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Starts & Turns - Rocket Launchers!

Posted by Barbara Hummel on May 13, 2008 08:00AM (21,286 views)

Here’s a cool way to have some fun while improving your swimming. Rocket Launchers are a form of plyometrics, which is a fancy word for any exercise where a muscle is super-stretched before it’s contracted. In Rocket Launchers, you’re stretching (or loading) the quads as you crouch under the surface, then you’re explosively CONTRACTING the quads as you jump up.


Why Do Them:
Rocket Launchers are a great way to increase your strength, power, and speed off the blocks, and off every wall. You could do Rocket Launchers on land, but it’s a lot more fun and a lot less dangerous to do them in the water. In the water, you don’t have to worry about stressing the bones in your legs, ankles, and toes.

How to Do Them:
1. Stand in the shallow end of the pool.
2. Crouch down as low as you can under water.
3. Jump as high as you can. Keep your arms at your sides and try to point your toes and get your feet into STREAMLINE as you shoot into the air.
4. When gravity brings you back down, crouch immediately and get ready for another leap. You want to spend as little time under water as possible.
5. Do about 5 leaps without stopping, then push off immediately into whatever swim or kick interval you’re doing.

How to Do Them Really Well:
1. Get EXPLOSIVE. Crouch low and try to jump so high that your feet clear the surface of the water.
2. Get STREAMLINED. Point your toes and hold your feet and legs together as you leap.
3. Keep your movement CONTINUOUS. Don’t pause between leaps. Find a rhythm and stick with it.

How to Do Them Safely:
1. Save Rocket Launchers until you have a strong base level of aerobic conditioning, strength, and flexibility. This is one of the final steps in race preparation, not the first step.
2. Don’t do too many all at once. Start with just 3 to 5 and then take a break. And make sure your muscles are warmed up before you start. Try these near the middle or end of practice. And save these for days when you don’t have any soreness in your knees.


Tags Starts, Turns


Responses

Responded May 15, 2008 04:51PM

Barbara, we have a drill in common, what do you think about my version?

http://www.goswim.tv/forums/2/topics/5305
Responded May 15, 2008 05:45PM

Yeah, your version is good with the dolphin kicks. Nice one.

I like to do the Rocket Launchers within a breaststroke kick set. Whatever you do after the jumps is maybe less important than the jumps themselves. I think they really improve your power off the walls, and improve your sense of timing for starting the drive at just the right time.

Responded Feb 03, 2010 11:40PM

On my team we do a drill similar to this one, but we are in the deep end of the pool...we go down the the bottom and get into the same position as said in the video and then push off as hard as possible and on our way up to the surface we do dolphin kick until our bellybutton/hips are above water, we usually do about 5 in a row then take a breather for 30 seconds, and do it again. :)
Responded Feb 04, 2010 03:34PM

Hi, Vanessa. I'm now coaching in a deeper pool and we've been doing the deep-water rocket launchers, too. They're addictive! And they really do help you develop a more stable and powerful pushoff. Look for this as a Go Swim Drill-of-the-Week in the near future.
Responded Feb 04, 2010 10:17PM

They are very addictive!! We also do another one with the same idea of rocket launchers, but we get on the blocks and jump from there to see how high we can get, we call them power jumps. And I certainly will look for it, but I'm new to this site so I'm still just figuring it out now hahaha
Responded Mar 11, 2011 05:44PM

We do these in a streamlined position (arms as well as feet, continuous for 15 seconds and on the whistle straight into a 25m free sprint for about 15 minutes with maybe 15 seconds rest at the end of the sprint.
On a slightly different point we try to get the swimmers to push off with their feet about hip width apart to give a more stable launch platform, just as we ask them to do when driving off the wall at a turn. They then snap together on the way up. The youngsters love them, the older swimmers have another view of that part of the session!

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