|
小臭贝 发表于 2011-2-21 21:08:08
8636
0
This week’s Speedo Tip of the Week comes from O’Brian Wilson, coach at NOVA of Virginia Aquatics in Richmond, Va. Wilson offers a new look at using tennis balls in drill work.
Wilson’s Tip:
Using tennis balls in practice has been a great alternative to doing "fist drills" and has added some variety to our workouts. Typically, tennis balls are used for freestyle drills, forcing the swimmers to develop better feel for the water, better distance per stroke and stronger body rotation.
I have found that holding tennis balls works great for breaststroke as well. Holding the balls allows the swimmers to really focus on increasing their hand speed and tempo through the catch phase of the stroke. When working on hand speed with tennis balls, we start by doing breaststroke arms with a freestyle or dolphin kick to encourage a faster tempo, generally doing 25's. Swimmers should not dive down under water, but swim on top of the water as much as possible, especially when doing this with a dolphin kick. After several 25’s, put up the tennis balls and do 25's of breaststroke sprint, mimicking the same aggressive hand speed through the power phase that they just emphasized on the drills. Swimmers should be reminded to use their forearms for catching water and getting their arms "over a barrel" for a high elbow position.
Another advantage of holding tennis balls over simply making a fist, is that the weight of the wet tennis ball makes the swimmers work a little harder on getting the hands up higher in the water. Using them also adds much needed variety to our favorite drills. The swimmers see it as a "fun" thing to do, and it brings focus to the stroke work we are trying to improve on.
|
|