Are you an intermediate swimmer? Then you’re probably one of…
A recreational swimmer looking to improve your technique and get faster, just for fun. Or maybe learn how to do more strokes..
A fitness swimmer looking for workouts to help you get in shape and lose weight…
A US Master’s swimmer looking for technique tips and drills to improve your strokes, starts or turns.
A triathlete needing to get faster and more efficient…
A high school swimmer searching for how you can get faster, get in shape and improve…
There’s a whole lot of reasons for you to be here. And while there’s a lot of similarities the differences are important too.
They need to be explained in much greater detail. If you click on the links it will take you to your own page with much more information.
But let’s look at the 8 common swim areas that each group has to work on…
Swim Area #1. Improving Your Stroke Efficiency
Improving your efficiency is the first way to all swimmers to start to improve. You improve your efficiency by your head, body and limb position.
You improve your efficiency by swimming relaxed
You improve your efficiency making the most out of the time in the water you have.
Swim Area #2. Improve Your Stroke Power
Improving your stroke power is done by improving your stroke technique and also by training at the right effort level.
The biggest mistake swimmers make is the underwater portion of the “pull”. (It’s not really a pull by its much easier to refer to it as one!)
You must have a nice strong and correct “Catch” at the beginning your pull. Without the Catch you have no chance of ever being very fast.
Also, you need to work on your power during your swims. Just swimming long, slow and easy is not going to improve your power.
Swim Area #3. Improve Your Workouts
So many swimmers have no plan to their workouts. They do the same thing week after week, year after year.
And they wonder why they don’t improve.
The best practice in the world, done at the wrong time will make it the worst practice in the world.
I see a lot of coaches make this same mistake. The throw workouts together with no plan, no reason, no finesse. It actually drives me crazy.
There is a skill and an art to coming up with the right plan for you.
Swim Area #4: Have a Plan
Just getting in and swimming is fine. But if you really want to improve you need to have a plan and a schedule. There’s so many things that you have to work on no matter what your goals are.
- Your technique
- Your yardage
- Your times
- Starts, turns, strategy