Drills for Competitive Swimmers
In competitive swimming, proper technique and maximum efficiency through the water can shave seconds off your times. Stroke drills reinforce proper body position and work on coordination between your torso rotation and your arm and leg movement. Therefore, including a variety of drills in your swimming workouts helps reinforce good technique, which will allow you to swim with less effort at faster speeds. After five to 10 minutes of easy swimming to warm up, do one or two sets of these drills before starting your hard swimming.
Swimming with your hands closed in a fist helps you keep a high elbow through your stroke pull and encourages you to engage your core while swimming. Fist swimming also helps you use your entire forearm like a paddle rather than bending your wrist, giving your stroke more power. Do eight 25-yard swims where you swim half the length with a closed fist and the remainder with a normal, open fist. You can do this drill with freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly strokes.
Kicking on Side
Kicking on your side teaches you to shift your weight from side to side using your core muscles, reducing the work your arms and shoulders have to do to get you down the pool. Lie on your left side with your left arm extended overhead and your head resting on that arm. Rest your right arm down on your right side, and take four to six kicks. Take three arm strokes starting with the left arm, and repeat on the right side. Once you reach the other side of the pool, swim normal freestyle, focusing on the side-to-side gliding motion you practiced with the drill. You can do this drill with backstroke as well as freestyle.
This freestyle or backstroke drill teaches you to incorporate a glide in your arm pull and increase your distance per stroke. Push off from the wall with your arms overhead in a streamline position, and take one full arm stroke with the right arm while your left arm remains extended out. Once your right arm catches up to the extended left arm, take a stroke with the left arm while the right arm stays extended. Continue this drill until you finish 25 yards, then swim 25 yards regular freestyle. Repeat this pattern six to eight times.
Swimming with one arm at a time helps you focus on good technique such as coordinating arm pull with torso rotation, high elbow during the pull and keeping your arm close to your body. Swim 25 yards with your right arm only, keeping your left arm extended in front of you and breathing on your right side. Then swim 25 yards with your left arm only. Swim 50 yards normally, focusing on maintaining the good technique you practiced with the one-arm swimming. You can do one-arm swimming with the butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle strokes.
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