My Favorite Swim Drills

I wanted to save some of my favorite swimming drills somewhere, so I thought "why not a blog post?"

Top Winter Drills

Count your strokes: Work on increasing the distance covered per stroke to improve your feel for the water and your strength and stroke efficiency. Take as few strokes as possible from wall to wall and try to elongate each one. Last Time I checked my stroke count I was around 15 That being said its been a while since I have focused on this aspect of my technique.

Golf drill: This is a fun drill to do with stroke count and speed. Count the number of strokes you take over 50 meters and add that number to your 50-meter split time. Now, as in golf, try to decrease your score by either swimming faster or taking fewer strokes. I've never done this one but it sounds like an awesome way to balance stroke count with speed!!

Rotate to breathe: Place a tennis ball under your chin. Swim freestyle, but as you turn to breathe, keep your head down and try not to let the tennis ball pop up. This drill is difficult, but is very helpful for emphasizing proper rotation and breathing technique. Keeping your head down in order to keep the tennis ball in place emphasizes proper head positioning, particularly in the breathing phase of the stroke.

Head and neck alignment has been a huge issue for me in the past. Sounds like an awesome way to train my head to stay in the correct alignment!!!

Some others are: finger drag, catch up, one arm side stroke, and one arm in front kicking.