Can anyone suggest drills to help me swim as fast without a pull buoy as I do with one?
I work hard at practice 5 days a week and make incremental gains every so often. But my improvement over the past year can't compare to the amount I improve when I grab a pull buoy.
So - I need to be working on my body alignment? Keeping my legs high in the water? Strengthening my abs? I try to work on all of those things but I would really appreciate any drill or workout ideas.
Thanks!
Parents
Former Member
I found swimming with just the band very difficult at first, but with practice and a focus on using my abs to keep my legs high and balancing by pressing my chest down, it has gotten much easier (and has really helped my swimming beyond the drill). Another thing I found helpful when I first started the drill was rotating my whole body when my legs started to sink, so that I could translate that downward motion of the legs more into rotational momentum. That's not a very good description, but that's the way I thought about it while I was swimming and it helped.
Swimming with the band might come really easily to people who have swum their whole lives and feel completely impossible to people who haven't. I have found that to be true of a lot of drills and advice from veteran swimmers. The nice thing is that as I work at swimming and develop the muscle memory and little stabilizing muscles that lifelong swimmers have, advice that made no sense for a long time can become clear all of a sudden.
I found swimming with just the band very difficult at first, but with practice and a focus on using my abs to keep my legs high and balancing by pressing my chest down, it has gotten much easier (and has really helped my swimming beyond the drill). Another thing I found helpful when I first started the drill was rotating my whole body when my legs started to sink, so that I could translate that downward motion of the legs more into rotational momentum. That's not a very good description, but that's the way I thought about it while I was swimming and it helped.
Swimming with the band might come really easily to people who have swum their whole lives and feel completely impossible to people who haven't. I have found that to be true of a lot of drills and advice from veteran swimmers. The nice thing is that as I work at swimming and develop the muscle memory and little stabilizing muscles that lifelong swimmers have, advice that made no sense for a long time can become clear all of a sudden.
