Another quick review of the drills that I did last night at the pool, this time for freestyle:
I have to say, last night's freestyle drills were pretty much a 180 from the previous night's backstroke drills. I had a lot of problems and really struggled to get through some of these. Part of the reason, I know, is breath control. I somehow have to figure out how to build my lung capacity so that I can get through these drills - especially when I move to working on underwaters.
The first drill I worked on was a varied recovery drill. I liked this drill and it was a nice warmup for the evening. I don't know if I got a lot out of it and had a hard time figuring out when to breathe because it felt unnatural during the fingertip drag recovery and definitely couldn't breathe during straight arm. Only breathing during the high elbow recovery didn't seem to give me enough air to get through the drill completely. I'll get it eventually. Here's the video and instructions for the drill:
Next up was a 6-kick switch drill. Again, this was a difficult one to get through. Eventually, I just starting kicking really fast so that I could get air again. Unfortunately, I feel like my kick starts to break down and becomes less of a core/hip kick when it gets that fast. I did a few laps of this drill to try and get it right, but I didn't want to keep at it for too long, since it seemed to be adversely affecting my kick at that point. Here's the drill:
Finally, I worked on a slow exhale drill to help with breath control. I had some difficulty with this one, but still did a few laps to try and get the hang of it. This will probably be a staple of my warmups from now on so that it becomes more comfortable over time. Check out the video here:
I did a pretty tough weight training class before I got in the pool, so my body may have already been a little taxed by the time I did some of these drills. That may have affected my ability to really get at these drills. No excuses though. Working out harder than I think my body wants to will make me stronger and will continue to increase my endurance. One major discovery through doing this particular set of drills is that I need to really work on breathing and lung capacity. I'm not sure how to do this, but I'll figure it out - something tells me it will involve constant, repetitive practice.
Again, big thank you to GoSwim.tv for these drills!
No comments:
Post a Comment