Propulsion drills should be initiated from the core maximize effectiveness. All should ensure that your core moves past your hand, from catch to exit and into the recovery/glide phase.

PITCH (thinking): relax your back muscles (lats) on the recovery as if your throwing an overhand baseball pitch. Keep following through into the entry and right up to the catch. Then initiate pull from the core out to the extremities (lats, pecs, shoulders).

CATCH UP: bring both hands together in your streamline position between each propulsive stroke.  This stroke requires lots of core strength for body position, a smooth reliable kick and very smooth acceleration between strokes to be effective.

CATCH UP VARIATIONS

• DELAY CATCH UP: count 1-6 seconds between strokes.  Longer delay requires more force in stroke to accelerate body forward again, becomes more of a kick drill, etc.
• EXIT CATCH UP: pause both arms at exit by thighs, very tough
• 180º CATCH UP: pause at exit with one hand on thigh and the other extended forward in full streamline position.  Pause 0.5+ seconds then initiate catch and pull.  Similar to S2S drills
  

HEAD UP: swim a certain number of strokes or length(s) head up front crawl.  Keep your head and body position stable, avoid excessive side to side head movement and dropping legs deep to compensate for higher head position.

FIST: swim with your hands closed in a fist.  Not a punching fist, but fold your fingers down as far over your palm as possible so as to keep your arms relaxed.  This will emphasize a slower catch to feel the water, less resistance on the entry and catch and more emphasis on the pull to exit phase.

FIST VARIATIONS

• CLOSED2OPEN: start with a closed fist and open your hand after the catch is initiated where the hand is under your elbow for maximal force production
• OPEN2CLOSED: start with an open hand and close your fist after the catch is initiated where the hand is under your elbow for maximal force production
• SINGLE FIST: close one hand into a fist and leave the other open
• SINGLE CLOSED2OPEN: as above closed to open drill but focusing on one arm only while the other arm pulls normally
  
• SINGLE OPEN2CLOSED: as above open to closed drill but focusing on one arm only while the other arm pulls normally

SINGLE ARM:  swimming while using only one arm at a time.  Arm not providing propulsion is extended forward

SINGLE ARM VARIATIONS

• 3-3-6 to 6-6-12: take 3-6 strokes with one arm, same with other arm then double that number full normal strokes.
  
• ARM DOWN: drop arm not providing propulsion down against your side.  This allows better rolling action from the core but requires more core strength to maintain body position.  This is a much more difficult drill to do properly, but imitates normal swimming much better.
• ARM DOWN & ALTERNATING: a heinous drill (as in arm down above) with the added delight where you stop at your hip, then roll to the other side, recover and do single arm on that side, repeat.  This is best done with fins the first few times, then try it without fins

ZERO2CATCH (thinking): think no resistance on your hand prior to the catch. pull your catch occurs when you apply pressure on the water through your hand, so as to initiate forward movement in your core. Try to keep you elbow high and stable at the catch.

“HIGH” ELBOW: keep your elbow high on the pull- on entry, relax shoulders and lats to keep elbow high 10-20 cm under the surface as you set up for the catch. Some say imagine your elbow smoothing the underside of the surface of the water

FINGER DRAG: to keep recovery low, drag fingers along surface of the water on the recovery

ZIPPER: to work on roll and relaxed recovery pretend you are undoing a zipper from mid-thigh (exit) to armpit. You can add pitch drill from armpit forward

ACCELERATE (thinking): Aim to accelerate your core from catch to exit. Start your pull slowly and well connected to your core, then gradually apply more force / speed to your pull so as to maintain core acceleration through the exit. Your goal is to enter the glide phase with peak core speed, not to generate peak hand speed in the first half of the stroke only to lose it before the exit.

KICK: isolate the kick without any arm propulsion using a kick board (or not…)

KICK VARIATIONS

• VERTICAL KICK: in deep end kick while in a vertical position.  Keep kick smooth and as slow as possible so ass to maintain your head above water.  Do not kick to deep (amplitude of kick) or frantically as both will compromise your efficiency.  Add challenge by changing arm positions, type of kick, adding weight, etc.  Excellent drill for learning kick body position!
  
• KICK W/O BOARD: on front or side. Even [x] kicks on left side then same on front then same on right side then same on back.
  
• KICK WITH FINS: add fins to kick to build leg strength and familiarity with body position / feel at faster speeds
• KICK W/O BOARD WITH FINS: as above but with fins
• KICK SINGLE FIN: one fin on, one fin off to help learn kick at higher speeds
• MIXED BEAT: swim with a 6 beat kick and every 25/50 m drop 2 beats finishing at a half beat kick (i.e. 6 to 4 to 2 to half) then build back up again. Change this drill around to go other patterns that emphasize your needs.
  • i.e. 25 m at 6 beat / 25 m at 2 beat / 25 m at 6 beat / 25 m at 0.5 beat / etc

SCULLING: go through S-curve of sculling motion 2+ times per stroke.

SCULLING VARIATIONS

• SCULLING II: sculling with both hands at your side working on exit portion of sculling only
  
• SCULLING III: sculling with both arms in front of you elbows bent with hands facing down and in towards your center line
• SCULLING IV: on your side, sculling with one arm in catch position- elbow high, elbow flexed, hand down and facing in towards your center line. Other arm at your side. Similar to S2S drill.