Fitter And Faster Drill Of The Week: Freestyle Open Turns

Drill-Of-Week-Open-Turns

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), Coaches Corner excerpts are meant to be flexible for your needs and inclusive for all levels of swimming.

This week’s drill is used to practice breaststroke open turns in a slightly different way than we’re used to all in order to create an awareness of body position, timing, and power off of the wall. Oh, and all while going fast!

The drill itself sounds relatively simple: have your athletes build a length of freestyle into an open turn. But in order to do the drill correctly, swimmers need to pay attention to how they are initiating and following through with the turn. Touching on what will be their “top” arm, the athlete should continue through a fast turn. The classic “elbow your brother, call your mother” cue works great for explaining how to move through the turn despite a slightly unorthodox starting position. Take a look at the drill below:

There are a few reasons why swimming freestyle fast into the wall will help improve their open turns. First, touching with an extended arm in freestyle brings the swimmer in more on their side than the traditional two hand touch. This swings their bodies through the turn faster and gives them an awareness of what a seamless, fast turn feels like. Additionally, building the freestyle makes them carry more speed than usual into the wall. Thus, when they transition back into breaststroke they will understand when they are truly going fast. Incorporate this drill into warm-up sets on threshold or race pace stroke days to develop faster turns in your athletes.

8 x 75’s on 1:20 as

ODD: 25 free build into fast breaststroke turn/50 breaststroke smooth DPS

EVEN: 50 free/25 breaststroke drill

Obviously a major drawback of this drill is that you are not touching with two hands concurrently before initiating the turn, which makes this a drill more appropriate for older high school or collegiate swimmers who have a good understanding of the basic rules of the stroke.

Use this drill regularly with your stroke groups and watch the fast turns develop!

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