Hi Everyone,
I have one question. I have a swimmer who I have tried to help speed up her rotation. She cannot seem to get into the sprinting habit (She is not a long distance swimmer, but she very well could be with this stroke). She is in high school and it affects all her strokes where she enters the water and holds her glide too long. I have tried to get her to "skip over" reaching as fast as she can to try and have her feel a totally different stroke.
Does anyone have any dryland or stroke techniques that they utilize to work on faster arm repetition?
Thanks!
First of all, you have to work together with the swimmer on what her goals and preferences are. There are some swimmers who are geared more towards sprints and others towards longer distance races. If she is able to maintain a good distance per stroke, why not encourage her to compete in some longer distance races to see if that might be a better path for her?
If this is not an option, then the question above is a good one - how is her kick? She may be maintaining a good pace, but needs to work on speeding up her kick. Also, the intervals you have her do could condition her more towards the sprints. As coaches, we need to encourage distance per stroke. It is true that there is a different cadence to the sprints, but you shouldn't try to change her stroke to adapt to the sprints. Rather, you should give her more sprint-based workouts to condition her for those races.
First of all, you have to work together with the swimmer on what her goals and preferences are. There are some swimmers who are geared more towards sprints and others towards longer distance races. If she is able to maintain a good distance per stroke, why not encourage her to compete in some longer distance races to see if that might be a better path for her?
If this is not an option, then the question above is a good one - how is her kick? She may be maintaining a good pace, but needs to work on speeding up her kick. Also, the intervals you have her do could condition her more towards the sprints. As coaches, we need to encourage distance per stroke. It is true that there is a different cadence to the sprints, but you shouldn't try to change her stroke to adapt to the sprints. Rather, you should give her more sprint-based workouts to condition her for those races.
