Technique is
crucial for swimmers.
And it’s something good swimmers think about constantly at the pool.
Every moment in that big, chlorinated bathtub we are negotiating and battling with the water to slide through it more quickly and get to the other end.
And drills are one of the things we typically use in our efforts to sharpen technique, Drills are used:
🛠️ To fix something. Correcting a movement—a dropped elbow during the catch, uneven pull path, not positioning the forearm for proper leverage—with the goal of
improving technique.
🛠️ To reinforce something. Exaggerating a key aspect of the stroke during warm-up or a pre-set or even during a main set to shore up proper technique.
There is also no shortage of drills that you can throw at your freestyle, and more advanced swimmers will even have different ways to implement them.
But a better way to improve technique is to swim in a way that forces these technique outcomes.
For example:
⚡ Let’s say you want a
more balanced body roll and symmetrical stroke. Well, breathing every three strokes naturally promotes that. No single arm freestyle drill required.
⚡ What about improving stroke rate? You could do lots of head-up freestyle. Or you can put on a Tempo Trainer and explore swimming fast at and slightly above your target stroke rate.
⚡ Or how
about getting the forearm more vertical in the catch? Long dog is a popular drill for this. Or you could do 25s swim at around 80% effort with medium resistance (drag chute), which naturally encourages a more powerful catch.
One of the best things about
swimming in a way that pushes better technique is that you don’t have to worry about creating competing adaptations.
❌ With head-up freestyle, swimmers hips bounce up and down a lot more, the stroke gets short and choppy, and trunk inclination shoots up.
❌ Single arm freestyle significantly changes how much your body rolls.
❌ Long dog freestyle doesn’t replicate the recovery phase of the stroke and changes where your hand starts the pull.
Instead of isolating something to improve your technique
outside whole-stroke swimming…
You find the ways to improve technique
inside whole-stroke swimming.
This isn’t all to say that drills are useless or should be avoided.
I still like to do them, either in my warm-up to help grease the movement, or as part of a technique “reset” between rounds of a hard set. Drills can also be used to highlight feel for the water, such as with closed fist swimming.
And for a lot of swimmers, piece-mealing a technical improvement with a specific drill really helps them to conceptualize it before they can progress.
They can
definitely play a role.
But it’s important to understand their limitations.
When it comes to challenging your technique and making the improvements stick…
Try to find ways to
force better technique in whole-stroke swimming.
Your technique will improve by leaps and bounds…
You’ll become more adaptable…
And you’ll swim faster.
(Very ideal.)
See you in the water,
Olivier
