Freestyle Swimming Drills

Freestyle Swimming Drills

Finger-Tip Drag:
Swim regular freestyle. When your arm is out of the water (recovery phase) keep your elbow pointed toward the sky and your fingertips pointing down toward the water. Allow your fingertips (about 1/2 inch) to drag through the water from your hips all the way past your head.

Catch-Up:
Swim regular freestyle. As you take a stroke with your right arm, keep your left arm extended forward in the water. Complete the stroke with your right arm and after it enters the water above your head, tap your left hand. This signals the start of the stroke with your left arm. Keep your right arm extended forward in the water until the left stroke is completed and hands tap together.

Catch-Up w/Board or Stick or Single Paddle:
Use a sideways kick-board or a stick to perform the drill above. Keep your hands shoulder-width apart and exchange the board or stick from hand-to-hand between each stroke.

Shark Drill:
Use a pull buoy or a kick board between your thighs. After the finish of each stroke, reach back and tap the part of the buoy that is above water. This drill emphasizes finishing your stroke all the way to mid-thigh.

Sailboat Drill:
Hold a kick board between your thighs. Make sure 1/2 of the board is sticking below your body when you swim freestyle. Use your core muscles to control your hip rotation (while the board tries to prevent rotation).

Fist Drill:
Swim regular freestyle. Ball your hands into fists and work on high elbow catch and pull under the water.

6-kick-switch:
When you push off the wall, take one underwater pull with your right arm and pause (right arm against your side, left arm extended overhead) for 6 kicks. After six kicks, complete the stroke with your right arm, tap your left hand, and repeat with your left arm.

3-6-3:
Take three strokes and pause on your right side with right arm extended forward and your left arm lying on left side. Remain in this position for six kicks. Take three more strokes and pause on your left side for six kicks. Repeat.

Single-Arm Drill:
For learning the correct pulling motion. Grasp a small kickboard in your left hand and extend your left arm above your head. Swim a lap of the pool with just right arm strokes. This will allow you to focus on a perfect underwater pull with your right arm. Switch arms and swim another lap.

Thumb-Drag Drill: 
Swim a lap of freestyle while you drag your thumb along the side of your leg as you lift your arm out of the water. At the beginning, you might feel your thumb drag along your rib cage, waist, or hip. This means you are not finishing to the middle of your thigh. You have a complete finish when you feel your thumb dragging along the side of your leg.

Tarzan Drill: 
Swim freestyle with your head out of the water. Look forward as if you were sighting a buoy or landmark in open water. Keep your head out of the water for the entire 25 to strengthen your neck muscles for triathlon swimming!

Underwater Recovery Drill:
Swim freestyle but do not let your arms exit the water at the end of the underwater pull. As your hand reaches your thigh, bend your elbow and slide your hand forward along the side of your body. This is very similar to doggy-paddle but with an entire underwater stroke. Keep your head in the water and breathe to the side like normal.

Reverse Catch-up Drill:
Push off the wall with both hands on your thighs. Take a complete stroke with your right arm, when it completes the rotation and touches your thigh, that is the signal to start the next stroke with your left arm. Continue alternating arms, with the non-stroking hand resting against your thigh.

Twelve Days of Christmas Swim

This 5,850-yard swim set (all 75s) but you can adapt it with a warmup/cool down and one set of each instead of building them together. Carve out a good chunk of pool time and prepare to create a deficit for all those cookies you’re about to eat.

Here’s how it works: Each “day” is one 75, broken up in a different way. You’ll swim day 1. Then you’ll swim day 2, day 1. Then day 3, day 2, day 1. The idea is to keep adding on to the set and work your way back to number one. Choose a comfortable interval that will give you about 10 seconds rest every 75.

Sung (at least somewhat) to the tune of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a 75 free!
On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, one free-drill-free and a 75 free!
On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me, one hypoxic 3/5/3, one free-drill-free and a 75 free!

Print this out and bring it to the pool deck.

1. Freestyle
2. Freestyle-drill (finger-tip drag)-freestyle
3. Hypoxic, breathe every 3/5/3
4. Kick- freestyle -kick
5. Freestyle
6. Drill (tarzan)- freestyle- drill (3-6-3)
7. Hypoxic, breathe every 5/7/5
8. Pull -drill (shark) -pull
9. Freestyle
10. Kick –freestyle –drill (fist)
11. Hypoxic, breathe every 7/9/7
12. Pull

Tarzan Drill:
Swim freestyle with your head out of the water. Look forward as if you were sighting a buoy or landmark in open water. Keep your head out of the water for the entire 25 to strengthen your neck muscles for triathlon swimming!
Fist Drill:
Swim regular freestyle. Ball your hands into fists and work on high elbow catch and pull under the water.
Finger-Tip Drag:
Swim regular freestyle. When your arm is out of the water (recovery phase) keep your elbow pointed toward the sky and your fingertips pointing down toward the water. Allow your fingertips (about 1/2 inch) to drag through the water from your hips all the way past your head.
3-6-3:
Take three strokes and pause on your right side with right arm extended forward and your left arm lying on left side. Remain in this position for six kicks. Take three more strokes and pause on your left side for six kicks. Repeat.
Shark:
Use a pull buoy or a kick board between your thighs. After the finish of each stroke, reach back and tap the part of the buoy that is above water. This drill emphasizes finishing your stroke all the way to mid-thigh.

Benchmark Swim

A benchmark is a point of reference to be used to monitor gains in fitness. There are several versions in swimming but one tried and true version is the mile. Short rest intervals are used to test this distance while maintaining quality and form.

Warm up easy 200-500

Start your watch at the beginning of the set. Rest :10 seconds after each interval. Stop the watch at the end and subtract the total rest (1:40) to determine your 1-mile time.



Broken Mile, 1650 yards:
275
250
225
200
175
150
125
100
75
50
25

Maintain fitness without a lot of time!

Many of us are ready for a break in the off-season but, no one wants to lose the valuable fitness they have achieved throughout the year. Below are workouts for the time-strapped athlete. These are short workouts meant to maintain fitness through short bursts of speed.

Swim, 1900
Warm up-
200 Swim
100 Pull + buoy
100 Kick (3 strokes/3 kicks/3 strokes)

Main Set-
6x50 @1:20 (Odd *Drill/Even Swim)
*Drill: High elbow, Catch up, Shark fin
2x550 as
200 Pull, 3x100 R:15 descending 1-3, 50 easy
100 easy cool down

Bike, :70
Warm up-
:15
Include single leg drills and 3-5 spin ups

Main Set-
Roller Coaster- :40 Continuous in Zone 2 as
:1 80 RPM
:3 95+ RPM
:1 100+ RPM
:2 easy recovery

:15 cool down

Run, :50
Warm up-
:15 building from Zone 1 into Zone 2
Include some dynamic movements of high knees, butt kicks, skips, side shuffles

Main Set- x4 Intervals alternate
:4 Zone 3, low to mid
:2 Zone 2, low

:10 cool down
Include 2-4 strides. Performed as 50 yd acceleration followed by a 50 yd walk to recover.

***If you do not know your Heart Rate zones, use Rate of Perceived Exertion on a scale of 1-10 with 10 as maximum effort. Zone 1 is 1-4. Zone 2 is 5-6. Zone 3 is 7-8.

Overwhelmed by the minutiae!

I've been spending the last couple of days building training plans for others while building my own too. When you look at the big picture, it's easy to get overwhelmed by the minutiae.

In addition to helping athletes identify goals, a coach will provide the tools, perspective, and structure needed to accomplish more through a process of accountability. A coach can create a point of focus for athletes to reflect upon and build up their accomplishments. Coaching is a consistent, on-going relationship where the coach helps to implement new skills and supports the athlete in discovering solutions on their own through preparation. A coach remains objective while maintaining trust and honesty.

I recently reached out to a personal trainer to help me push beyond the limits that I have imposed. She is working to motivate me to challenge my limits with strength and flexibility while working on corrective movements that will improve my posture while running and cycling.

I encourage you to look inward to your goals as an athlete. Have you been stagnate in your training? Do you lack motivation and commitment? Have you created goals that take you out of your comfort zone?

Creating a synergy between coach and athlete will create momentum. The momentum will create a challenge that will become change. The change will result in the achievement of goals.

How do I know if you are the right coach?

There are many coaches available to triathletes and many people that think they have the best coach. Before researching a specific coach, you should determine your wants/needs from the coach by asking the following questions. 

• Do you want someone that has a track record as a podium finisher? Ironman finisher?
• Do you want race support? Team tent? Coach present?
• Do you want to be a part of group workouts? 
• Do you want to be identified as part of a group? Team kit?
• What kind of personality do you want from a coach? Motivator? Blunt? Strict? 

For roughly the same price, an athlete can find a coach who will write a personalized training plan for the athlete, one who will provide a generic training plan, and someone in between. 

The key is finding out what you will get beforehand and making sure you are comfortable with the level of coaching you will receive. Here are some questions that I would ask of any coach before beginning to work together: 

• What certifications do you hold?
• How many athletes do you coach? Full or part time?
• How do you approach setting up training for an athlete? Annual training plans? Recovery vs build periods? 
• Can I see some sample training programs? 
• What results have you seen for athletes similar to me? 
• Can I talk to some current athletes? 
• Can I talk to some former athletes? 
• How do you monitor training? 
• Do you limit schedule changes? 
• How do you communicate with your clients? How often?
• Do you limit contact? 
• Are you continuing your coaching education? 
• How long is our agreement?
• What happens if you aren't satisfied?

Make every workout count!

I was scheduled for an 8 mile run this week. Rather than "just" run at a conversational pace, I added a few scheduled fartlek intervals.

2 miles at Zone 2

 .5 mile at Zone 3-4 (threshold/VO2)

2 miles at Zone 2

.5 mile at Zone 3-4 (threshold/VO2)

2 miles at Zone 2-3

1 mile at Zone 4-5 (max effort)

A workout like the one above is created to build confidence, increase your threshold, and focus on effort. As athletes, we need to learn to monitor our energy levels to accurately pace for performance.