Swim drill to keep me from dropping my elbow?

Triathlon Forum
1

Anyone have a good drill to teach me to not swim with a dropped elbow? My swim coach has been working with me for weeks on this. I know what it should look like, I just can’t seem to get rid of the old habit. Drills?

chris

2

Fingertip drag - on the recovery, let your fingertips drag over the surface of the water
.

3

“over the barrel” drill. In the catch phase of the stroke imagine that your arm is reaching over a barrel… (over emphasize a big ‘scoop’ up front.

4

I like that drill too.

In my opinion, in order to make it habit he needs to think about it for every stroke for at least a few weeks.

jaretj

5

I should have prefaced it by saying on the catch not recovery.

chris

6

anchor drill - swim dog paddle, breathe to the front, focus on ‘catch’ only, SEE your fingertips point to the bottom of the pool, SEE the high elbow, pull slightly back, just engage the catch, recovery is underwater. IF you can feel it in your lats, then you are getting the catch. This is the best drill I know of to help with the catch and to stop dropping the elbow. Most importatnly, you are SEEING it, and you can commit that to memory.

7

Is this mostly on your breathing stroke or all the time?

8

Also something I’ve been trying to improve on. I find small hand paddles give me a good awareness of how much pressure I’m exerting and where my forearm is aiming. Ideally back instead of down. I’ve looked into various EVF paddles which are supposed to help promote this but haven’t tried any yet. There’s one here: http://www.techpaddle.com/ and one here: http://www.swimadvance.com/projectA.htm

Perhaps someone has used them?

9

Try swimming with your fists closed (or wearing the FistGloves from totalimmersion). With your fists closed, you have so much less surface area to pull with, you’ll instinctively start pulling with your forearm. The way you’ll pull with your forearm is to rotate your elbow up and out.

Every time I notice that I drop my elbow, I swim a length with closed fists. When I open my fist back up, my elbow is up and out and my stroke count has gone down by 3 (per 25m).

10

Although I have not personally tried them, a swim coach recommended Finis Fulcrums (http://www.finisinc.com/pr-forearm.shtml). Dislaimer - I have no affiliation with Finis and if they saw me swim they would want to keep it that way.

11

Pretty much all the time. Non-breathing side is worse than breathing for what it’s worth.

chris

12

Two drills:

  1. Fist drills, as previously described.

  2. One armed drills. Stick a pull buoy between your legs, and swim with one arm down the entire length, and back with other arm. Keep your non-swimming arm pointed to the end of the pool (as you would normally) and swim with one arm. You’ll get the catch and pull phase pretty quickly.

13

I am trying to improve my swimming and this is what I noticed to help me keep a high elbow:

The “Over the barrel” drill does definitively help but you need to be cautious not to “sink” your arm & it goes something like that:
While your arm is extending and you are going througth “over the barrel” try to have your elbow move forward/point in front of you horizontally to catch up with your hand.

Not sure if that make sense/is correct. But it does work for me.

Fred.

14

I suggest two drills:

  1. The closed fist drill as suggested by others.
  2. Swim with a band around the ankles and no pool buoy. This forces a good catch or you will sink.