Earlier tonight my coach had us do a drill that I had never even HEARD of before: He had us grab a stick with both hands, spanning as wide as possible. Then we had to swim while holding the pole. This was by far the weirdest drill I've ever done. I noticed two things while doing this drill:
1. It forced a 100% pure windmill stroke, which is not at all what I normally do. My normal stroke is very "front-quadrant".
2. I had to focus hard on being straight, because any time my hands strayed from the centerline, I would instantly slow down. If I focused on keeping the stick pointed forward at all times, things went much smoother.
As odd as this drill was, I can't deny that my regular swim set immediately following 200 yards of swimming with the stick was quite solid. I was 5 seconds/100 faster than normal, and I felt really smooth. I could tell that I was longer, straighter (most notably on hand entry), and had better body rotation.
I'm wondering if anyone here has done this drill? Like I said, I had never ever heard about it before tonight, and I thought I was fairly well read regarding swim training. I can't find anything on Google.
-Mark Rebuck, http://www.markrebuck.com/
1. It forced a 100% pure windmill stroke, which is not at all what I normally do. My normal stroke is very "front-quadrant".
2. I had to focus hard on being straight, because any time my hands strayed from the centerline, I would instantly slow down. If I focused on keeping the stick pointed forward at all times, things went much smoother.
As odd as this drill was, I can't deny that my regular swim set immediately following 200 yards of swimming with the stick was quite solid. I was 5 seconds/100 faster than normal, and I felt really smooth. I could tell that I was longer, straighter (most notably on hand entry), and had better body rotation.
I'm wondering if anyone here has done this drill? Like I said, I had never ever heard about it before tonight, and I thought I was fairly well read regarding swim training. I can't find anything on Google.
-Mark Rebuck, http://www.markrebuck.com/