Weekly Swim Workout #3

A Guiding Principle

We believe in deliberate practice: being systematic, purposeful, and attentive to details.

When you do this, you focus your attention on specific goals that will improve your overall performance.

Deliberate practice opens the door for you to focus on the process rather than the outcome.

When you do this on a regular and consistent basis, the outcome takes care of itself.

We help you focus on the little things so that you can improve your performance and finally achieve the BIG things.

Weekly Workout: Leg-Driven

Note: the workout is listed above; what follows is the why / purpose as well as descriptions of workout components and drills

Warm Up

750 yards to wake up your legs and shoulders: cycle through a kick, non-freestyle, freestyle pattern while adding a 25 each round. Since this workout is leg-heavy, it’s important to use the warm up to activate the key muscles that will be used throughout the workout.

Round 1

Nothing fancy here; just lots of leg work, which is easy to neglect as so much focus in swimming goes into stroke technique.

The goal here is to alternate between fast kick and recovery kicking while progressively increasing the distance of the fast kicking. Your fast kicking times should remain consistent regardless of the number of intervals. Pay close attention to your fast kicking times as the goal is to match or beat these times later in the workout (Round 2).

Freestyle Drill/Recovery Set

The purpose of this set is build in drill work to focus on form after engaging in a set that created some fatigue. Fast and effective swimming is about maintaining your form as fatigue sets in.

If you have a Finis Swim Snorkel, we highly recommend that you use it for this entire set. The snorkel allows you to isolate parts of your stroke that you are working on while maintaining your body position.

The Progressive Hips Drills are as follows:

Right/Left Drill: 12.5 kicking on your right side — right arm out front in streamline position, right hip to bottom of pool, right shoulder to bottom of pool, and head down in streamline position; 12.5 kicking on left side — similar to above. Follow the same pattern on the second 25.

1/10 Drill: similar to the above drill, you’ll kick 10 times on your right side, take a stroke and then kick 10 times on your left side. Cycle through this pattern for a 50 with a focus of driving the rotation from your hips.

2-Beat Kick Freestyle Drill: Freestyle and backstroke involve kick timing: when your legs are kicking in coordination with your arm cycle. For this drill, only kick twice per both arm cycle. There are two ways to think about this: 1) same side—when you right arm begins the catch, you should have a strong down kick with your right leg; 2) opposite side—when your left arm enters, you should have a strong down kick with your right leg.

Slo-Mo Drill: The focus here is on perfect arm cycles. Using a steady and quick kick, slowly move your arms through your freestyle stroke. While your legs are kicking fast—an over-kick is helpful—you arms are cycling as slow is possible while maintaining good form.

After each Progressive Hip Drill series, swim a strong 100 (with snorkel) focusing on form (technique) over function (time).

Check out our Instagram page for drill videos.

Round 2

We’re back to the top. More leg work with a specific focus on matching or beating your time from Round 1.

The catch: the fast interval kick time drops by 10 seconds.

Note: instead of kicking an easy 50, the recovery portion of Round 2 is an easy 100 swim on a very generous interval.

Warm Down

Given the heavy leg focus, build in kicking that is different from what you focused on during Round 1 and Round 2 to help with the recovery process.