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
1. Bilateral breathing does not make you faster. How many elites do you see bilateral breathing? Some do, but most do not.
2. When you get to the longer 7 and 9 breathing schemes, you'll naturally shorten your strokes and quicken your turnover to get your next breath sooner. This is a negative, not a positive.
3. I typically take 11-15 strokes per 25 yards in freestyle. So on the 7 and 9 lengths, I should take only one or two breaths. Why does it matter when I take them?
4. If you want to restrict your breathing in a way that will have a positive effect, do it on every pushoff and take as many dolphin kicks as you can. In practice, I normally start backstroke swims by dolphin kicking well beyond the 15 meter limit. I sometimes do this in fly and free swims as well. The idea is to make the 12 dolphin kicks that I can do in competition feel easy.
That Guy: thanks for answering.
1.-3. So true. I completely agree. 7 and 9 especially are havoc on stroke technique. 4. That is a great idea.
That Guy: thanks for answering.
1.-3. So true. I completely agree. 7 and 9 especially are havoc on stroke technique. 4. That is a great idea.
Thanks! Notice that #4 is also one of the main reasons to never, ever, EVER use a pull buoy. Every pushoff you do with a pull buoy is a wasted opportunity.
Maglischo describes the four beat kick in Swimming Fastest. I had an old school two beat kick until about six or seven years ago when I converted to a four beat kick (which required less effort than a six beat kick). At the time I was faster with a pull bouy than I was swimming without one, so I reasoned that I needed to kick more to achieve better balance and body position.
First, there is no 4 beat kick. You either have 6 beat or 2 beat. Rarely, one will see a swimmer use a 6 beat for one cycle followed by a 2 beat for another....which technically averages out to a 4 beat kick. It's rather 6beat for half a cycle (while breathing usually) followed by two beat for the other half. So it ain't an avg over 2 complete cycles, it's really 4 actual beats, 3 (half of 6) + 1 (half of 2). And I find it rather common, especially among male swimmers. Perhaps one of the most notorious would be Hackett.
In fact, if you key in Hackett as a key word in youtube, your first hit should be this one:
YouTube- Grant Hackett Front Crawl Technique
And it shows Hackett switching between 6beat and 4beat. Very clearly in fact. I believe he uses some 4beats here and there to lower energy expenditure.
Myth #8: All swimming drills are good for you.
Or what does sliding your finger tips across the surface of the water (finger tip drill) teach you that helps you swim faster?
Gary Sr.
The Race Club
High elbows on recovery?
I naturally swing my arms wide (butterflyer), but this tends to cause my hips to swing a bit too. I do fingertip drill, but revert back to more straight arm recovery when I am tired on a hard set.
Suggestions? Continue a habit I've had for years or a different drill?
High elbows on recovery? I tend to agree here. I would add though that finger trailing will help you shaping your high elbow recovery whilst helping you to achieve the right angles of body rotation during the process.
Suggestions? Continue a habit I've had for years or a different drill? That really depends on your body type, size of your arms etc... Some swimmers perform exceptionally well with a straight arms/swinging sort of stroke.
www.swimtypes.com/swinger.html
A fair example here
YouTube- Richard Quick introduces Freestyle
Nowadays, more and more swim specialists recognize that different body types call for entirely different stroke techniques. Trying to go against your nature might end up making you loose a lot of time.
Would you be willing to share this list? The only drills that my various coaches have offered consistently are 2 kick 1 pull (which doesn't really have a focus point, it's just slow breaststroke) and breaststroke with a body dolphin instead of whip kick.
2. When you get to the longer 7 and 9 breathing schemes, you'll naturally shorten your strokes and quicken your turnover to get your next breath sooner. This is a negative, not a positive.
3. I typically take 11-15 strokes per 25 yards in freestyle. So on the 7 and 9 lengths, I should take only one or two breaths. Why does it matter when I take them?
4. If you want to restrict your breathing in a way that will have a positive effect, do it on every pushoff and take as many dolphin kicks as you can.
Hey, I was away when you posted this and just saw it now. It's interesting to me because I've made a very similar discovery about my swimming.
In attempt to get more comfortable under water coming off turns, as part my wu, (typically 1000 yds these days) I started taking more strokes off every wall before breathing. (In free of course, not ***, that would be practicing to DQ.) First I incresed from 2 to 3 strokes, and later to 4 strokes. Then something interesting happened: My SPL went up! I was just stroking quicker to get to the breath. I realized that is stupid, so I dropped it back down. Very recently I found out something even more interesting. If I breathe on strokes 3,6,9,12,15,18, I take 19 SPL, but if I breathe on strokes 2,5,8,11,14,17, I take only 18 SPL, and I am just as fast if not faster with no increse in effort. That's the same number of breaths per length, so presumably I have the same oxygen availability, but my stroke count drops.
Based on this data I agree that hypoxic work is only valuable as long as you don't deterioriate your stroke to accomplish it.
