SWIMMING DRILLS

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INTRODUCTION

As anyone who has been to one of our clinics will know, it’s not just the individual drill that’s important but the specific sequencing of drills that ensures swimmers build their swim techniques on sure and correct fundamentals – those key elements of correct technique that you simply have to have in place in order to swim fast. We also emphasize the importance of understanding the purpose of each drill you practice – it’s all about focussing on a particular aspect of good technique: whether you’re swimming crawl or practising breathing, swimming is a technique sport, and drills can help you get it right!

June - Kick Rotation Drill

It is important to remember that performing drills is not an end in itself but a way of improving or even correcting swimming stroke technique. A lot of parents complain to us that their children are made to do lots of endurance training but rarely ‘do technique’. We always make the point that it’s not one or the other but both that are required! The trick here is to find ways of ensuring that the learning of correct technique during drill practice is transferred into competitive performance: in many ways this is one of the key markers of top coaching.

One of the benefits of the 6 kick rotation drill is that it helps to extend the previous side kicking drill into the full front crawl swimming technique.

Here’s how it’s done….

Instead of doing a whole length at a time (as in the previous drill) this time you simply count 8 kicks on one side and as you are counting, imagine that the elbow of your uppermost arm is being drawn up, out of the water and forwards, with your forearm and hand relaxed and dangling. As your arm is drawn forwards, imagine it is released so that your hand enters the water in front of your head and as it does so extend you hand forward so that your arm holds a firm position out in front of your body, replacing the other one which takes a stroke to end up laying along the side of your body that has just rotated to become uppermost in the water. Do 8 kicks on this side and then rotate again and continue to alternate sides every 8 kicks.

The next progression would be to rotate after every 6 kicks so that gradually you develop more of a front crawl rhythm while maintaining good rotation. Again it is the transfer of learning from drill to full stroke performance that is important and drill progressions like these can be really helpful in learning how to swim with correct front crawl technique.

May - Side Kicking Drill

When you’re swimming crawl, body rotation is essential and this series of body roll drills will help you to build rotation into your front crawl swimming technique.

This is a great drill to help you begin to learn what it feels like to hold a firm body position while flutter kicking on your side. As we said before, some people still think you swim front crawl on your front! In order to learn the rotation movement that top swimmers use when swimming crawl, you firstly need to be able to kick diagonally and this drill helps with that – unlike the usual front crawl kicking with a kick board which just ingrains the up and down kick of a flat (incorrect) front crawl technique.

Here’s what you do: holding your body firm and in a straight line horizontally in the water, extend one arm (the one that will be lowest in the water) out in front of you and pointing to the end of the pool you’re swimming to. Make sure this arm does not drop in the water but remains firmly pressed into the side of your head as you flutter kick to propel yourself along, keeping your body and head facing the side of the pool. Depending on the effectiveness of your kick and your buoyancy, you will need to turn your head either slightly or a little further, in order to breathe.

It’s a good idea to alternate lengths doing this drill, once on your right and once on your left side. The next drill will help you to combine kicking on your right and on your left into more of the rotation movement that top swimmers use in their front crawl technique.

April - Streamlined flutter kicking

For front crawl swimming, as in the other strokes, it’s no good looking at the finer details of hand entry for example, until we have a correct, flat, streamlined body position in the water.

To practice this you need to develop a firm, streamlined position, with one hand over the other and fingers interlocked, and the thumb of your top hand curled over the bottom hand – when this is done you’ll find that if you try to separate your hands, you’ll feel your elbows squeeze into your ears – just where we want them. You then need to hold a firm straight, horizontal position as you flutter kick to propel yourself down the pool. The crucial thing here is your head position – keep it steady and avoid looking down to the bottom of the pool – the idea is to look just a bit forwards so the waterline is just above your eyebrows. Kick firmly, with small fast kicks, keeping your hips high in the water and when you need to breathe, lift your head using a small sculling action of your arms, and then return to the streamline position.

Notes:

You should be aiming to limit the number of breaths you take each length while performing this drill.

This is a different body position from the one you use when doing a streamline dolphin kick off the wall in turns – for that you should actually be under the water and then you do look down at the bottom of the pool!

There are still some people out there who think you swim front crawl on your front – as anyone who’s been to our freestyle clinics will know, you actually rotate and swim much of the stroke on your side – so lookout for the next drill which will help you incorporate rotation into your front crawl swimming!

March - Front Crawl Catch-up

This drill emphasises two points of technique in front crawl swimming

1. The ‘front-end’ of your stroke. This is the first part of your arm stroke when your hand enters the water, extends and presses to a ‘catch’ position.
2. The timing of your breathing.

How it’s done….

While carrying out a normal kick and arm-stroke, keep one arm extended to the front firm and high in the water in line with the shoulder long enough for the other arm to meet it in front (catch it up).

We frequently see this drill practiced incorrectly with the hands meeting and touching (or even one hand over the other) at the front. The ‘catch up’ is happening but doing it that way you are not practicing a correct hand entry position, which should be in line with the shoulder. For this reason make sure that in the catch up position, your hands remain at shoulder width apart. Remember, only perfect practice makes perfect!

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