent and focused. 
• Grab and lean back. Swimmers should curl the toes of the front foot around the block so that it doesn't slip when they push. The back foot should be about one foot length behind the front foot. They lean back until their weight is toward the back foot and they feel a stretch through their arms and back, like a rubber band ready to snap.
• Explode. Swimmers use both their arms and legs to catapult themselves horizontally forward off the block with a straight, streamlined body. They should neither leap up to the sky nor drop off the block like a rock.
• Streamline. When swimmers are in the air, their bodies need to be straight, taut, and streamlined, with the head ducked under the arms and the hands either clamped or one on top of the other. Their bodies must be streamlined before hitting the water. Clean entries with little splash and the whole body entering through the same hole in the water, are ideal.
• Use hyperspeed dolphins. This point applies to freestyle and butterfly starts, where the swimmers kick underwater dolphins before reaching the surface to swim. Once the swimmer enters the water, he keeps his body straight and still for a split second, then dolphins with short, fast kicks to maintain the momentum from the dive and to preserve streamlining. Big, slow dolphins destroy the streamline and are not fast. 
• Break out. Swimmers should surface as horizontally as they can, surging forward with their first strokes, not up. They should not breathe the first two or more strokes on freestyle. The first few strokes will set the tone for the rest of the length.

Image outsource [1]