Borrowed from: Chuckie Vs Blog.
Just as it is with stretching* I’m not an ardent advocate of drills. Now before anybody gets themselves in a tizzy, I must first assert that I am not talking about motorized drills like the kind they sell down at Home Depot, with batteries and bits and lengthy warning labels. Those kinds of drills are very helpful when, say, trying to drill into a human skull to suck the brains out. (Technically, we have just one brain each, so “brains” is a misnomer. Moreover, many of us don’t even possess one such apparatus.) What I’m talking about are those drills that pertain to athletes: those silly little bouts of bouncy exercise that theoretically assist with your form functioning. Those are the kind of drills I speak of.
Coaches employ these kinds of drills to isolate a segment of the swim or pedal stroke or even the run stride, and they think that doing them will improve the mechanics of the athlete; they do not. They do, however, make you better at performing drills. Just as dancing makes you a better dancer (except, of course, in the case of triathletes), drilling makes you a better, um, driller. (You dentists take note. Stuart.)
The problem with breaking the swim stroke (or pedal stroke or run stride) into pieces is that there are no separate phases in any of these activities. One facet leads to and affects the next and drills tend to overlook this inseparable integration. Working a specific part of your stroke (or stride) in isolation does nothing to help improve how it works in a dynamic situation. The body works best as a whole.
Now the athletes I train, who may possibly stumble upon this blog if they’ve got nothing better to do while at work, may declare, “Hold on here a minute, Bucko!” (Only they’ll assuredly use a more offensive word than ‘Bucko’). “How come every now and then you prescribe drills?”
BUSTED! It’s true: I suggest drills at times, usually in the pool. This is not necessarily to make a faster swimmer out of an athlete, but rather a more attentive one. A more attentive swimmer is bound to be a better swimmer. And, unlike stretching, drills can’t really do harm. Unless you drown. Don’t drown. That’s Rule Number One in swimming.
I typically advise those I coach that instead of doing a bunch of pointless, fleeting drills (that last but a few seconds) it is better to persistently perform with form. “Put the ‘form’ in ‘perform’,” I’ve scribbled to more than one athlete, making me smile at least. What exactly the ‘per’ signifies, I’m not so sure, but I like to say it means “with”. Perform=with form. Makes sense to me anyway. So the gist is to constantly think about what you’re doing, and then improve upon it.
Read the rest here.
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