Do you (need to) do drills at all?

This is an interesting topic. Here is my take on drills: I've done a lot of swimming and done lots of drills but I'm not a fast swimmer and I have no formal training in coaching so maybe I can't speak with much authority on this matter, but... I can speak with some authority on a related matter, the use of drills to teach alpine skiing. The is the one sport where I actually reached a reasonably high level of proficiency. I've had lots and lots of formal training in teaching/coaching alpine skiing, I spent 10 years doing it professionally part time and I'm still certified to do so. In skiing, drills are very useful to achieve kinesthetic awareness. A student cannot see him/herself ski so to know whether he/she is doing it properly the student needs to know what the movement pattern feels like when performed properly. (One might argue that you can use video, but even with video, the student performs the movement now and sees it later. Kinesthetic awareness lets the student get real-time feedback.) So a drill is designed to generate the same sensation that is felt when the desired movement pattern is done properly. The student does the drill, learns the correct sensation, then tries to generate that sensation when skiing. Assuming that can be translated to swimming, (which seems more than plausible to me) I look for drills that will generate the same sensation as the desired movement pattern. Here are some examples: Finger-tip-drag: This drill forces a desirable shoulder-elbow-hand relationship during the recover. I've seen this one work wonders in kids. You can tell them a bazillion times what the arm position should be, but until they "feel" it from finger-tip-drag drill they will struggle to figure out what the correct movement pattern is. Sculling: IMO the main benefit of sculling is that it teaches what it feels like to "hold water". Elastic band around knees: This teaches what it feels like to keep the knees together during a flutter or breaststroke kick. It's really difficult to visualize how close your knees are until you feel the band holding them together when you naturally try to separate them. Backstroke with object on the forehead: This one really instills what a steady head position feels like.

This is an interesting topic. Here is my take on drills: I've done a lot of swimming and done lots of drills but I'm not a fast swimmer and I have no formal training in coaching so maybe I can't speak with much authority on this matter, but... I can speak with some authority on a related matter, the use of drills to teach alpine skiing. The is the one sport where I actually reached a reasonably high level of proficiency. I've had lots and lots of formal training in teaching/coaching alpine skiing, I spent 10 years doing it professionally part time and I'm still certified to do so. In skiing, drills are very useful to achieve kinesthetic awareness. A student cannot see him/herself ski so to know whether he/she is doing it properly the student needs to know what the movement pattern feels like when performed properly. (One might argue that you can use video, but even with video, the student performs the movement now and sees it later. Kinesthetic awareness lets the student get real-time feedback.) So a drill is designed to generate the same sensation that is felt when the desired movement pattern is done properly. The student does the drill, learns the correct sensation, then tries to generate that sensation when skiing. Assuming that can be translated to swimming, (which seems more than plausible to me) I look for drills that will generate the same sensation as the desired movement pattern. Here are some examples: Finger-tip-drag: This drill forces a desirable shoulder-elbow-hand relationship during the recover. I've seen this one work wonders in kids. You can tell them a bazillion times what the arm position should be, but until they "feel" it from finger-tip-drag drill they will struggle to figure out what the correct movement pattern is. Sculling: IMO the main benefit of sculling is that it teaches what it feels like to "hold water". Elastic band around knees: This teaches what it feels like to keep the knees together during a flutter or breaststroke kick. It's really difficult to visualize how close your knees are until you feel the band holding them together when you naturally try to separate them. Backstroke with object on the forehead: This one really instills what a steady head position feels like.