Swim Drills

I had about 15 minutes of my required swim time for the week left heading into yesterday. I decided to incorporate some drills into my workout. I learned these drills while meeting with swim coaches in the past. Here's a list of the drills that I did and how each one can make you a more efficient swimmer:

Single arm: Keep one arm in front while you stroke with the other. This drill helps you focus on each arm throughout the complete range of a stroke.

Fist: Swim with your fingers closed into a fist. This drill helps promote elbow bending in the beginning of the pull. You use your forearms just as much (if not more) than your hands to pull your body through the water. This drill forces your to pull with your forearms.

Catch-up: This is an alternating single-arm drill. Wait for your hand to meet the other in front before pulling (touch and go) with the other arm. This drill works on your pull and body rotation.

Crossover:Crossover: When your hand enters the water at the beginning of each stroke, you must ensure it doesn't cross your body's imaginary midline running from head to toe. Crossing over puts a tremendous amount of strain on the shoulder joint and makes your body fishtail or swing from side to side, increasing drag. I hold a kick board with one arm and swim with the other...making sure my hand enters the water to the side of the kick board.

YESTERDAY'S WORKOUT:
2hr on the bike with a 45min swim class sandwiched in the middle. Once again I was in Zone 2 for the majority of the ride.

15min of the above described drills in the pool

TODAY'S WORKOUT:
2h20m on the bike. No spin class today, so it was just me and the bike...and Pandora radio on my iPhone. 140 minutes on the bike in a room with nothing to look at is a long time. Just to be clear, these workouts in Zone 2 are not easy. Zone 1 is for easy riding. Keeping my heart rate between 125 and 137 takes some effort. I'm breathing heavy and sweating pretty good despite the fact that the spin room is kept the same temperature as a meat locker! It was a long, though workout, but as my man Teddy Roosevelt said "Nothing worth gaining was ever gained without effort."

I have a long run planned for tomorrow morning...forecast calls for 70% chance of rain/snow. Hmmmmm....