5 Ways to Swim Better Stat

May 21, 2016

By Danielle McNally

Use the swimming drills in these videos to improve your stroke

It’s week 4 of SHAPE’s triathlon training plan, which means—get excited—it’s a down week! You may have noticed that the distances or times of the workouts were steadily increasing until this week, when everything is short again. That’s because we’ll use this week to recover a bit from all the hard work we’ve been doing; it’s also a good time to focus on improving form and technique. 

Since swimming isn’t my strong suit (and I’m assuming it’s the hardest sport for many of you), SHAPE’s coach Scott Berlinger from Chelsea Piers taught me five drills that will help boost stroke style and swimming economy. Check out the videos below to learn the theory behind each drill and how to execute them. Then, instead of performing a regular freestyle stroke during your swim workouts this week, swap in 25 yards of each drill, repeating until you reach the designated total distance outlined in the plan. Do the same thing again during weeks 8 and 12.