Swimming technique, or swimming technique drills are an important part of any serious swim training program.

The type of swimming technique training that is right for you will depend on factors such as your age, swimming ability and level of fitness, but will also depend on what type of goals you have in mind for your swimming. If you intend to compete in all 4 strokes (backstroke, breast stroke, butterfly and freestyle), clearly, a great deal of technical work will be required, especially if you are just learning the strokes.

Learning swimming strokes are a little like learning foreign languages in that they can both be learned in later life, but they are much easier to pick up at an early age.

TRIATHLON SWIMMING

If your goals are triathlon related, it is likely that you will spend most of your training time, and all of your racing time, doing freestyle. In relative terms, freestyle is a fairly non-technical stroke.

Efficiency is critical in a triathlon as, even in a sprint distance triathlon, the distances are relatively long for a swimming race, and you need to preserve the maximum amount of energy in order to be able to complete the bike and run sections.

TRAINING AND DRILLS

Technical training and drills designed to improve your technique and flexibility are extremely important elements of any swim training program. Endurance and power are of course important, and require specific training, but without correct technique, you will be wasting energy unnecessarily, which will have a detrimental effect on your endurance and how fast you can travel through the water.