Freestyle drills that actually improve your stroke
Most adult-onset swimmers improve more from drills than from just swimming more laps. If your stroke has problems, grinding out extra yardage only reinforces bad habits.
Why drills matter for adult swimmers
Kids who grow up swimming competitively develop feel for the water through thousands of hours of practice. Their strokes are grooved in by the time they’re teenagers. Adults who learn to swim later don’t have that foundation. We tend to muscle through the water using fitness rather than technique, which means we work harder for less speed and tire out faster.
Drills isolate specific parts of the stroke so you can focus on one thing at a time. When you’re swimming full freestyle, there’s too much happening simultaneously to fix anything. A drill strips the stroke down to a single element and lets your nervous system learn what the correct movement actually feels like.
The general recommendation from most coaches is to spend about 20% of your swim time on drills. So if you’re swimming 2,000 meters, that’s 400 meters of drill work. I usually put drills at the beginning of a session after warm-up, when I’m fresh enough to focus on form. Doing drills while fatigued at the end of a workout tends to reinforce bad habits rather than build new patterns.
A couple of general tips before I get into specific drills. Use short blade fins for any drill where you’re struggling to maintain forward momentum. And slow down. Drills should be done at a relaxed pace. Speed defeats the purpose.
Catch-up drill: fixing your timing
What it fixes: Early hand entry and windmill-style stroke where both arms are moving simultaneously. This is common in adult swimmers and it kills your distance per stroke.
How to do it: Start with both arms extended in front of you. Pull with your right arm through a complete stroke cycle while your left arm stays extended forward. When your right hand returns to the front and “catches up” to your left hand, pause briefly, then pull with your left arm while the right stays extended. One arm always waits in front while the other completes its stroke.
How much: 4 x 50 meters is a good starting point. Build up to 4 x 100 as you get comfortable.
Common mistakes: Rushing through the pause at the front. The whole point is to have a moment where both hands are forward and you’re gliding. If you skip that pause, you’re just doing regular freestyle with extra steps. Also watch for your waiting hand drifting down below the surface line. Keep it extended at the surface, fingertips pointing forward.
Fingertip drag: cleaning up your recovery
What it fixes: Wide, sweeping arm recovery where your hand swings out away from your body. Also helps with low elbow recovery, which is a common energy waste.
How to do it: Swim normal freestyle, but during the recovery phase (when your arm comes out of the water), drag your fingertips along the surface of the water from your hip to your shoulder before entering the water for the next stroke. Your elbow should be the highest point. Your fingers lightly skim the water surface the entire time.
How much: 4 x 50 meters, focusing on exaggerating the high elbow position.
Common mistakes: Lifting your hand too high above the water instead of dragging it along the surface. The fingertips should literally draw a line in the water. Another mistake is doing this drill fast. Go slow enough that you can feel the water on your fingertips throughout the recovery.
Fist drill: building your catch
What it fixes: Poor feel for the water during the catch phase. Many adult swimmers slip through the water during the pull because they don’t engage their forearms.
How to do it: Swim freestyle with your hands closed in fists. That’s it. No paddles, no gloves. Just make fists and swim normally.
How much: 4 x 25 meters with fists, then immediately swim 25 meters with open hands. The contrast is the important part. Alternate fist and open for 200-300 meters total.
Common mistakes: Squeezing your fists too tight and tensing up your whole arm. Keep the fist loose. You’re just removing your hand as a paddle surface, not trying to crush a tennis ball.
This drill feels terrible at first. You feel like you’re going nowhere, because you are. Your hands are your primary propulsive surface, and closing them removes most of that. What happens is your body starts recruiting your forearms to pull water. When you open your hands back up, the water feels thick. Your hands feel like dinner plates. That sensation is the catch. The contrast between fist and open hand is where the learning happens, so don’t skip the open-hand laps.
Side-kick drill: learning rotation
What it fixes: Swimming flat on your chest instead of rotating from side to side. Flat swimmers rely on their arms for all propulsion and can’t engage their core or hips. This leads to shoulder injuries over time and is less efficient.
How to do it: Lie on your side with your bottom arm extended forward and your top arm resting along your body. Kick on your side for a full length. Your bottom ear should be resting on your extended arm. Your face points to the side wall, not the bottom. Breathe by turning your head up slightly.
Switch sides each length. Use fins if you struggle to maintain momentum.
How much: 4 x 50 meters, alternating sides each 25.
Common mistakes: Rolling onto your stomach. The whole point is staying on your side, which is uncomfortable. Your body wants to flatten out. Fight it. Also, looking down instead of to the side. Keep your head in a neutral position on your extended arm.
This drill feels unstable at first, and that instability is the point. Your body learns to be comfortable balanced on its side, which is the position you should be rotating through during normal freestyle. Once side-kick feels stable, stroke rotation improves noticeably, unlocking power from your hips and core instead of just your shoulders.
Tarzan drill: sighting for open water
What it fixes: Inefficient head-up swimming. If you race triathlons, you need to sight in open water, and doing it badly costs a lot of energy.
How to do it: Swim freestyle with your head completely out of the water, eyes forward, like a water polo player. Yes, your hips will drop. Yes, it’s hard. That’s the training effect. After a length of full Tarzan, swim a length of normal freestyle but practice quick sighting peeks every six to eight strokes.
How much: 2 x 25 meters full Tarzan, then 4 x 50 meters with sighting peeks every six to eight strokes. This one is tiring so keep the volume moderate.
Common mistakes: Not actually looking at anything during the sighting peeks. Pick a target on the wall or pool deck and practice locking onto it in a single quick glance. The peek should be fast. Eyes above water, find the target, head back down. Less than one second.
Tarzan drill builds the neck and upper back strength you need for sighting and trains the quick peek that minimizes disruption to your stroke. Full Tarzan is exhausting, but the exaggerated head position makes the subtle sighting peek feel easy by comparison. Sighting well is one of those skills that separates strong race swimmers from swimmers who accidentally add 200 extra meters to their course.
6-3-6 drill: putting rotation and timing together
What it fixes: Combines rotation, kick timing, and breathing into one drill. Good for intermediate swimmers who’ve done the individual drills and want to start integrating.
How to do it: Kick on your right side for six kicks (like side-kick drill), then take three freestyle strokes, then kick on your left side for six kicks. Repeat. The six kicks on each side force you to hold a rotated position. The three strokes connect the two sides with actual swimming.
How much: 4 x 50 meters. Use fins if needed.
Common mistakes: Rushing through the three strokes to get back to the side kick. Those three strokes should be smooth, deliberate, with full rotation. Also, counting wrong. It’s six kicks, not six seconds. Count actual kicks.
This drill helps you stop thinking of freestyle as an arm-dominant stroke. The six kicks on each side highlight how the stroke flows from one rotated position through center to the other. The arms are just the part that happens during the transition.
Building drills into your training
A simple way to incorporate drills is to use them as part of your warm-up. After an easy 200 meters of swimming, do 4 x 50 meters of a specific drill, then move into your main set. Rotate through different drills across the week.
Don’t try to fix everything at once. Pick the drill that targets your biggest weakness and do it consistently for two to three weeks before adding another. For most adult triathletes, catch-up drill and fist drill give the biggest initial improvements because timing and catch are where the most speed is hiding.
The progress from drill work is slow but real. You won’t feel faster next week. But in a month or two, you’ll notice that your stroke count per length drops, your breathing feels less desperate, and the same pace takes less effort. That’s the technique dividend, and it compounds over time in a way that just swimming more laps never does.
