Swimming can be the hardest aspect of triathlon to master, especially for late learners or those who come to it as adults.
Swim drills will help you become a more efficient and faster swimmer. These should be incorporated into every session – this can easily be done in your warm-up.
We use drills in our coached sessions and will be re introducing on our early bird swims.
Remember all drills over-exaggerate a particular element of your stroke, but should help you feel each element better. Using fins really helps isolate the front of the stroke where most gains can be made.
Here are some of the most used drills in our sessions (click on the links to see videos)
Single arm front crawl
Aim: to improve entry, catch and pull by isolating each arm.
Roll hand into a fist, to remove the surface area usually provided for your pull
Swim freestyle as you normal
While pulling you should be also using your forearms, and not just your hands! This added emphasis on the surface area of the forearm also pushes you towards a higher elbow recovery.
Once you unclench your hands you will get a little jolt of power, your hands now feeling like over-sized swim paddles.
Side Kick / Superman Drill
Aim: To learn good body position and balance in the water, lengthen your body position while staying streamlined
Kick on your side with your lead arm outstretched, shoulder to your cheek.
The non-lead arm should be resting on your hip, you should feel the back of your hand just above the surface of the water.
Aim to keep your head still and your chin pointing down, rotating your head to breathe.
Kicking exhale to the count of 3, breathe-in, kick ehaling to the count of 3.
You should be looking down at the tiles, about 1M ahead.
Kicking enough to elevate your trailing shoulder above the water’s surface, while ensuring that when outstretched, your lead arm is parallel to the bottom and below the surface.
6-1-6
Aim: To learn good body position and balance in the water and get a feel for the correct rotation.
a variation of the Side Kick Drill. Start in the same way as the sidekick, after 6 kicks, take one stroke with the arm that was resting on your hip, this will put you onto the other side with the resting arm now leading, repeat.
Try and breathe just after taking a stroke, kick on side count to 4 exhaling, stroke & inhale
Lead the rotation with your hip.
6-3-6
Aim: To learn good body position and balance in the water and get a feel for the correct rotation.
Swim front crawl, but on the over water recovery, glide your fingertips close to the side of your body, while dragging them across the surface to maintain a high elbow. The shoulder of your lead arm should brush closely to the chin as it extends forward, achieving a nicely-rotated body position.
As your hand passes your head and enters the water, feel the hand entering the water drive the body rotation. .
Catch-up
Aim: To help you focus on maintaining a long body in the water, and keeping lead arm
Swim front crawl keeping your non-stroking arm in front of you in its initial extended position.
Wait until the stroking arm “catches up” with your extended arm before taking your next stroke. This effectively slows down your swimming, and allows you to focus on stroking with one arm at a time.
Try not to leave a pause or dead spot in the stroke, rather aim for a ¾ catch-up while swimming at an aerobic base pace.
Sculling.
Aim:To develop a “feel the water” and maintain the ideal hand and arm position to move through the water.
Monday Night Swim Workshops – Season Plan Our Monday night workshops are designed in 4-week themed blocks, so each month focuses on one key element of the stroke. This approach gives you a clear technical Read more
Training Survey Rationale We wanted to understand how busy, independent athletes in the club prefer to train: when you’ll show up, what kind of information and structure you value, and where pace-based meet-ups would actually Read more