Welcome to the “Swim Drill of the Week”. 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 a progression to work on developing a high tempo breaststroke with minimal resistance on the recovery of the pull. This progression does use fins for some of the drills involved. Take a look at the progression below and the explanation that follows:
3-4 Rounds:
50 body dolphin breaststroke w/ fins
50 breaststroke with flutter kick w/ fins
*hop out of pool, 8-10 x med ball throws against wall while sitting
25 fast breaststroke
The whole idea behind this drill progression is to push through the middle of the stroke to get a fast, efficient pull. The focus of the first two 50’s is to drive the turnover, trying to use the fins and a high tempo pull to go as fast as possible. The breaststroke pull with body dolphin is to remind your athletes to drive forward at the end of each stroke, while the breaststroke pull with flutter kick is meant to get their tempo up as they are working their legs.
The purpose of the fins on the drill work is twofold: the fins will obviously help your swimmers go faster and get their tempo up, but they will also help your swimmers spot any areas of resistance in their pull. Since the fins will help them get up to a faster than normal speed, any pause in their stroke will be exaggerated and able to be corrected.
After the first two 50’s, swimmers will hop out and do 8-10 med ball throws on land. These should be done sitting down facing a wall, and with each throw your swimmers should be driving their chests forward, almost parallel to the ground. Again, this is an exaggeration of the forward drive they want at the end of each stroke. Finish with a 25 of full stroke breaststroke with no equipment to see how the drill work translates into a high tempo, efficient stroke. Happy swimming!
All swimming and dryland training and instruction should be performed under the supervision of a qualified coach or instructor, and in circumstances that ensure the safety of participants.