Thursday is stroke technique. I am finding that, when I do spend time on this and really work it, my stroke does improve. It’s not something I ever could do (at least not that often) while swimming with my master’s swim team. This is not because the coaches aren’t willing so much as a lot of the swimmers are more focused on yardage. These drills were inspired by a video I watched of Jason Lezak. These are his three favorite freestyle drills. Even the instructions on how to do them properly are from him. These are the drills:
Underwater recovery drill
One arm<—connect whole body
Closed fist<—don’t slam your fist into the water. Focus on catching as much water with the surface of your forearm as possible while connecting to your core.
It was a challenging and fun workout. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Please be sure to adjust the intervals as well as the sets to fit what your training level is.
Sadly, I only had 48 minutes (less actually) to swim as they didn’t let us in until the clock was chiming the top of the hour. Their clocks are slightly ahead of the chime. 🙁
50-minute swim workout, stroke technique
500 warmup (~7:20 min)
Warmup set 4x (600 yds, 12 min)
3 x 50 on 1:00
1: 25 underwater recovery drill/25 free
2: 25 one arm (connect whole body, don’t muscle it)/25 free
3: 25 closed fist/25 free
Main set 4x (1400 yds, 28:40 min)
4 x 75 on 1:20
50 easy on 1:00
R1: first 25 of each 75 is underwater recovery drill/50 free but focus on a full body stroke
R2: alternate first 25 one arm (left arm for odd 75/right arm for evens)/50 free focusing on full body stroke.
R3: first 25 of each 75 8s closed fist/50 free focusing on full body stroke.
R4: on 1:10 — 75 free focusing on full body stroke and breaking 1:00
150 warm down
Total yards: 2650
