Freestyle Friday

[mrshandy]

Let's talk about swimming. 

Do you do drills ? What drills do you find most helpful? Care to share with the class? 


A related question, what are some good hypoxic drills? Google is coming up empty. I don't see these a lot in swimming plans online. Is that a liability thing? Are they scared of somebody drowning?

[al320]

For hypoxic, for some reason we always do it as pulling, though not always. Its usually the last set in the workout.

Something like 200s, the first 50 breath every 3 stroke, then 5, then 7, then 9. Fwiw i can barely get through 50 of 7. But its good to try.

We do some drills, but i never fully understand what im supposed to be getting out of them, specifically for each one (and i get strange looks when i ask), so i dont do them often.

[juliabug]

My favorite drills are SMF 75's. One length slow, then 1 medium, then 1 fast followed by about 20 seconds of rest.

[wawa]

The tri-focused class I take does a fair number of drills - she tends to taper off on them as we get closer to race season and focus more on endurance, speed and pace sets - but now in January it's nearly all drills.

Apparently we're as a class all thrashing around like t-rex armed windmills and she has a bug up her ass to make us stop. So we've been doing a lot of one-arm drills to work on keeping our leading arm on top of the water, catch-up drill, and a lot of pull buoy sets where she yells at us to stretch through the shoulder and reach straight out in front of us. i'm really really tired of the one arm drill, even though I can feel a difference in my stroke after three weeks of this...

Last year off season she had us working on a lot of rotational drills (w/ fins, no stroke, just swim on your side with the bottom arm leading the the top arm "in your pocket", something else I can't remember) and stuff for recovery phase of the stroke - shark fin, zipper, etc.

I will say that the teacher for my class does a really good job explaining what we're supposed to be feeling for each drill, how it's supposed to help our stroke. Or at least it seems that way to my clueless self. anything I don't get I tend to google after class and watch youtube videos till I feel like I get it.

[mrs.jacinthe]

I don't do a ton of drills. 1.) My stroke is pretty set and 2.) I find that often they're really just an opportunity to goof off, if there's no purpose explained and/or it's not a thing you need to work on.

However, there are two I love, because I genuinely think they make my swimming better. The first is called slo-mo. Basically, you're doing your entire stroke as normal, but super slow. It's HARD, but it's great to focus on each individual thing my hand/arm is doing as I'm doing it. The second is head-up free. Again, relatively difficult. It's the entire stroke as normal, but with your head up and gaze fixed on a point at the other end of the pool. It's terrible for body position, so if you struggle with that, DON'T do this one. What I find, though, is that it helps me a LOT with focusing on my kick and my hand entry point - I'm trying to transition (well, I was) to less of a glide-centric stroke, as it's not an efficient way to swim overall.

As regards hypoxic drills ... they're not recommended much any more, as, unless you're going to be a 50m sprinter, they don't hold a lot of purpose. Oxygen feeds muscles. Don't deny yourself oxygen. However, as an open water swimmer, I find that doing 3-5-7-9-11-13 and/or 2-4-6-8-10-12 helps new OWSers to be able to relax/stay calm if, for some reason, they miss a breath (wave or other swimmer or whatever). With these, instead of doing an entire length breathing every 3, I just do each breath on a longer interval during a 200 or something. So breath 3, then 5, then 7, and so on until you do whatever your absolute max is (mine is 13), then go back to 3 and start again.

[mrshandy]

wawa , that class sounds really hard. But I feel like I need something like that. I took a swimming class last year, but it was kind of basic and everyone was at different levels.

I got a swim plan subscription and have been doing some of the drills.

I'm not really sure which ones are most helpful. Right now I'm just playing around with them and seeing which ones I like. But I find the kick drills really hard! It takes me forever to get across the pool.

[Susie]

I'm not a big driller either. Like Mrs. J said, my stroke pretty much is what it is after many, many years of swimming, and drills wind up being an excuse to swim easy. Drills are only really helpful if you are using them to actively work on your stroke mechanics.

One that I suggest to a lot of triathletes is the finger tip drill. During your recovery, you hold your elbow as high as possible, relax your forearm, and let your hand go kind of limp. Then you drag your finger tips across the surface of the water as you're recovering. The point is to get used to the high elbow position, in contrast with moving your arm through the recovery leading with ... roughly the front of your bicep (if you can kind of imagine that). The high elbow sets you up to have a much better angle of entry into the water for your next pull.

[emilyj]

I don't do very many drills any more. When I was swimming masters, we always had some drill set incorporated. I will do some of them on my own now, but without a coach to actually watch and critique, I don't want to get into the habit of doing them wrong, kwim?
The ones I mostly do on my own now are the catch up drill and kick drills. I also really like doing an overkick free set (swim with normal arms, but kick like crazy), but that's because I generally don't kick when I swim.

I don't do a lot of hypoxic breathing, because when I swim for competition, my shortest distance is going to be sprint tri distance. No need for hypoxic breathing there. I will do breathing drills, mostly with a pull bouy, and I do the ones already mentioned - breathe 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 11, 9, 7, 5, 3. Or I'll do a 300 pull breathing 3-5-3-5-3-5 for the whole set.

[wawa]

Jan 27, 2017 11:56:53 GMT -5 mrshandy said:

wawa , that class sounds really hard. But I feel like I need something like that. I took a swimming class last year, but it was kind of basic and everyone was at different levels.

I got a swim plan subscription and have been doing some of the drills.

I'm not really sure which ones are most helpful. Right now I'm just playing around with them and seeing which ones I like. But I find the kick drills really hard! It takes me forever to get across the pool.

It is.  At least to me.  It's a hell of a workout.  I usually feel like a wet noodle by the end, and I'm definitely getting faster. 

It's just through the Y - but I have no idea how much it varies between instructors.

[wawa]

Unrelated to drills - does anybody have any tips for avoiding leg cramps while swimming? This is for MH. His calves and quads both want to cramp up on him by the end of his swim workout. He apparently spent the final minutes of yesterday's class laying on the pool deck whimpering because both calves and his right quad were just solid rocks and wouldn't let go.

I told him to eat a banana and stop whining because i"m a supportive and loving spouse.

[hurricanedrunk]

I like to start my swim out with 50 of a prone drill for body position (face down, hands extended, feet up and kicking) especially when I've been out of swim practice like I am now. Otherwise I don't usually do drills unless I am in a class.

I am going to jump in with another question. I'd like to start swimming in the am before work. However after swimming I look like a meth addicted raccoon from my googles. Any suggestion on how to avoid this/ make it go away quicker?

[Deleted]

Jan 27, 2017 16:51:36 GMT -5 hurricanedrunk said:

I like to start my swim out with 50 of a prone drill for body position (face down, hands extended, feet up and kicking) especially when I've been out of swim practice like I am now. Otherwise I don't usually do drills unless I am in a class.

I am going to jump in with another question. I'd like to start swimming in the am before work. However after swimming I look like a meth addicted raccoon from my googles. Any suggestion on how to avoid this/ make it go away quicker?

Drink more water (not from the pool). Well hydrated skin has better elasticity and recovers better. I also apply moisturiser heavily after a swim.

I have friends that have made a product (not yet available on the market) that you apply to your skin to get rid of the chlorine smell on your body. It's pretty good.

[mrs.jacinthe]

Jan 27, 2017 15:40:00 GMT -5 wawa said:

Unrelated to drills - does anybody have any tips for avoiding leg cramps while swimming? This is for MH. His calves and quads both want to cramp up on him by the end of his swim workout. He apparently spent the final minutes of yesterday's class laying on the pool deck whimpering because both calves and his right quad were just solid rocks and wouldn't let go.

I told him to eat a banana and stop whining because i"m a supportive and loving spouse.

I've had this issue, and it used to be terrible. I swam an entire 2.4 dragging my legs like I had a pull buoy once. It's either form, electrolyte imbalance, or both. And actually, potassium isn't necessarily the culprit. I find that magnesium is my weak electrolyte. If I take mag supplements with care for the couple days before a race, I can work harder with fewer issues. Also, hydrate hydrate hydrate. And have a coach check for good form.

[mrs.jacinthe]

Jan 27, 2017 16:51:36 GMT -5 hurricanedrunk said:

I like to start my swim out with 50 of a prone drill for body position (face down, hands extended, feet up and kicking) especially when I've been out of swim practice like I am now. Otherwise I don't usually do drills unless I am in a class.

I am going to jump in with another question. I'd like to start swimming in the am before work. However after swimming I look like a meth addicted raccoon from my googles. Any suggestion on how to avoid this/ make it go away quicker?

Can you wear different goggles or wear them looser?

[ktzmoh]

I usually will do a set of drills if I'm swimming in a pool. I need a lot of work on my pull, so I do railroad catchup (so arm position kept parallel and I don't start one pull until the other arm is returned to the water. I do a high elbows drill where I start the pull with my forearm, get the forearm to vertical, and then return the arm out front and do a full pull, then I do the one where you brush your thumb against your hip to make sure I'm following through. Single arm swimming is also a great drill.

I don't know if it's 'hypoxic', but did a lot of breathing drills this summer too. I generally do ladders breathing every 2/3/4/5/5/4/3/2 strokes for 25 yards (4 sets for 800 yards total). I hate breathing every 7 strokes - i find it really difficult and don't do that often. I can not comprehend that people do any laps breathing every 13 strokes. Superhuman people.

This winter I learned a 2-3 pattern (basically alternating two strokes, breath, three strokes, breath). I like that pattern a lot because I think bilateral breathing is probably good for me, but breathing every 3 strokes doesn't seem to be enough air for me to sustain a solid workout.