The Tip of the Week is sponsored by FINIS. Visit FINISswim.com for more information about our sponsor.
Welcome to the “FINIS Tip of the Week.” Swimming World will be bringing you a topic that we’ll explore with drills and concepts for you to implement with your team on a regular basis. While certain weeks may be more appropriate for specific levels of swimming (club, high school, college, or masters), each tip is meant to be flexible for your needs and inclusive for all levels of swimming.
This week’s drill will help to improve your backstroke body position. Called “roller coaster,” this simple drill challenges swimmers to keep their hips up and stay engaged through their core and legs, a key piece to proper backstroke.
To perform the drill, swimmers will simply hold their arms over their head and kick down the length of the pool. The trick is that their hands need to be hovering out of the water, just over the surface. This will naturally force the hips to drop and make it more difficult to move down the pool.
While making your hips purposefully drop may seem counter-intuitive, the real challenge of the drill is to use your core and the power of your kick to correct that body position and move down the pool with as correct a body position as possible.
Additionally, once swimmers go back to swimming backstroke normally they will have a much better awareness of when their hips may be too low in the water and when they need to use their core and legs more efficiently in the stroke. This is a great drill to use early in practice to check in with body position that can help build into other drills. Happy swimming!
All swimming and dryland training and instruction should be performed under the supervision of a qualified coach or instructor, and in circumstances that ensure the safety of participants.
Very educative. Nice explanation