DRILLS TO IMPROVE YOUR FRONT CRAWL Perfection of technique is difficult enough to define, but evcn more difficult to attain. As swimmers strive to follow the textbook styles of swimming that teachers and coaches recommend they inevitably irtroduce individual variations, and a quick glance at any group of top class swimmers will show us that no single 'ideal' stroke can be imposed on anyone. Having said that, there are nevertheless certain fundamentals that should be common to all aspiring swimmers and that need to be remembered from time to time by the more experienced ones. The difficulty that fitness swimmers have, and that many masters swimmers who train alone also have, is that they are unable to see with any degree of accuracy quite what they are doing. Because we swim in water the apparently simple physics of what we do is complicated by the effect water has on our movements. We feel that we are doing one thing, and find we are doing something else. How can we improve our technique? Having a personal or club coach is one way. Choosing sensible drills and incorporating them in your training is another; and by far cheaper! Either way you will end up being asked to swim 'drills'. A drill is an exercise designed either to strengthen or enhance a particular aspect of a stroke or to eliminate or reduce a particular error Thus drills can be intended to strengthen, reinforce or correct. Drills for fitness and strength Kicking: the big basic drill, designed to improve the efficiency of the kick. Although the propulsive contribution of the leg kick in full-stroke swimming is debatable, there is no doubt that weak legs are a considerable drawback. By isolating the leg kick and supporting the arms on a kicking board we can strengthen the muscles of the legs, improve the effectiveness of the kick, and also improve the capacity of the thigh muscles to exchange waste products. Vary your kicking drills in intensity and distance. Kick short distances very hard one day, kick longer distances another. Kick without a board, with one board and with two boards, to vary the body position. Kick on the side as well as the front. Pulling/arms only: there are a number of ways of pulling. which is a drill that isolates the arms. A pull buoy can be used to support the legs, and a band can be fixed round the ankles to prevent kicking, with or without the pull buoy. Pulling can either encourage a faster stroke rate than usual, as in full stroke the rhythm of the 6-beat kick can slow down the rate at which the arms recover. Alternatively pulling can be used as a strengthening drill, particularly when the legs are tied. It is also a useful mid session recovery or end-of-session swim down activity. For many swmmers pulling is an easier option than full stroke, so be honest with yourself when you opt to 'pull' rather than 'swim'. Paddles: take care when using paddles or when other people are using them around you. The use of hand paddles will strengthen the pulling muscles and, because every error is magnified by them, will encourage correct limb tracking. Swimmers with a history of shoulder problems should either avoid paddles altogether or make sure that they use the smaller models. Use paddles in both pull and swim sets, but always finish the session by swimming without paddles. Corrective drills Most drills have been developed to iron out or correct faults in the stroke. The most common faults involve incorrect entry and lack of extension of the hand on entry, or the crossing of the entering hand across the centre line. Here are a few drills that can be used to correct these faults. Held catchup: this drill is intended to enable the swimmer to concentrate on one arm at a time. A normal front crawl push off is followed by one arn pull and recovery (i.e the pull and recovery of one arm). The recovery and entry should be complete before the other arm starts to pull. Within each arm cycle the swimmer can concentrate on any and indeed every aspect of the pull, the catch (the start of the pull), the three sweeps that make up the pull (the insweep, downsweep and upsweep), the exit and the recovery; and the entry. When one hand has made its entry the other can start to pull. Where there is a distinct pause between arm strokes the drill is referred to as 'held' catch up. Half catchup: a hallway house between held catch-up and normal full stroke swimming. A useful drill to encourage a swimmer who snatches at the catch to relax and stretch out. Head touching: the first of a number of drills which encourage the recovering arm to be bent so that the hand recovers near the surface and close to the head. In this drill the recovering hand touches or brushes the head, and by stretching after this contact the entry can be made well ahead of the shoulder line. Finger trail: a variation on head touching in which the swimmer makes the recovery with the first joint of the fingers in contact with the water surface. The zipper: an extreme form of the finger trail in which contact is maintained between thumb and torso through the first part of the recovery Drills for technique Fist swimming: a drill to encourage a high elbow during the pull. (This exercise also shows how much propulsion comes from the arm as opposed to the open hand.) By closing the hands into fists during the pull the swimmer is forced to use the forearm as the principle paddle. This drill is particularly useful when sequenced in with other drills and full stroke swimming. Single arm swimming - free hand leading: the easier of two forms of single arm swimming. Holding one arm still in front, reaching forward, with a strong leg kick make progress with the other arm, breathing to the pulling arm side. Ensure full forward reach and push back with the pulling arm. Use both arms equally. Single arm swimming free hand by side: slightly more difficult. With the free hand by the side, and again with a strong leg kick, pull but breathe away from the pulling arm. Bilateral swimming: bilateral breathing is breathing to either side alternately to a three stroke (or any odd number of strokes) pattern. This is a useful training technique in any case, as it encourages even stroking and encourages the capacity to breathe to both sides, a very useful technique in all forms of swimming. For the open water swimmer a choice of breathing sides means that one never has to breathe with the wind blowing spray into the face. For the pool swimmer it enables one to check on a rival's progress without disrupting one's stroke pattern. Breath-holding: the value of breathholding as a training exercise is arguable and indeed argued over, although if you subscribe to the 'if it hurts it must be doing you good' school of swimming then this is an exercise for you. The conventional wisdom is that by taking fewer breaths in competition the swimmer suffers none of the delay in the stroke that breathing can cause. Likewise, swimming the last two or three strokes into a turn without breathing should in theory result in a faster turn. If you are training alone, by all means experiment with bilateral breathing on 3, 5 or even 7 strokes, but it might not be a bad idea to do more serious breathholding under a coach's supervision. Some coaching authorities advise that older swimmers should not indulge in serious breathholding activities. Frogressive drills Drills swum in isolation tend to improve the swimmers ability to do drills better and faster. However, it is important to remember that drills are only means to an end, the end being to make the complete stroke better. By better we mean either faster in a competitive setting or more effective and efficient where speed is not the main issue. Thus coaches will try to link drills together with the ultimate aim of linking them to the full stroke. As a basic example, take a triple sequence that seems to work well in a warm up. Kick a length, catchup a length, and swim (full stroke) for a length. A few rotations of this sequence seem to settle the stroke down. For an alternative example of what one might do in training, consider this set: 12 x 50, drill the first 25, swim the second, rotating four times the drills catchup, finger trail, bilateral. And now look at this longer warming up sequence: 5 x 200 with a short rest, the first 200 swim, then pull, kick, catchup, swim. Consider too this lengthy 8 x 50 sequence: 50 kick 50 single arm - left arm 50 single arm - right arm 50 swum as 2 left arm strokes, 2 right arm strokes, 2 normal strokes 50 held catchup 50 half catchup 50 finger trail 50 swim There are naturally any number of drills and sequences they might be swum in. Go forth and experiment! We hope to have a contribution on swimming and breathholding in a future issue. W [Copyright (c) 2000 Watermarks]