Dryland Work

For dryland we used the Vasa Trainer and the stability balls. On the Vasa Trainer we focused on only establishing an early vertical forearm. On the Vasa Trainer the swimmer laid on the bench with hands on the paddle handles. Arms are fully extended. I placed my hands on their elbows trying to not allow them to push their elbows down towards their sides. Emphasizing getting the hands to press downward to get the hands below the elbow creating a vertical forearm. This is as far as I had them go, and they repeated this very small motion 10 times.

After the Vasa Trainer they moved to the stability balls which they did butterfly strokes on the stability balls trying to re-create the motion from the vasa trainer to the butterfly strokes done on the stability balls. Also emphasized that the arms extended forward and the arms end up above the ears when the arms extend and then repeat 2 sets of 10 on the stability balls.

In the water, we did 50's Fly on the 1:00 which allowed them to stretch out and work on their strokes. I started off by instructing them to try to re-create the motions that we had worked on during the dryland portion of the workout. Only added one more instruction towards the stroke of butterfly and that was that the hands needed to pull under the body inside of the elbows. I did have to tell a few of them this during the Vasa Trainer exercise, so it wasn't too surprising to see a few pull their hands on the outside. I few diamond pulls with the butterfly stroke helped a few feel this difference, and it seemed to click as we went back to do the 50's working on stroke.

Altogether the Vasa Trainer worked out. Even though I didn't have them use it as a strength building tool as it normally is used, it really helped them just feel a few of the muscles that we want them to activate during the butterfly stroke as they get the vertical forearm in the front of the underwater pull.