These sets are an extension of the work done in your drill sets. The purpose of DPS is for you to apply the drills you have learned to their stroke as a whole, so that they are more efficient. You should work on increasing the distance covered per stroke to increase feel for the water, strength, and stroke efficiency. This is measured easily by counting the number of strokes you take per length. Your goal, over time as your stroke improves, should be to lower this count. It is important that you perform DPS at a moderate effort to rate mimic a stroke as you would in a race (don’t glide and kick as much as possible in order to get a low count) Two common ways of doing DPS are described below.
· DPS Drill: Do sets of 50 meters/yards and try to reduce your number of strokes per 50 each time.
· Swim as you would for the first 50. As you progress, try to keep the same effort but put more emphasis on an extended reach and full pull through on the back portion of your stroke. A gliding action should occur as you push through the back portion of your stroke and your hand is extended out front.
· A way to test progress is known as the Golf Drill: This drill is used to increase efficiency as well as turnover. You will perform a 50 meter/yard swim and in doing so will (1) get you time and (2) count the number of strokes it took. Add those two numbers together to create a score. The lower the score the better the performance. As you improve you will reduce your score by (1) taking less strokes/increasing their DPS while maintaining the same number of strokes or (2) maintaining their number of strokes and decreasing their overall time or (3) decreasing the number of strokes they take/increasing their DPS and decreasing the amount of time.
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