I personally never do drills that focus on a part of a full stroke, such as kicking alone, or one-hand stroke, etc. etc. If I want to correct/improve a certain aspect of the stroke, I do so in full stroke. How many out there share my opinion that separate drills are unnecessary, or even not helpful?
Wow. Every great coach I ever had broke down our strokes and did drills with us on a regular basis (for each stroke, each turn, starts, finishes). I find drills invaluable when teaching non-swimmers how to do the stroke correctly. The best drill EVER, IMHO, as far as teaching non-swimmers to lengthen their freestyle and rotate is kicking on the side. As I understand it, just about every elite swimmer does drill work. I can't see how one can argue that drills aren't valuable and have solid evidence to back that up.
Having said that, though, I'm not as good about doing drills myself now that I'm pressed for time and swimming on my own. If I got more serious about my swimming, though, I'd definitely be drilling to fix a lot of things...
When my stroke falls apart or feels sloppy it's usually (thank goodness) not the whole thing that goes...it's one aspect. Practicing an exaggerated or isolated movement can help correct that.
I feel that I get more out of drills now that I take them seriously. In my younger days I used drill sets as rest sets and didn't really focus. Now I'm smarter and I use my drills to improve my stroke AND my speed.
It's all about technique!
Drills really work. I see it in my swimming and in swimmers and triathletes that I coach. It's good to isolate one aspect of the stroke. Of course every drill has a downside, but they really work; it just takes time to have an effect.
I am a huge fan of the one-armed butterfly drill, too bad its not legal to swim a race like that :D
I will, however, work on drills when I feel like my stroke is off. Nothing wrong with maintaining a good technique.
To each their own. I've found that doing drills and focusing on specific parts of my stroke helps me swim faster. I'll use it to either warm up, or as a means of recovery after a hard set or in between hard workouts. I also feel that if you don't view stroke work as having any value, then it wont.
:bliss:
drills are invaluable to swimmers who had an injury. i do a lot of drills. lots of times, i drill fly or breasstroke. the last year , i have done so many freestyle drills (i had a wild right arm recovery, when swimming fast) that now they have paid off big. the problem is fixed.
Drill's are great for correction. However most people tend to rush thru drills rather than focus on what they are trying to correct. When you are in a group doing drills people are usually too busy trying to stay in their position in the lane rather than concentrating on what they are doing.
Now that I practice on my own I don't think about how much time it takes me to do the drill. I just adjust the interval to allow me to it right rather than fast. This has really helped me to correct flaws in my strokes.
Drills are important and I do a lot of them. I try to build up to the best current version of each stroke, and hold on to whatever new feeling I've got from the drills. One-armed drills also toughen up thorax and abdomen in same way that planks and bridges do.
