Myth #8: All swimming drills are good for you.
I am a great believer in doing drills. In fact, if most swimmers would spend a little more time doing drills and not worry so much about getting their hour or so of aerobic fitness in, they might come out ahead. The biggest problem with drills is that too often, they are being done without any real understanding of what they are supposedly teaching you. Unless you are planning to enter a drill race, there is not much point in doing a drill unless you understand what it is for. Coaches often go to great lengths to explain how to do a drill properly, but then forget to mention what the drill is for.
And sometimes the drills that are being recommended actually teach you the wrong thing. For example, if you have no kick and you are trying to get faster by learning how to increase your stroke rate, then a catch-up drill may be doing you a big disservice. Or if I ever see anyone who has been told to flick water with their hand/wrist out the back end of their stroke, I kindly ask them to hit the delete button. Or what does sliding your finger tips across the surface of the water (finger tip drill) teach you that helps you swim faster?
So all I ask is that you do drills nearly every time you jump in the water, even if for warmup. But that you understand what the drill is trying to teach you AND that the drill is designed for the technique you are trying to learn.
Gary Sr.
The Race Club
Parents
Former Member
I guess it's a question of how much trade off there is between any inefficency caused by breathing and the benefits of getting oxygen in.
If your stroke efficiency is not adversely affected by breathing more often it makes perfect sense to do it. If Sun Yang can break the world record breathing off his turns, and doing the odd bit of one stroke per breath, it can't be all bad!
Additionally, if you are desperate to breathe when you do so, you may be more likely to create an inefficiency as you gulp in as much as possible.
However, not many of us are that effecient when we breath, so it's a case of working it out on an individual basis. I'm happy with 2-3 in training but will take the odd extra breath.
On fly, though, I know that I'm inefficient when I breath, so am trying to do at least 2 strokes per breath as often as possible so that I can do at least that in a race. I'm not going to improve my flexibility enough at this stage to improve any other way!
I guess it's a question of how much trade off there is between any inefficency caused by breathing and the benefits of getting oxygen in.
If your stroke efficiency is not adversely affected by breathing more often it makes perfect sense to do it. If Sun Yang can break the world record breathing off his turns, and doing the odd bit of one stroke per breath, it can't be all bad!
Additionally, if you are desperate to breathe when you do so, you may be more likely to create an inefficiency as you gulp in as much as possible.
However, not many of us are that effecient when we breath, so it's a case of working it out on an individual basis. I'm happy with 2-3 in training but will take the odd extra breath.
On fly, though, I know that I'm inefficient when I breath, so am trying to do at least 2 strokes per breath as often as possible so that I can do at least that in a race. I'm not going to improve my flexibility enough at this stage to improve any other way!
