3 Drills to Improve Your Freestyle Catch
Swimmers and triathletes, these drills are for you!
Improve your Catch to Improve your Stroke
If you've been working on your freestyle technique for a while, you've likely been thinking about your freestyle catch. The catch is perhaps the most important aspect of the freestyle stroke, as that’s where you generate most of your propulsive power from.
As a long-time Masters Swimming coach, I’ve used many drills over the years to help swimmers learn to better engage their forearms and hands to improve their catch. But these three drills are the top ones I’d recommend to any swimmer looking to improve their catch.
Drill One: People-Paddle Scull
Sculling is a special type of drill in which you don’t perform a full stroke; rather, you keep your arms under water so as to focus your energies on a specific area of the stroke. The people-paddle scull helps you do this with an approach that’s similar to the doggy paddle.
To perform this scull, execute a stroke with a typical catch underwater, but rather than recovering your arms over the water, drive your hand back in front of you through the water like you do with doggie paddle. You should keep your face mostly submerged, though, more like you would when swimming regular freestyle rather than using the head-up position that’s favored when doggie-paddling.
This drill helps you learn how to feel the water and how to quickly engage your forearms against the water at the start of each freestyle pull. It can be a powerful tool for gaining efficiency and strength with each stroke.
Drill Two: Y Scull
Very similar to the people paddle, a Y scull helps you understand how to move water with your forearms and palms. Put your arms put in front of you together in a streamline. Keep your elbows straight, then, sweep your hands apart until they form a Y shape – you’ll hit the right position when your hands are about shoulder width apart out in front of your head. Then, catch the water and bring your hands back together towards your centerline.
Keep those elbows straight the entre time, as this will help you feel pressure from the water against the whole length of your forearms.
Drill Three: Side Scull
The last and most difficult-to-master drill is a side scull. Side sculling can be done with or without a pull buoy – adding a pull buoy might make it easier if your legs feel like they’re sinking.
Get into a streamline position and roll onto one side. Stretch your lower arm above your head, keeping your elbow straight. Then, move that hand back and forth so you can feel the water pressing against your forearms.
It’s that simple, and yet challenging to get just right. Keep practicing until you can really feel the water moving against your forearm, then flip to the other side.
Throw a few 50s of these drills into every practice to help keep your catch sharp. Remember, a good catch means more power from each freestyle stroke. And that translates to more speed with less effort.
