When should you isolate specific swim skills?

Skill development is a huge aspect of getting faster in the swim. All the fitness in the world isn’t going to help you overcome poor technical ability. If improving skills is critical for long-term development, the question becomes what’s the most effective way to do so. 

You’ll see some coaches advocate for just swimming and thinking with great focus. You’ll see others who recommend very isolated drills. Who’s right? Depending on the situation, they both are!

If you can create the change you want during regular swimming, then you should practise that skill while swimming. It’s the most specific way to practise. 

But if you can’t make the change, or you’re really struggling to feel the new skill, you’re going to need some extra help, and that’s where more isolated drills become valuable. They can help you feel the key skill, and then you can be more effective in practising that skill while swimming.

Here’s a practical example. Let’s say you’re trying to move more water with your arms with each stroke. You could start off by counting your strokes and trying to take fewer. Doing so is going to encourage you to have a better pull and move more water with each stroke. 

If that gets the job done, just keep using that strategy as you’ve found something that works.

If that’s not working, you could try using underwater recovery, which is a much simpler activity, allowing you to focus on just pulling straight back. 

If that helps, and you’re able to get a better feel for moving more water, then you can start mixing in some stroke count swimming to further encourage yourself to take big powerful strokes. 

By using the drill, you’re getting a better understand of what to do, and then making it happen while swimming.

If that works, great. But if you’re still struggling, you may need some more help. In this case, you could perform wall pull. Obviously, this is a really isolated drill as it’s not even swimming! 

However, it can help you get a feel for the right positions to put the arms in, and it can help you feel how to create pressure on the water in that position. With that clearer understanding, you can go back to underwater recovery and full-stroke swimming trying to recreate those same positions.

This same process applies to any skill. If you don’t need the extra help, emphasise full-stroke swimming with intention. But if you need more help, using some sort of drill can be really useful. 

At first, use the drills that are as close to regular swimming as possible. If they don’t work, it’s okay to use more and more isolated drills. Once you get the feel you’re looking for, start trying to apply that skill to more advanced drills and during regular swimming.