Coaching Corner: Practicing with Closed Hands to Improve Turns
In this video focused on turns, Swimming World contributor and coach Andrew Sheaff recommends an approach to help swimmers get through their turns faster, a skill that certainly leads to faster performances. When practicing turns, Sheaff suggests swimmers either keep their hands closed or have athletes hold tennis balls. By utilizing these methods, swimmers will be forced to emphasize the movement of the torso and legs to get through the turn quicker, and will – for the duration of the drill – not have the luxury of using their hands.
During his video, Sheaff notes that after swimmers practice their turns with closed hands, they’ll feel “turbo-charged” in their turns when given the chance to once again utilize open hands for sculling. Sometimes, removing an aspect of a movement will strengthen another movement, as is the case here with the removal of hand use.
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