Welcome to the “Drill of the Week” sponsored by The Fitter and Faster Swim Tour presented by Swimoutlet.com. Swimming World will be bringing you a drill, concept, or tip that you can implement with your team on a regular basis. While certain weeks may be more appropriate for specific levels of swimming (club, high school, college, or masters), Drill Of The Week excerpts are meant to be flexible for your needs and inclusive for all levels of swimming.
This week’s drill is an exercise to complete with your sprinters to develop consistently fast turns. The demonstration video below uses a mid-pool wall, but this drill can easily be done without that piece of equipment.
These are short sprints from the blocks that emphasize perfecting a flipturn while traveling at top speeds. The exercise itself is relatively simple: from a dive your swimmers breakout at top speed while only taking one or two strokes. Following those couple strokes, they immediately initiate a fast flipturn against the wall. Following a fast flipturn they sprint back to the wall.
Again, a mid-pool wall is not necessary for this drill. It can be modified to be a simple mid-pool flipturn with the emphasis of getting the feet over as fast as possible. We all know how essential the turn is in a 50 or a 100. This exercise is designed to give your athletes an opportunity to practice a turn at top speeds again and again without having to swim an entire 25 or 50.
With a larger group, this drill can be done as a continuous relay to keep athletes moving through multiple reps while also giving coaches a chance to provide feedback. This is a great exercise to incorporate into a Friday or Saturday practice at the end of the week to give your athletes a fast and unconventional way to work on great turns!