Purpose
- Sculling is a very valuable drill to help develop your ‘feel for the water’ – how it feels to position and time the catch and pull stroke movements correctly
- Scull #1 is the most important of all the scull drills and should be practiced the most, since it replicates the initial catch phase when you first apply pressure to the water
- Many swimmers press downwards, sideways or forwards in this position, or even cheat trying to do breastroke!
- Don’t be put off if you struggle at first, this simply highlights an area of weakness in your stroke and that you will greatly benefit from improving your catch and feel for the water
Key Points
- Always use a pull buoy to isolate your arms and prevent you from gaining any leg kick propulsion
- Push off, bring your head out of the water and scull with both arms left and right symmetrically
- Scull slightly wider than your shoulders, bringing your hands a few inches apart in front of you
- Slightly change the angle of your hand so you’re leading the scull with your palms, keeping a constant pressure on the water with your hands and forearms
- Keep your fingertips lower than your wrist and wrist lower than your elbow at all times
Think About
- Keeping your hands near the surface will be very slow, so keep your fingertips are roughly 30cm below the surface
- When you get the drill right you’ll feel your chest lift up and pace slightly increase (bear in mind this is a feeling not a fast drill)
- Draw your shoulder blades back and lift your chest high to introduce good swimming posture
- You should feel your traps and lat muscles working
Progression to full stroke
- Sculling is best performed over short distances before immediately transitioning into freestyle
- As you transition into freestyle, think about lightly pressing the water back to the wall behind you
- Don’t be surprised if your stroke rate naturally picks up straight after sculling- this is perfectly normal and means that you’ve improved your catch technique and removed any deadspots!
Scull #1 is one of the fundamental drills of the Swim Smooth drill pack, all swimmers should perform it regularly in their training sessions to develop their ‘feel for the water’, catch technique and stroke rate.
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