Video:Swim Workout
with Deborah GarciaThere are a number of things that swimmers can do to become faster, improve their form and endurance, and become overall better swimmers. This video shows a proper swim workout.See Transcript
Transcript:Swim Workout
My name is Alicia Casillas from the Spanish National Swim Team for About.com. The purpose of this workout is to improve stroke efficiency, timing and rhythm in order to achieve maximum speed, with energy to spare. Focusing on distance, kicking, and rhythm. To swim smoothly and flow through this workout, try to make sure to always keep your body aligned. When you take each stroke, make sure you rotate your body, and also make sure you breathe properly- by doing so every three strokes.
Warm Up for Swim Workout
Just to get loosened up, let's work on a warm-up, holding onto the water with each stroke during easy swim. Choose drills that focus on long and extended strokes; this way, you can focus on your rhythm. In order to keep your alignment, try to focus on the line running across the pool. Keep your head down, and hips high.
Drill Set for Swim Workout
On your drill set, we're going to focus on your kick. Then, work on good short swims with smooth arms and fast kicking. In order to improve your performance, make sure you work on drills with long strokes to emphasize the kick. For fly and breast kick, use your whole body to do the kick, not just from the knee down. For back and free kick, make sure that the knee bend is held to a minimum, and make sure that most of the propulsion forward is coming from the hip, the ankle and on top of your foot. Then, in this set, you can choose to use a pull, or just swim the routine. If you choose not to use a pull, make sure you focus on your arms, not on your kick.
Main Set for Swim Workout
Now it's time for our main set. Everything that we've put together thus far—working on rhythm, stroke, kick and distance. Initiate your kick with power, but make sure that the kicks are not too big, or they will create too much resistance underwater. Your upper body should be still and tight—generating all your power from the core. Warm Down200 Easy SwimNow it's time to recover. Take it slow, and let your heart rate return to normal.
For more workouts, tips and techniques, visit our Swimming section at About.com.