Okay, so I’ve finally decided to listen to the voice of reason and start doing swim drills - I swam a little under 2:00/100m in my Olympic races last year, and I’d really like to drop that time. I purchased a Total Immersion book and I’m going to start working through that, but I have a session planning question: how many yards should I be drilling? For example, if I’m going to be doing a 2500yd workout, how many yards should I use for drilling, and how many for swimming?
I would say 500ish and then focusing on good technique while your doing regular freestyle
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I personally do not pay too much attention to the yards/meters.
I do drills @ the beginning (3/4 laps each drill) & then I will do some more during the swim either to break the monotony of those longs swims or to reinforce/check one or moe aspects of the stroke…
Cheers,
Fred.
Do lots of drill. How much drill is lots? Like 20% of your workout.
Mix it into your warm-up and inbetween a set here and there and into your warm-down.
If you’re going to do drill, mix it in with some kick and and normal swimming.
ex: warm-up
12x75’s on 1:40 (25 kick underwater, 25 drill, 25 swim)
warm-down
hypoxic drills
8x50s 2x(3 breaths on 1st 50, 2 breaths 2nd, 1 on 3rd, 0 on 4th)
I agree with 20% and mixing drills into warm-up and sets.
typically when I was coaching swimmers, we would warm up, then do a warm up set that was a mix of drills, builds, sprints and kicks. Then a main set. Then a second main set that had drills etc mixed into it. Some of the cool downs would be a mix of easy swimming and drilling.
There is no set yardage that you should be doing or set %, it varies due to the time of the season, caliber of the swimmer(s) and flaws in the technique.
I think you need to look at it both in terms of yards and percentage of your workout time and always be mindful of whether or not you are spending your very scarce resource (swim workout time) in the most productive way. What is most productive will vary from person to person and will vary for the same person at different stages of swimming development.
Keep in mind that one aspect of improving swim techique is increasing swim specific strength and conditioning so you can execute proper technique at speed. While you can “learn” to swim better, there is more to swimming faster than just learning the proper motions. It is important to get knowledgable enough about swimming generally and yourself in particular so you can do some analysis as to what you need to work on and then spend your time in the pool accordingly. While doing slow drills may teach and reinforce proper motions, at some point, taking time out of your workout to swim slow may actually be counterproductive since it cuts into your workout time. The best drill is to swim fast and work on holding proper technique at the same time. All drills are, in the end, designed to give you the tools to do this. It’s up to you to work this into your training. Don’t get too comfortable doing slow drills.
Please post your favorite drills…I’m running out of ideas.
I like to do the Fist drill, Finger Tip Drag drill and sometimes the 3/4 Catchup. Other than that, I’m not good at creative ideas on drills.
**** One-arm: to focus on one arm at a time. Swum like regular freestyle, except only one arm is moving. The other arm is stationary, either forward (front hand) or backwards, against your side (back hand). The moving hand takes a series of strokes, each arm performing a set number of pulls before they switch roles. Practice this drill with the stationary arm in both positions. When your stationary arm is on your side, breath towards that side (away from the moving arm). When your stationary arm is forward, breath away from it (towards the arm doing the work). Again, time the breathing so that as your body rolls, your head rolls with it for a breath, then your head should return to its forward alignment. 10/10 (simple): to promote good body roll and head alignment (when you add breathing - see the next drill). This looks like regular freestyle in very slow-motion. One arm is extended forward, pointing towards your destination (front hand). The other is backwards, pointing towards where you just left (back hand), with the arm resting against the edge of your body. You should be on your side, with the back hand side of your body up, the front hand side of your body down (towards the bottom of the pool). Your ear should be against your front hand shoulder, chin in line with your chest, eyes sideways (or even up a bit), mouth out of the water (so you can breath). Take 10 kicks, then stroke, so that your body rolls and your hands switch places. The front hand takes a stroke underwater and finishes against your side, becoming the back hand. The back hand recovers over the surface of the water, becoming the front hand. Your head switches, rotating with your body (rolling down into the water and then up on the other side), and you continue, taking 10 more kicks, then everything switching again. When you have this drill figured out, move onto the next step, adding breathing (see the next drill).
10/10 (add breathing): just like regular 10/10 but you change your head alignment to mimic a relatively normal swimming position for freestyle. Place your head so your cheek is against your front hand shoulder, eyes sighting down your front arm towards your destination. You need to roll your head to breath, then reestablish its position looking forward along the front arm. The breath should be taken away from the recovering arm (the one that is changing from back to front) just as that hand goes in the water; as your body rolls, roll your head with it. As you get better at this drill, play with decreasing the number of kicks taken while on each side of your body until you can move smoothly from the slow-motion drill (10/10) into regular speed freestyle (3/3 for a “six-beat” kicker)
I do Fist drill.
I do Finger Tip Drag (dragging my finger along my side all the way through the armpit though)
3/4 Catchup: I do the “full” catchup… arm “touches” the other on in front.
1 arm @ a time
I do a bit of breakstroke working on my “skulling” and back (working on “floating”)]
but when I swim, I may not do drills but may focus on one piece for “x” laps such as streching the arm as far as possible, using hip/core to rotate, “grabbing the water”, “weightless arm”, “Going over the barrel”, breathing, etc…
Cheers,
Fred.