Fundamentals Day 4

Welcome Back! Have fun on this workout. Don’t look at the clock. Rest as long as you need. We are reviewing the fundamentals of freestyle.

Fundamentals of freestyle, Day 2 workout focuses on coordinating the kick, with hip rotation and pull. Starting with the vertical kick, cock one foot back and snap it forward with a hip thrust. Try to do a 360 degree turn. Try both legs. Take this same idea to the fashion model kick. It will be the leg that is closest to the surface that you will cock when you are on your back. For freestyle, it will be the leg deepest in the water that you will cock. Try to sync the kick, hip thrust and pull together for a 2-beat freestyle kick.

Continuing our work on coordinating the kick and pull, make an effort of pause with the lower leg cocked and the same side arm ready to catch. All at once pull and kick to rotate to the opposite side. The drill says do this every 6 kicks or so. For 6-3-6, switch sides 3 times using a two beat kick in between the rotation from side to side. The noodle drill is done doing a frontward somersault while holding the noodle behind you. Without using your arms, you should end up with your arms over you head. They basically do nothing.

The drills today focus on a high elbow entry. The goal is to have the elbow higher than the wrist which is higher than the fingers. This sets up the catch. We will also be using the average 100 pace from your 400 for time to determine the rest in the main set. Rest alternates from :10 to :30.

Starting backstroke drills this week with fashion model. Challenge: See if you can coordinate your kick with rolling over to the opposite side. Remember the leg that is closest to the surface of the water initiates the hip thrust to the opposite side.

More backstroke drills. The rotation drill works on balance and rotation. Turn drills start w/ both feet on the wall. One arm forward, one arm back. Sink. Touch hands together. Push.

The focus today is on body balance and ab control. Work on holding tight abs during the moving buoy drill and broken turn streamlines off the wall.

This workout features backstroke drills such as “Mummy” and fist pull. The threshold endurance set builds on the 12 x 50 set. Today’s set is 4 x 75 + 3 x 150.

Last day for focus on backstroke. One arm drills today. Keep your recovery arm straight by rolling to your side. For the turn drill today, push off from the all and swim a couple of strokes. Tuck tightly and see if you can stay tucked 360 degrees from your start. You should start and stop with the top of your head facing the opposite pool wall. Once you complete your turn, grab some air and repeat for the length of a 50.

First day of breaststroke! We will kick vertically up against the pool wall. This forces you to pull heels to butt to start your kick. We will also pull with a noodle. This forces you to keep your pull in front of your shoulders.

Day two of breaststroke features a drill that times hip action with the pull. To emphasize the hip movement, a dolphin kick will be used. Hips drive up to breathe and forward to extend to streamline. We will also be swimming a 400 for time to determine if your intervals need to change to improve your endurance.

Time to start Endurance -2 workouts. These workouts will require a pace that is 1-2s faster than threshold pace. We will start by giving longer rests to longer sets, but eventually we will shorten these rests. In addition, we will continue to work on the push-off portion of the turn. Equipment needed: paddles, pull buoy, dragsox (mesh bags for your feet).

Backstroke is star of this workout. Warm up includes some progressions. One of the keys to backstroke is that is it not done on your back. The kicking drills emphasize rotating the body from side to side. One arm kicks should be done at a 45 degree angle to the water with armpit pointing to the side. The 6 & 6 drill involves 6 kicks on one side with arm extended, switch and 6 kicks on the other side. The 6-3-6 drill is similar to the 6 & 6 drill except for the three arm strokes in the middle as you transition from side to side.

The focus on today’s backstroke workout is timing. Starting with a vertical kick hesitation drill. The goal is to pause your kick in a bent knee position, drive your foot and hip forward. See if you can rotate your body with this thrust. Aaron Piersol can rotate 360 degrees with one kick. Next, we move this drill to a horizontal position timing it carefully with an opposite arm pull and same side arm recovery.

Some will be glad that this is the last day of backstroke progressions. We will be concentrating on the kick, which needs to be powerful. The drill set includes fly kick on your back. Start the kick with your core. Titanic is a drill in which you are kicking on your back and both arms are pointed to the ceiling. Try not to sink! Mummy is a drill in which your arms are moving in opposition forward and backwards while kicking on your back. The main set is freestyle. Set your intervals so you only have 10-15s rest.

Today is the day to show off your backstroke. I will be taping you underwater. I will be looking for proper head and body position, hand entry and exit positions, pull, tempo and walls. I will give you the results of your assessment on Friday.

This workout is EN-2, or threshold pace minus 2 seconds per 100. There are 4-5 repeats of 400s, each starting with a portion of a 200 and finishing with a 200. Your goal is to keep an EN-2 pace throughout. Extra rest is provided after each 200.

Fine tuning freestyle and backstroke, this workout is designed to help levitate hips. The pull with buoy drill at different sites in the legs encourages a strong core to hold a balanced body line.

Welcome to breastroke! We start with breastroke kick basics and the pullout. There are also scull drills included in the warm-up. The main set starts with a basic endurance mini set, then moves to a threshold endurance mini set and finally to a threshold overload set.

This is a power workout with a breaststroke feature. The power portion will include tombstone and vertical kicking plus pulling with paddles and people. The breaststroke feature will focus on the kick.

The warm up continues with breaststroke drills. Still concentrating on the kick, pulling the heels to the butt. The main set concentrates on achieving negative splits based on threshold times. Hold your threshold time for the first half of the swim and then drop 2 seconds per 100 for the second half of the swim.

Today’s workout it a bit of a respite from the previous weeks. We will concentrate on a long and efficient stroke while reviewing breaststroke pull.

Todays set incorporates threshold swimming pace, EN-2 pace and an EN-2 Plus pace. In the main set, you will swim a 300 at threshold pace. Next 2 x 150 at EN-2, threshold pace minus one second per 50. Lastly, 4 x 75 at threshold pace minus 2s/50 yds. There’s plenty of rest, so I am anticipating everyone meeting their goals!