Get faster in the water with these 3 swimming drills
Adding these drills to your routine will make you a faster, more efficient swimmer
Swimming hard will help you get faster in the water, but it isn’t a great way to work on any inefficiencies or flaws in your stroke. A good time to improve your stroke is when doing drills. Drills can help you get a proper feel for the water and an idea of how your stroke should feel. From there, you can apply that to your regular stroke, which will help you become a more efficient and faster swimmer. Here are three drills that can give you that boost after even just a few laps of trying them out.
One-arm freestyle
You’ve maybe done one-arm freestyle before, but you probably swam with your inactive arm stretch out in front of you in a streamlined position. For this drill, you’ll hold your arm down at your side. This will make it tougher to remain streamlined and afloat, and it will force you to rotate properly as you swim.
To execute this well, you need to focus on rotating your shoulders, rotating your hips, and performing a powerful kick. You will also need to focus on maintaining a high elbow and reaching far out in front of you on each stroke. Since you’re only using one arm, you might feel the need to rush your stroke and get your hand in the water as quickly as possible so you don’t sink, but try to keep the movement smooth and relaxed. Do two or three laps on each side before moving on to the next drill in this set.
Fingertip drag
This drill is another that requires high elbow and a full reach. This is almost your normal stroke, but instead of lifting your hand out of the water, you will drag your finger tips along the water’s surface. Keep your fingertips in the water until you reach all the way in front of you, then catch the water and pull through your stroke. Do two laps of this drill and then move onto the final one.
Distance per stroke
Now is the time to put the lessons you’ve learned from the previous drills to the test. You’re not going to swim all-out, but you will still swim normally. Focus on the hip and shoulder rotation that you were forced to use in the one-arm free and the high elbow and full reach from the fingertip drag. When underwater, be sure to pull as much water as possible, helping propel you forward and take as few strokes as possible per length. After the previous two drills, this should feel much easier and efficient.