Given the importance of swimming technique in preventing injuries and increasing speed and efficiency, I'm interested to find out how often masters swimmers include drills into their workouts. Are drills important to many swimmers, or are intervals and full stroke sets the main emphasis? Thanks for your help!
My team does lots of drilling for the first three weeks of the season, then less after that but still at least one day per week we'll do a drill set. Also warmups are always done with a -2 stroke count per 25 and focusing on turns AND we do clockwise circles during warmup.
Probably 4 out of every 5 of my swim workouts include drilling, and I sometimes spend the entire workout doing them. This could be because I live 2+ hours away from where my team practices (can't attend), and a requirment for me. .
I use drills a lot. Unfortunately, I'm not sure they are as helpful as they might be without any feedback from the deck. Whether I'm in a coached practice or swimming on my own, I generally get no feedback.
I'm not sure they are as helpful as they might be without any feedback from the deck. Whether I'm in a coached practice or swimming on my own, I generally get no feedback.
I found a way around this problem by choosing a drill that is so difficult to accomplish that just by its completion warrants proper form.
Watching yourself from video helps too (though others around may think you are weird or a mid-life swim fanatic)
I do some drills in every workout,mostly during warm up and cool down.Dec & Jan I am letting my shoulders and knees heal between SCM and SCY seasons, so I am doing relatively little full stroke now and am mostly doing drills.
I do drills daily. I use them in warm-ups, especially at the start. I find that doing drills helps me loosen-up my body for one. They also help to tune me into the water and how my body is feeling that day. I also will do drills in between difficult sets. I find this helps me to recover a bit, as well as getting back in tune with my mechanics.
As often as the coach says to do them :bolt:
As others said, if not every workout, I'd guess if I swim 4 workouts with the team per week, we do drills at least twice in there. I usually swim twice a week solo, and I try to incorporate some drills then too.
I do drills daily. I use them in warm-ups, especially at the start. I find that doing drills helps me loosen-up my body for one. They also help to tune me into the water and how my body is feeling that day. I also will do drills in between difficult sets. I find this helps me to recover a bit, as well as getting back in tune with my mechanics.
+1, especially for breaststroke and butterfly. Doing drills in warm up is imperative for me before swimming breaststroke or fly as full stroke. If I do have an injury, drills allow me to at least work on part of the stroke rather than abandoning the entire thing. When I injured my adductor, I did a lot of breaststroke pull with a small dolphin kick.
