What Drills Can Help Improve Freestyle Catch and Pull?

Question

Lately I have been watching videos with freestyle swimmers and I am interested in what drills you can recommend for developing the catch and pull technique.

Answer 1

To enhance your freestyle technique especially the catch and pull phases you can use two drills namely single arm freestyle drill with fins and the long dog paddle drill. In the single arm freestyle, the aim is to apply which assists in stabilizing and being able to rotate the torso beyond the arm that is submerged. Long dog paddle is a drill that aims to promote the sequential movement of the catch position which is moving the upper body over with the torso and hips. Through these drills, the concept of integration through the arm and body movement to the shoulder joint is able to be enhanced and in turn accelerates swimming.

Comments

I think one thing I see most commonly in the pool is that people are not using body rotation properly. This is far worse with back stroke than freestyle. Rotation does two things. One, it gets the top side shoulder out of the water for less drag. Two, it allows you to use a longer lever from your spine to your finger tips. This is what happens if you use just your shoulder to throw a ball, or rotate from your body/spine to throw and the ball goes a lot farther. I am a big fan of the catch up drill. As near as I can tell, it is all about linking the body rotation and kicking together. Side note, the over arm side stroke I swim uses the 'dog paddle' drill for the under side arm, and the top side arm is doing freestyle. Another note, I have found that a slightly concave palm will pull more water than a flat palm. There are reasons for the paddle board paddles and racing skulls paddles being concave.

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Ill be doing this drill tomorrow morning. Awesome, thanks Brenton.