Hey guys, welcome to this week's video from Propulsion Swimming. I'm Dan and this week
we're back with another swimmer reacts video. We enjoy doing them so much and it's great to
build a bit of inspiration for the next time you're at the pool for new drills. So as usual,
Scott's found some drills on Instagram, I've never seen them before, let's take a look at
them together so let's get cracking. Headphones in as usual. I'll get told off otherwise.
Oh awesome! Dave Hemming's ones. I'll tell you what, shout out to Dave Hemmings,
he's doing a fantastic job. Let's go for the first drill. Oh breaststroke turn. This might
be Wilby then. Two hands on the wall yeah. They're doing a lot of work on turns actually
and I've seen a lot of drills where they sort of they do mid turns and it's all about just getting
their legs underneath them as quick as possible. It's almost like a half rotation but in this
drill basically it's just a perfect race skill effectively. (Trying to be as narrow as possible.
Skills they picked up at ISL) Yeah. Oh definitely. I tell you what actually a lot of those swimmers
in the Dave Hemmings squad came through the ISL and have major breakouts because of these turns.
I'm sure we'll see some underwater footage in other drills later on. But this is basically
the perfect way to do a breaststroke turn. It's all about getting in and out of the
wall as quickly as possible, being as narrow as possible, tuck your knees in as much as possible,
drive that elbow back, arm over the top behind your ear basically, and then push off in a tight
streamline. Yeah, I can't fault it this is exactly how it should be done. Get in and
out of the wall as fast as possible. I used to do this teaching you know like hot potato,
get in the wall, off the wall in less than a second ideally. Yeah can't fault it. Alright
next drill. Underwater, there we go there's always going to be some underwater footage.
Ah there's different ones as well. Adding the fins on. You
reckon that's Joe Litchfield? I reckon that's Joe. Yeah he's pretty good at underwaters I must say.
So it's interesting with underwater phase, you look at Caeleb Dressel and he begins his
underwater phase from his arms, he actually uses his whole body. Ben Proud does exactly the same.
But when you look at Joe who's more of a more of a distance swimmer, so he's more 100 and 200 based.
If he were to do that off every wall he'd be using too much energy.
So he keeps his upper body or his arms, more so than his upper body's, his arms are relatively
still and the power he generates is all from his core and his hips. So it doesn't use as much
energy as what Caeleb Dressel would use or Ben Proud would use but it's more energy efficient.
I like the fact that he's using fins adding a little bit of resistance in there.
The undulation is great. I mean he's so good at underwater so it's so good.
(I think this is meant to be like a progression) Definitely yeah.
Yes at the very beginning, if we go back to the start then, it's almost like he's getting used
to the movement by doing it nice and slowly . He then goes into the next way, adds fins doing
it nice and slowly getting the movement in his back and the mobility. He then takes the fins
off and adds speed. Again replicating that same action he was doing and then even quicker again
and then back to start again. So basically yeah you're increasing the speed
as well as keeping that same, what's it called? (undulation) Yeah undulation. Yeah perfect. I
mean Joe Litchfield is one of the best in the world. I'd love to see him go head-to-head
against against Dressel. I think I said this ages ago. A head-to-head just to see where he is
but yeah can't fault that. It's all about progression in drills, has to be progression.
Vertical kick, always said it. Absolutely incredible. Oh that's very similar actually,
oh okay changes. Oh okay.
Okay so very similar to what Joe was doing earlier. So it's the vertical kick doing
the dolphin where starts off slow and then gradually get quicker because when you do
a race, ideally you want to do big kicks at the beginning and then as you approach the breakout,
you then shorten those kicks before you break out into your stroke. So that's what that's trying to
do, trying to get your shoulders out of water as well on the vertical kick. And then this sort of
questions me a little bit because I like the idea of a snorkel, it keeps her body on top of
the water but I'm not so sure about using a float when doing it. I'm not so sure about that. Why use
a float whereas you could just do it streamline, just streamline on top of the water. I just don't
think that's necessary but it's good everything is good obviously. You've got the hips coming out of
the water, the feet are staying under the water because if you bring your feet out of the water,
you're just kicking air that's wasted energy you're not going to go anywhere so you've
got to keep those feet underneath the water for propulsion. Yes I just don't think the kick board
is necessary. I'm kind of against kickboards in the first place because it affects body position
but because her heads in the water with the snorkel, the body position isn't as affected.
So it's maybe a minor detail but I would get rid of the kickboard. I don't think it's necessary,
that would be my only critique from that video. But vertical kick absolutely do that in training.
Myself, I'd do vertical kick every day in training, absolutely. All right next one.
Punching the ceiling.
Oh the second one, Human. Absolutely agree with Human. We've done Human on our channel before.
It's almost like single arm Human and changing sides.
Yeah I can't fault Human absolutely, that's brilliant.
Not so sure on these ones. So the body position where, I think that's Abbie, I think that's Abbie,
she's in the swordfish position on her side, hips are at the surface that's fine,
it's the bending of the elbow or bending of the arm I don't see why. (Still got good rotation).
The rotation is good. It's very similar to the kickboard one we saw before. The body position
is fine, it's then the punching up to her ceiling I just don't really, it's almost unnecessary for
me. Human, no problem absolutely behind Human the whole time. You can see the power she's doing to
the hip to get that rotation going absolutely spot on, I like that. But this one confuses me a little
bit because if your hand is extended behind you and the other arm on the recovery phase is in
front of you, the timing seems to be slightly off in my opinion. Please tell me if I'm wrong,
please comment below. But if your arm is extended behind you the other arm should be down by your
hip. So it's almost like if you think of a clock, you've got 12 o'clock and a 6 o'clock
they should be opposite pretty much the whole time. That's my way of looking at it. If there's
any coaches watching please let me know and tell me if I'm wrong but that's the way I read it.
Human, perfect like I've said before but the bending of the arm you never really bend,
well you don't, you don't bend your arm on the overarm recovery phase. You do on the underarm
phase of course because that's where the power comes in. But it seems like the timing is slightly
wrong. I'd like a coach to tell me what's that sort of targeting. The body position, like I said,
is fine, the timing of the arms seems slightly off for me. That would be my only critique again.
Next one.
Molly Renshaw. See people might say like 'how do you use fins on breaststroke?' But actually
I think you should use them quite a lot on breaststroke. So Molly here, she was doing a
lot of the fly kick with the breaststroke arms and I've seen breaststroke arms done with freestyle
as well. It's all about increasing the stroke rate so she's doing it with butterfly legs here
and the whole idea, oh no front crawl legs. So front crawl legs, the idea of front crawl legs
is to keep your hips on the surface the entire time and then that stroke rate obviously it's
done in slow motion here but in real time she's probably motoring through the water.
The whole idea is to speed up that stroke so Molly being a 200m breaststroker, she would want to
increase that straight rate for that last 50m so that's what she's trying to practice here. Again
keeping that hold on the water, good technique. I mean her technique is absolutely phenomenal.
I'd arguably say she's got one of the best breaststrokes in the world. Maybe ever? Difficult
maybe ever. (Punchy) It is punchy. Maybe. I mean Kitajima by far is the best breaststroker I've
ever seen technically. But Molly is right up there. Yes Gyurta is pretty good as well
but Molly's very good yeah. So yeah, increasing the stroke rate which is what she needs for that
final 50m of a 200m breaststroke yeah. So I'd use fins quite a lot actually just because of that.
Next drill, in fact is the final drill. Like a push and glide. This looks like James Wilby.
Again progressions. This is what Dave Hemmings is really good at, progressive drills.
So the first drill, when we get around to it, is literally just a push and glide,
that's all it is. Anyone can do that in the water. The next stage is to add a fly kick
and that pull down. And then obviously the end bit is to then break out into into breaststroke.
Breaststroke is all about being as streamlined as possible. You want to imagine, I was always taught
to imagine to swim in a pipe and if you touch the edges of the pipe then you're not streamlining
enough basically. And that's what James Wilby be trying to do and Dave is trying to teach James
Wilby to be on that breaststroke underwater phase. Tight streamline, legs together, engage that core,
then use that fly kick that you're now allowed to do in that streamline position.
Some people question whether they should do the pull down, then the fly kick.
But if you do the fly kick in streamline, that's the quickest way through water so I'd do it in
streamline like James is doing here. He does the pull down after the the fly kick. Again
almost like hunching his shoulders up keeping himself nice and narrow and then when he does the
breakout stroke he brings his arms back underneath his body, again keeping his elbows tucked in,
fully extends then he's into his breaststroke. Very basic, very simple but usually simple stuff
is the most effective way and Dave Hemmings is doing a fantastic job there. My only question
is just the the backstroke drills. I'd love to have a coach speak to me about the reasoning
for bending their elbows on the overarm recovery phase and the timing that would that would be my
only critique. But the rest of it is basically it's almost like simple stuff really. You got
to do the simple stuff, the basics is absolutely key. So that's it for this video guys, thank you
very much for watching. If you do have any other drills please send them in. I love doing these
reaction videos and I know Scott does as well. He's on Instagram the whole time looking for them.
But if you haven't already, please SUBSCRIBE to Propulsion Swimming on YouTube
and until then I've been Dan. I'll catch you on the next one!