Endless Pools Drills & Ideas

Important Note to the Viewer

LESSONS: 97 VIDEOS

EP Lesson Tempo and Loping

We spend some time working with a couple of elite-level triathletes working on updating their strokes. This will be a long-term project, so if you don't see the changes happening immediately... well, that's the process.

Finis Smart Goggles Stroke Rate Feature

Working with a high-level triathlete using the FINIS Smart Goggles. The new update of the goggles allows the athlete to see the stroke rate live in the goggles. Pick up your Smart Goggles here: https://apps.finisswim.com/smart-goggle/ Use discount code "goswimtv" for additional savings.

Soft Outsweep for Breaststroke

Making sure the work you do in breaststroke is productive. Put the power where it's supposed to go, not pushing out, but at the corners, insweep and extension forward.

Open Water Breaststroke Sighting

Using breaststroke to see where you're going in open water MAY be a little slower, but seeing exactly where to go can make your swim faster by not going off course. You'll feel much safer too!

Freestyle - Syncing the Kick

Learning a more effective 2-beat kick.

Freestyle - Sculling Hand

Today we're going to work on a problem and freestyle, which is an out sweep of the lead hand during extension. Typically, this happens for a couple reasons one is imbalanced to is looking or seeking more resistance, feeling like you're going to pull more water. But the balance issue is typically when someone breathes to one side, they're going to sweep that hand out to the other side for stabilization. So we're going to look at what the issue is, and then we're going to look for a couple solutions to help fix that. So first, I will illustrate the incorrect. And you can consider this a contrast drill. In that I'm going to purposely sweep the left hand out quite a bit when I breathe to the right. And so you'll see kind of the stabilization impact of the hand. And what happens with the hand when the body is not balanced. The next step is to get a feeling of what it's supposed to be like to have the hand path path be straight. So you're going to think about the fingers, almost dropping them into the flow of the water and having the water press the hand back. So you're thinking about a very linear path of the hand, the fingertips drop ever so slightly, so they almost feel like they're falling in the water, rather than that supportive mechanism that you've built with the feeling of the out sweep. So the fingertips slightly down, again, feeling like you're falling into the water, rather than that bracing. Now I'm doing this with a no breather, you can do this for a few strokes, no breather, or if you have a snorkel, you can practice it a little bit more. But again, no out sweep on the fingers whatsoever, but they dropped slightly into the water flow and then just pull back. The next step is a contrast drill in which every other stroke you can sweep out and then have the hand go straight back, you want to see as much difference between these two movements as possible, showing what is incorrect, which is the out sweep, and what is more correct, which is a straight down or a linear path of the hands. So alternate them as best as you can, again, I'm doing no breather, you can use a snorkel or just go for a shorter distance. And the final pure swimming version of this is that you're now going to read every fourth, you're going to alternate the nonbreeding with the breathing, and you're really focusing on the way the hands are moving during the non breathing part. So focus on how the left hand falls directly down into the flow and then mimic that when you go to air. This is going to have a feeling of falling or slipping like you're not connecting with the water. That's mainly because you've already built this feeling of support. And so that that out sweep of the hand braces, it actually slows your rotation a little bit, it pushes you up a little bit. And so it's this feeling that you've built in that you feel is right, because it feels you have connection. The problem is is that there's a lot of detrimental things that go with it. So memorize the fingers down falling, and then carry that into the breathing. And finally, one last idea is to use a pair of big or oversized hand pads. And these make it harder to move the hand from side to side because of the surface area. So the larger the hand paddles, the more direct they're going to be pushed through the water. So make sure you're doing this with an ease of swim rather than trying to go really fast. So let the hands fall in, let them fall straight back and use the size of the paddle to keep the hand as directly as possible. Here's just a couple of different ideas that can help make sure that we're not sweeping out too far with a bracing hand or sculling at the beginning of freestyle. So good luck. Let us know how it works.

Double-Arm Back with Breast and Dolphin Kick

Today's video is going to be just like yesterday's, which is a double arm backstroke with a breaststroke kick. Only today we're going to use dolphin kick rather than flutter kick. So you can use to dolphin kicks three dolphin kicks. However many dolphin kicks you need in between the recoveries and the breaststroke kick. Or if you're going to do the dolphin kick in the line, however many kicks that you want to take. It's really going to depend on are you training Are you racing, and then where your strength is. So we'll demonstrate double on backstroke with breaststroke kick and dolphin kick. Both of these methods, double-arm backstroke, breaststroke kick, and flutter kick, or dolphin kick will have breathing patterns to them as well. And so generally, when the arms are being recovered, your faces, your face may go slightly underwater. And then when you take the poor, you're going to come back up. So you're going to exhale when the face is underwater. And then when you resurface again, that's where you get your good inhale and refill the lungs up so that you can keep going. So do be aware that by lifting both arms up at the same time, you may go slightly underwater. At the same time, you're recovering the breaststroke kick, so it's going to create some resistance. But right after that is going to come some really good propulsion, propulsion that will help you claim back out on the surface and get that good air. So enjoy, give it a try. It's actually a lot of fun.

Double-Arm Back with Breast and Flutter Kick

The cool thing about swimming is had as we get older, the rules change. And so we're allowed to do different things that maybe you're not allowed to do and other in other sports that you can change the technique. So what we're going to demonstrate today is a way to modify your backstroke if you're having a hard time anymore with rotation or the strength in a single-arm, or maintaining propulsion. So in master swimming, we're going to show how you're allowed to use flutter kick and breaststroke kick and dolphin kick all in backstroke. And we're going to use a double-arm backstroke, which is legal, and racing. So you can train this way. It just shows some flexibility and options. Again, as we get older, that allows us to continue in the sport to be productive in the sport and to be competitive in the sport. So today I'm going to demonstrate the double-arm backstroke with breaststroke kick and flutter kick. And the flutter kick will be put into maintaining momentum after the breaststroke kick in there and the recovery, so it's fun. And like I said, it keeps people in the sport for a longer period of time. Just like in other events, or anything that has a breaststroke kick involved in the creation of the resistance, the timings going to be very important. So it's something that you can play with, but generally, it's done during the recovery of the arms. And I noticed while I was doing that, I was recovering my arms too close together, and so I had to move them out to shoulder width and made it a lot easier. So it's something to play with. And as long as you're old enough it's a great way to keep going

Breaststroke - Wall Kick Fix

When teaching very young swimmers how to do breaststroke kick, sometimes it's important to make sure they understand which part of the foot to use. Use this fun trick a few times, then have the swimmer just miss the wall to perform a regular breaststroke kick.

Pull-Buoy Core Stability

Hello. So today we're going to work more on core stability and rotation, and making sure that everything is connected from the entire body perspective. This is to make sure that we don't sway our legs too much, or stabilize ourselves with our kick. But use the core to keep everything in line, we do so many balance exercises and drills that this is a more dynamic and an active way of practicing it. So what we're going to do is we're gonna use a pull boy. And instead of using a pull boy like normal, you're gonna hold it between our ankles. And when, when I swim with it held at my ankles, what we look for, and we do this with almost all of our students in here, we look for the back end to sweat, if it's swaying, the core is not connected, we want to try to rotate the pool boy is equal with the hips and the torso. So we're trying to put full body rotation without any sway in the back. So if my feet go side to side, I'm not doing a good job. So the idea is to stay as stable as possible, rotate everything in one line. So we'll do that for a little bit. And then what we do is drop the pool boy after everything is stabilized, and see if the kid can come in very gently, without overthinking to make sure that we're not using the crease stabilization. The other thing you'll probably see me do is that I'm going to look way down so the head position is gonna be down. I'm doing that so that I can look in the mirror and look behind me to make sure that my legs aren't swaying. It's a very simple drill, simple exercise. But we do see a lot of swing from side to side when people don't have that core stability. So this is something that you can try on your own when you get to the pool. And again, really try to make sure that nothing is swaying in the back. Everything is in one line. Great job. See you soon

Learning Effortless Breathing Reminder

Focusing on our Theme of the Week - Learn Effortless Breathing for Freestyle. Glenn reminds us to always remember to practice the basics. While there is nothing incredibly exciting about kicking on your stomach with your hands down by your sides... But the lack of mastery in these basic skills can ultimately limit your long-term potential as a swimmer.

Breaststroke - Kick Width

Transcript: Today we're going to talk about breaststroke kick and variations in the width of the kick and the draw of the kick. So there's going to be four different variations of kicks that you can watch out for. And I'm going to define them by by their width, basically. And it's wide, wide, wide, narrow, narrow, narrow, and narrow, wide. And then I'm going to show you what I'm teaching a certain number of athletes right now, and how we teach it. So always thinking about the resistance that you create and the propulsion that you create, and what is the benefit or what is the end result between those two. So here we go, we're going to start with wide wide, which I bet you already know what's going to happen. So I honestly have no idea how I did. But I tried to exaggerate as much as possible. So the preferred one as far as what we've been working on, is what we call narrow wide. We saw it really definitively at the Olympics this summer. And the idea is you recover the legs behind you in the flow of the water that you're you're drawing water with you. When the legs go back, they have to get outside. And I think that we've been focusing so much on narrow, narrow, and you know, keeping it very small both up and back, that we're missing some grab. Some swimmers aren't getting their feet outside of that into the Stillwater. So the way I've been teaching it is with a poor boy. Now you only get one. So what happens is you have to draw the poor boy up, and when you kick the kick, you kick the legs out to get it outside the shadow of the body and the poor boy falls out and you try to replicate that and so you do it again and again and again thinking about narrow up and wide back. And so this is something we've been doing quite frequently and got to come up with a contraption that you can do over and over and over again. But right now it's you get one. The idea is that you have something physical to hold. You're hanging on to it. You're trying to memorize that feeling of what it's like to squeeze it together. And then when you kick the feet or going outside and grabbing that Stillwater I felt it with the poor boy. And then it took me like two or three times to really feel it and then really on my last stroke, I felt it really well. That there's this huge variation between the draw and then the kick. But it felt good. Give it a try.