Ottawa Triathlon Club

Training Resources

Swim Drills

Here are some of the drills that are featured in our swim program. If you swim on your own you can include these to further develop technique. *This list is designed to compliment our program coaching and not be a stand alone training guide.

Training Tips:

When developing technique it is important to rest to recovery between lengths. Don't do these drills to fatigue.
Focus on one important stroke element at a time.
Follow drill sets with front crawl sets, focusing on the element drilled.
Do some of back stroke and some breast stroke during warm-up and cool-down, and on occasion in the midst of a workout, to help maintain muscular balance.
When swimming front crawl sets, count strokes per 25m. As you start to increase distance and intensity of your swims, aim to maintain your normal/low stroke count.

Drills
1. Log Roll: hands at side, head down, rotate body 180 degrees while kicking slowly down lane, alternate full turns in each direction

2. Log Roll/Hold Side: same as 1. but pause when on each side for 5 seconds

3. Side Swim (SS): swim on side, bottom arm out front with palm down, top arm resting on side, head down except when breathing, turn slowly to breath

4. SS/Head Up: same as 3. but head remains turned up at all times

5. SS/Burst: same as 3. but utilizes burst breathing to maintain buoyancy.

6. Vertical Kick: kick while in vertical position in deep end, focus on whip motion of legs and feet, keep range of motion small and feet close together

7. Kick Board: hold end of board, head down except to breath, body as long as possible.

8. One Arm: hold end of board with lead arm, stroke with other arm, keep head down as much as possible to watch and analyze stroke pattern, kick easy to keep intensity low.