Swimming is a very difficult sport to master. Getting the timing of the arms to synchronize with the opposite action of the legs while keeping the body straight requires massive concentration…and then you still have to remember to breathe.
Swimming drills are the easiest way to learn to swim efficiently by breaking down the stroke in “bite-sized” chunks that can be mastered individually and then combined later.
A drill is a technique exercise done specifically to improve your swimming technique. They are usually a scaled-down version of one of the stroke.
A technique exercise or drill is only efficient if it’s done in the correct way.
Water is extremely dense in comparison to air. At sea level, water is 784 times denser than air.
Drag is a type of friction – a force acting opposite to the relative motion of any object moving with respect to the surrounding fluid.
Reducing one’s drag in swimming is the single most important component to improving swimming speed and endurance.
Efficient open-water swimming and triathlon swimming is 70% dependant on correct body position and technique, 20% muscular endurance and 10% strength. Together with improving body position, drills are crucial to improving swimming technique.
Learning a new skill like swimming can definitely be overwhelming. Coordinating arms and legs while holding the body straight and breathing is just too many things to focus on.
Often athletes who have no formal swimming training history, have poor biomechanical habits.
Drills, together with using training tools like a pull buoy, snorkel or fins, make it easier to isolate sectors of the stroke so that biomechanical issues can be corrected.
When athletes start adding extra distance or intensity on top of poor biomechanical form, overuse imbalances and injury soon follow.
Correcting imbalances early with the use of swimming drills and land training means athletes can safely add distance and intensity to their training regime.
You can quote me on this:
"Fast efficient swimming develops not from overcoming drag,
it comes from offering less resistance to the water."
Swimming is a very complex series of movements. For the novice swimmer, it is overwhelming to have to consider the position of the feet, bending the elbows, swinging the arms and rotating the hips all while remembering to exhale. Being overwhelmed, many novices are driven into panic mode and cannot then focus on correct swimming form.
The easiest method of dissipating the overwhelm is to break the swim stroke down into easier, “bite-sized” chunks. Isolating each part of the stroke and concentrating on that in the form of a drill.
Practice makes perfect. People are lazy and will more often than not choose the path of least resistance. Once the poor technique is learned, it is extremely challenging to unlearn it. Even when we understand the right thing to do, we tend to gravitate back to old bad “comfortable” habits. The new stroke or body will always feel “awkward” and “uncomfortable” at first.
To reinforce the correct habit you have been learning by doing the isolation drill, you should swim a length practising the exact technique you have just drilled.
Devoting one extra swim session per week to just doing drills and drill/swims is a way to get faster. We usually mark these sessions as recovery swims.
While getting fitter is an important component to swimming faster, spending a few minutes at the beginning of each practice working on specific drills to help correct your weak points will help you become a better swimmer.
The novice swimmers’ stroke generally displays the same problems:
The best “fixes” for a novice are:
One of the best ways to learn to pull with a high elbow underwater is by doing one-arm drills. Holding one arm in front, swim with one arm only, rotating from side to stomach, but focusing on the high elbow position as the single-arm pulls through. It is much easier to grasp the concept of swimming with high elbows, after practising with each arm alone.
One arm drills will help you:
An easier method for the novice is to learn this drill is to do 5x 1-arm strokes with the left arm, 5x 1-arm strokes with the right arm, then do 5x full strokes.
As you become better at the drill, do 7 strokes, then 9 ….until you can complete a full length with just 1 arm.
Remember, as with ALL drills, master the technique and don’t race to the other end of the pool.
One of the classic freestyle drills and one of our favourites, it is a little more advanced than the one-arm drill. Once the One-Arm drill can be comfortably practised, it is time to include the Catch-Up drill.
We use the Catch-Up drill for swimmers and triathletes from novice age-groupers to advanced Ironman athletes.
Like the one-arm drill, holding the left arm in front, swim with the right arm only, rotating from side to stomach, but focusing on the high elbow position as the right arm pulls through. On the recovery, place the right hand on top of the left hand, then repeat the process with the left arm.
Catch-up freestyle helps isolate the arm movement, which makes it easier to teach novice swimmers, proper mechanics. It helps with distance per stroke while also promoting a good hand entry that doesn’t cross-over the midline.
The Catch-Up drill also encourages the swimmers to use a fuller and more balanced flutter kick in order to sustain propulsion and maintain a good, low drag body position.
“If you can’t do it slow, you can’t do it fast.”
– my first girlfriend –
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