Giving in and doing drills

Only have time for a quick comment... I'd break your drills into something like 4x50 with 5-10 sec rest so that you can really focus on correct form during the drills. Drills aren't about being fast or pushing your aerobic capacity -- they are all about practicing perfect form.

x2.
That seems like an awful lot of yards for drills.  I normally only do a couple hundred yards as part of my warm up.

Without seeing your technique, it's hard to say what drills you should be working on.  Some of the standards are finger tip drag (to help get your elbows up), fists (to help learning to catch with your forearm), golf (counting strokes for a length then adding the count to your time in seconds to tally your score), and any number of drills by different names that are intended to help you to rotate by kicking a set number of times on one side then rolling to the other with 1 stroke in between.  The number of drills and their variations seem to be almost limitless.

I recently started doing Masters swimming, and one of several reasons I like it is that the coach makes us do drills.  By myself it was just too boring (plus I really didn't know if I was doing the drills correctly).

I think the kick drills you're doing probably really are more about building leg strength rather than form, so long yardarge is probably fine as long as you can do it.

But also agree you need to incorporate some arm drills like catch-up, fist and finger drag, which should be shorter distances and really focus on form. 

One drill set I kind of like is "drill-downs"--25 drill down and then 25 free back.  4x50 of that would be better than 200 straight.  It really feels to me like it cements the drill form into a normal stroke.

Edited by tjh 2010-02-26 4:54 PM

I must admit that time is really impressive...my 100 average is shy of 2:00 (like 1:45 or so)...

Kevin

1x200 freestyle warmup,1x200 kicking drill w/kickboard and zoomers,1x200 freestyle,1x200 swimming on side drill w/zoomers,1x200 freestyle,1x200 on arm drills w/kickboard and zoomers,1, 2, or 3x200 freestyle and warmdown.sorry i know what your training levels are but personally i was a collegiate swimmer and a 200 warmup is just not enough. for me i do a 1400 warmup 800 free every 4th lap back or breast. 400 im(fly back breast free) all kick. 200 back. then i get into some drills interval work for strength and endurance training.

Oh...too impressive. Made an oops. I meant just under 2:00 for 100. So it's JUst under 4:00 minutes for my 1x200. Was 3:50 actually. Sorry. So you're still faster than me...just like everyone else.

I'm sure this depends on where you are in your swimming but my coach told me she thinks of drills more like concentrating on one aspect of your stroke. So, to save time, I will do a 200-300 warm up and each 50 or so, concentrate on different part of my stoke. The last 50 or 100 I try to pull it all together.

I will take the advice and break the drills into multiple sets of 50's.

On of my favorite ways to do drills is do drill 25 free 25 with the same focus of the drill; or free 25, drill 25, free 25.

Many good swimmers on BT have said over the years folks drill well then go back to swim their old ways. Key is to get drill concept into your free. So mixing drill and free works on that on focus point and helps me feel the focus point in my swimming. 

OK, I'm back with more time. I agree with Kathy and whoever else said that a drill/swim combo is a good idea.  

I'm going to give my opinion on the best way to use drills to really improve your technique.  While I don't have a ton of experience with swimming, I do have a ton of experience with teaching people to ride/jump horses, which is also VERY much about correct technique (you can't make up for bad technique by using more muscles when jumping horses, physics gets in the way -- same in swimming.) And with jumping, bad technique often leads to broken bones, so it was very important to make certain that riders had all the basics. So I developed a way to teach the basics in "building blocks" that let each new skill build on the others. Also like swimming, it was too hard for riders to try to learn three different things at once, so you had to have them focus on learning only one thing at a time until it became second nature. 

Swimming is similar that you can't get a great stroke if you don't have the building blocks that support a great stroke. And it's too hard to think about EVERYTHING all at once. That's why drills are great, they let you focus on only one thing at a time. But if you are doing 3 drills that all focus on different aspects, then you are still confusing your brain/body because you aren't giving yourself time to really ingrain the new feeling (and then you'll fall back into your old, bad habits when you get a little tired.)

So you pick 3-4 drills that all are specific to one aspect of swimming (balance, extension, rotation, stroke, recovery, pull, catch) that is your biggest problem area, and stick with those drills until your body has really learned (muscle memory) the correct way to do it (doing 4or6or8x50 -- drill 25/swim 25 of each drill). As you do the 25 swim, think about what the drill is working on and whether you are applying it during the swim. This helps avoid the problem that Kathy mentioned about people that drill great, but then swim with the old problems. They aren't spending enough time to really ingrain the drill into their muscle memory and they aren't spending the time during the swim to think about how it applies. That is why I think it's important to pick 3-4 drills that all work on ONE aspect, and not switch up the drills until you've really mastered/ingrained that aspect of swimming that you were working on. Of course, this is all part of a bigger swim workout, something like a 500-600 warmup, then your 600-800 drills, then 1000-1500 main set, and 300 cool down)  Once you have mastered that one aspect and it's no longer a limiter to your swimming efficiency, then pick the next one that is holding you back and work on that. 

Although everyone wants to work on catch and pull, I think  that the first thing most people need to work on is keeping their hips/legs up. If you can't feel air on your butt (at least occasionally) when you're swimming free, then your hips are sinking under the water too much. So focus on drills to help with your balance (and I will admit that I used a lot of TI drills for this, although I've now given up any TI focus.) Once you can feel the air on your butt (which might take weeks of focusing on the balance drills for some people) next, in my opinion would be rotation drills.  A lot of people lose their balance when they rotate which is why they splay their kick or drop their arm to push on the water, so you will have to learn to rotate without slipping out of the horizontal position. Again, pick 3-4 different drills for rotation and use those until you get solid on that aspect. Then work on your stroke/recovery/catch/pull/extension the same way.
 
Once you have everything pretty hunky-dory, then you can start mixing up your drills during a session to reinforce several aspects instead of focusing on only one.  This is then more to reinforce good habits so you don't fall back into bad habits. But if you try to jump ahead to this stage, you won't get the same about of benefits from the drills as you would have if you spent the time to really use the drills in the way I described above.

I would be careful spending too much time using zoomers or other fins.  I purchased some zoomers and set out to get a better kick.  I usually swim 5 times a week and sometimes more.  I was using the zoomers for about 500 yards per session.  I developed a sore ankle.  I am not positive it is related but I am pretty sure.   Had to take a week off from running.  Hope to be back running tomorrow.

I am done with zoomers or any fins now.  Just now worth it.

 

I agree with moving forward with drills and I would also echo the comments about the fins usage. Although the drills are great, are you incorporating any interval work?

What are you suggesting by interval work? Just changing the speed and pace?

The problem I experience with zoomers is rubbing on my left foot; front of the big toe, and on the top of the foot. I have to use a combination of blister pads and socks.

Whenever I have tried to do kicking drills using a kickboard in the past without fins, I find myself kicking, but either moving forward extremely slowly, or not moving forward at all. I'm laying in the water but not going forward.

The problem I experience with zoomers is rubbing on my left foot; front of the big toe, and on the top of the foot. I have to use a combination of blister pads and socks. Whenever I have tried to do kicking drills using a kickboard in the past without fins, I find myself kicking, but either moving forward extremely slowly, or not moving forward at all. I'm laying in the water but not going forward.

I like the idea of alternating drills with swimming. I get bored with drills when I'm doing them, but know they're important. Alternating 25s like Kathy described is something I'm definitely going to try.

Most people do sets.  For example, you might do 10 x 50's with 15 seconds of rest between each 50, or 20 x 100's on 2:00.  The second example means that you start every 100 2:00 after the prior one started, so if you swim faster, you get more rest, if you swim slower, you get less rest.  The variations are nearly endless.  I know there are a number of sites that give sample workouts.  Maybe some other people here could suggest some?