Inspired by some of the discussion in the fly thread , I was wondering how you all feel about drills.
Personally, they drive me nuts, yet everywhere people rave about TI and boy do my coaches like 'em. I find that generally drills just make me feel as though I'm learning to swim a way I will never actually swim, as opposed to helping me focus on one aspect of the stroke. For instance, last night, we were doing breaststroke drills and I spent the entire time trying to learn the drill as opposed to focusing on what we were meant to learn.
Also, I tend to learn technique by figuring out what feels right, but with drills, it feels different because you aren't doing the full stroke.
What about you?
Depends on what you mean by drills. I swim by myself with no coach or team, currently doing Mo Chambers workouts off this site, so I don't have to worry about what others are doing or the coach wants. When the workout calls for drills, I work on whatever I think I need to work on that day.
Recent examples include trying to break my bad habit of breathing on the first stroke after the flip, so I'll swim 100's trying to wait until stroke 2. I'm working on dolphin kicking off the wall, so I'll do 25's and do 5 the first set, 4 the next. I'll combine the dolphin off the wall drill with the don't breathe yet drill. I'll do an underwater 25 dolphin kick with fins without breathing. And I always count strokes. If I'm over 15 for a non-sprinted 25 meter length, I'll do a length where I try and stretch it out and get back to 12 or 13. I'll see how long I can swim at a decent pace holding stroke at 15 or under.
I consider all of these to be drills, and I'm certain all have helped my swimming.
Depends on what you mean by drills. I swim by myself with no coach or team, currently doing Mo Chambers workouts off this site, so I don't have to worry about what others are doing or the coach wants. When the workout calls for drills, I work on whatever I think I need to work on that day.
Recent examples include trying to break my bad habit of breathing on the first stroke after the flip, so I'll swim 100's trying to wait until stroke 2. I'm working on dolphin kicking off the wall, so I'll do 25's and do 5 the first set, 4 the next. I'll combine the dolphin off the wall drill with the don't breathe yet drill. I'll do an underwater 25 dolphin kick with fins without breathing. And I always count strokes. If I'm over 15 for a non-sprinted 25 meter length, I'll do a length where I try and stretch it out and get back to 12 or 13. I'll see how long I can swim at a decent pace holding stroke at 15 or under.
I consider all of these to be drills, and I'm certain all have helped my swimming.
