Start Drills

Important Note to the Viewer

LESSONS: 11 VIDEOS

Starts - Eagle Glide

While in Humble, Texas, we spent some time with our old friend and teammate Coach Mavi. We took notice on their nice starts, and decided to ask their secret. Why do it: Learning to maintain a solid body line without the use of a kick, or stroke, can set you up for better underwater dolphins and to carry more speed into your swimming. How to do it: 1 - Set up your streamline and body line while on the blocks. 2 - Lean over and drive into the water while maintaining that line. 3 - Hold your glide for as long as you can, until your body reaches the surface. How to do it really well (the fine points): Do your best to NOT go too deep. You'll notice that without the initial kick, the body will have a tendency of continuing it's downward line. Also, don't use your feet to stabilize. Keep the toes pointed. To advance forward, establish the glide, then add a few dolphin kicks, then go back into the line to keep the focus on body stability. Practice this enough, and eventually, you'll look as good as this 12 year old. Very nice!

Starts - St. Andrews Starts

While working with Sid Cassidy and Ramon Walton at St. Andrews Aquatics, they shared with us their method of teaching a piercing start. Why do it: A clean entry can allow you to carry more velocity into the water, and into your underwater dolphins. How to do it: 1 - Start by getting the swimmer to understand the start is ATHLETIC... Have them JUMP as far as they can from the blocks. 2 - Move off the block and have the swimmer lean over in the streamline position, and while remaining solid from the shoulders to the fingers, slowly fall and jump into the water. 3 - Initiate making the line active, by swinging the arms a few times, the flowing into the streamline line, and in rhythm, fall and jump into the water. 4 - Move it to the blocks, and do a few starts. How to do it really well (the fine points): When doing the leaned over position from the side, the focus is on the FLAT BACK. Give the swimmer enough time in step 2, to really isolate that flat line, before moving to the active action in step 3. Don't rush it, and your swimmers will be slipping into the water, carrying great momentum into their underwater dolphins.

Starts - Forward Dive Sequence Step #1

If you've always wanted to learn how to do a racing dive off the blocks, or if you've ever tried to teach someone how to dive off the blocks, here's a fun drill that is step 1 in the learning process. Why Do It: When swimmers, especially young swimmers, are learning to dive, they often have trouble controlling their legs. This young swimmer enters the water with his arms in streamline, but his legs flip up just as they enter the water. When the legs flip up like this, it's like opening a huge parachute, just at the point when you are going your fastest. Your racing dives will be faster, cleaner, and a lot more comfortable if you can learn to control your legs and feet. The idea is to hold the legs in streamline and let everything slip through one hole in the water. This drill, which is Step 1 in a 5-part series, will help you learn to control your legs and feet. It will help you develop a nice CLEAN entry, with your hands, torso, and feet all in STREAMLINE How to Do It: Get a noodle. Many pools have these on deck for water-aerobics classes but, if not, you can find one at your local discount store for a couple of dollars. Stand in the shallow end and place the noodle out in front of you. Make sure the water is at least up to your waist when you try this. Take a big breath and dive OVER the noodle. Try to send your hands over and DOWN toward the bottom. If you send your hands OUT toward the other end, you may end up landing ON the noodle with your stomach. You want to get your stomach up and OVER the noodle. Next, focus on getting your legs and feet to slide OVER the noodle. Notice how this swimmer keeps her legs together and her toes pointed, and how her feet and legs seem to FLOW right over the noodle. This swimmer is now doing a better job of getting OVER the noodle and his feet are together. But he'll get a cleaner entry if he can point his toes as they slip across the noodle. Here's a good image that you can take to the pool with you when you practice. Remember to dive up and over and DOWN into the water. You'll get a cleaner entry if your toes are pointed and if you let them just SLIDE over the noodle. Hey! Just TRY IT! Have some fun, and come back next week for Step 2.

Starts - Forward Dive Sequence Step #2

Here's Step 2 in our 4-step sequence for learning the forward dive. Even if you already know how to start from the blocks, this drill is fun and will reinforce the key skill of getting your hands in streamline as you enter the water. Why Do It: Learning how to dive off the blocks can be a scary and painful experience. But if you take time to practice a few basic skills in the SHALLOW END, you'll learn how to control your moves in a SAFE environment. In Step 1, you used a Styrofoam noodle to help control your legs and feet during the forward dive. In Step 2, you'll again use a noodle. but this time you'll be focusing on the FRONT END of your body and learning to control your head and arms for a streamlined entry. Here's what you're aiming for as the final result - a start where every part of your body enters the water through a single hole. How to Do It: This drill is all about streamline, so let's make sure you've got the basics. A good streamline starts with the hands. Place one hand over the other and lock your top thumb around the bottom hand. This is called the power-lock position or the thumb-lock position, and it's how you should hold your hands when you push off the wall or dive off the blocks. Once you power-lock your hands, you need to power-lock your head. Extend your arms and clamp your head right between your shoulders. For a great start, keep your head in this position, with eyes down and arms held tight against your head. OK. Time to get in the water. Stand in the shallow end and place a noodle out in front of you. Make sure the water is at least up to your chest when you try this. As you get ready to leap up and over the noodle, get your hands in power-lock. As you jump up, lock your head between your shoulders and DO NOT LOOK UP. You should actually SEE the noodle as you go over it. Keep your hands and forearms locked and RIGID until your feet slide over the noodle. The important things to focus on are keeping the hands in powerlock and keeping the head tight between your arms. Keep practicing until you can maintain a tight streamline with your arms, head, and shoulders until your feet are all the way over the noodle. This drill is really fun and is a great learning tool, even if you already know how to dive from the blocks. Give it a try, and stay tuned for Step 3.

Starts - Forward Dive Sequence Step #3

Here's Step 3 in our 4-step sequence for learning the forward dive. If you've never gone off the blocks, this is an essential step! But even if you're comfortable diving from the blocks, starting from the side of the pool can help you try some new things with your hands and feet. Why Do It: In Step 3, you'll take the noodle to the deep end of the pool, and use it to break some old habits and reinforce good technique in the forward dive. How to Do It: You'll need a partner and a noodle for this one, and at least 9 feet of water. Please DO NOT try this in the shallow end or in water less than 9 feet deep. Have your partner sit or stand on the side and hold the noodle 1 or 2 feet above the water and about 1 or 2 feet away from the side. The distance from the wall depends on the comfort level of the swimmer. Stand on the side and curl your toes over the edge to get a good grip. Put your hands in powerlock and then get your HEAD in powerlock. Before you dive, REMEMBER how it felt to dive over the noodle in the shallow end. Remember how you kept your head locked between your shoulders and how you looked BACK at the noodle as you went over. Keep those images and feelings in your mind as you crouch down and then dive up and over the noodle. Make a clean, straight arc with your body, and try to have everything flow through one hole in the water. The hands enter first, followed by the arms, head and shoulders, torso, legs, and finally the feet. If you continue to hit your chest, or if your feet are still flying up behind you, take the noodle and go back to the shallow end for more practice. Keep practicing until you can enter the water with your body in a long, clean line. And be sure to come back next week for Step 4.

Starts - Forward Dive Sequence Step #4

When we started our sequence of drills for learning how to do a forward dive off the blocks, we THOUGHT it would take just four steps. But we found that getting from this which is Step 3 ... to this... which is the ultimate, would take more than 4 steps, and would call for some troubleshooting along the way. In Step 4 you'll use a pull buoy to help you control your legs during the forward dive. It's a troubleshooting drill, but it's fun to try even if you DON'T have this particular problem. Why Do It: When swimmers are learning to dive off the blocks, one of the most common problems is that they lose control of their legs. This young swimmer allows his legs to flip up just as he enters the water. Here's a Masters swimmer who does the same thing. When the legs flip up like this, it's like opening a huge parachute just as you enter the water. What you're aiming for is a clean entry, one in which the hands, head, hips, legs, and feet all slip through one hole in the water. How to Do It: If your legs are still flipping up, even after practicing your forward dives in the shallow end and from the side of the pool, it's time to try the PULL BUOY. Stand on the blocks (or on the side of the pool) with your toes curled over the edge. Place a pull buoy between your knees. Your goal is to dive into the water and NOT LET GO of the pull buoy. Keep your hands and arms in streamline, but your real focus should be on your legs and toes and NOT LETTING GO of the pull buoy. By holding onto the pull buoy, you will automatically keep your legs together and you will be encouraged to keep your knees from bending. Try several dives and have someone watch you to see if your legs are bent or straight as you enter the water. Have fun experimenting, and stay tuned for Step 5.

Starts - Forward Dive Sequence Step #5

Here is the long-awaited 5th step in the Forward Dive Sequence. While you really had it all put together with step 4, this final step fine tunes just a bit using a standard tool for swimming, the stretch cord. Why Do It: For years, coaches have used the stretch cord to encourage swimmers to dive out FARTHER on their starts. The theory was that you'd travel farther... and get there faster... if you flew through the air rather than plunge through the water with all its resistance. But we've learned a lot in the past few years about starts. This 5th step speaks not just to those trying to learn the start, but also to those trying to master a fast start. How to Do It: 1. If you're new to this sequence, make sure you revisit the first 4 steps. • Step 1 • Step 2 • Step 3 • Step 4 2. Now, step up to the blocks and dive in. Have a friend sight, and mark, the spot where you enter the water. 3. At that spot, take the stretch cord, and tie it across the lane line. While there are other products you can use to mark a spot in the water, if you ultimately end up hitting the cord, it will stretch and won't hurt. 4. Your goal now is not to dive OVER the cord, but to spear your body directly into the water and land prior to the cord. 5. While you won't be going out nearly so far, there are a couple advantages of going into the water a bit sooner. • You have less chance of smacking your body on the water. • The sooner you get to the water, the sooner you can start using it to propel your body forward. • You'll carry more momentum into the water and this will help propel you into faster swimming. How to Do It Really Well (the Fine Points) Since you're going to be hitting the water much faster, make sure you keep your hands tight on entry. There's a chance they can come apart when you hit the water this fast. Don't forget to point your toes so you don't drag your feet. Also, of UTMOST importance when practicing this, or any starts: Make sure your pool is deep enough to practice safely. This technique, while cleaning up the process, may initially cause you to go a bit deeper in the water. This dive should only be practiced in a minimum of seven (7) feet of water.

Starts - Deep Pool Vertical Entry

So you've got a big group of kids you're trying to teach starts to, but you have to be safe, and run them all through a skill quickly and repeatedly... start from the end. Why do it: Teaching a rigid body on entry will help your swimmers pierce through the entry and carry huge momentum into the water. This simple drill teaches them if their body is loose, or tight as they enter. The deeper they go, the better they've done. How to do it: 1) With all start work, safety is key. The swimmers can send themselves off, but they have to wait for the swimmer in front of them to come up passed the flags and start swimming. 2) The first step is to simply JUMP into the water. Hands at your sides. Jump UP not out, so your body can stay in a perfectly vertical orientation. No leaning back or forward. 3) Stay in this rigid stance and have your body travel as deep as possible, hopefully to the bottom of our 16' deep pool. 4) Next, have the swimmers do the same exercise, initiating the jump with them in a full streamline position. Jump UP not out, and try to stay in line the entire way to the bottom. How to do it really well (the fine points): The biggest thing is to POINT the toes. When you're going to do the actual start, you want to make sure the feet are cleaned up as well, and you want to build a feeling of slipping through the surface. If you can keep your body in a perfectly straight line in this drill, and head all the way to the bottom of a deep pool, you're going to start to understand just how rigid you're going to need to hold your body off the blocks. Any leaning will throw you off line on entry, and those who make almost no splash on entry are starting to understand.

Starts - Avoiding Bubbles

Developing the ability to sneak through the surface on a start can help you carry more speed into your swimming. While there's no avoiding carrying air into the pool during a start, the more air you drag into the water with you, the more disruptive that start was. The bigger the splash above the surface, the more speed you scrubbed off on that entry. Just like great divers spearing through the water with a RIPPED entry, swimmers can carry more speed into the pool by diving through a smaller hole. The goal being that the sooner you escape from the air you've dragged into the pool, the sooner you'll have a surface to press on for your dolphin kicks. The angle of your entry can impact this, as can the ability to hit the water IN streamline. These are simply illustrations of swimmers landing correctly, and incorrectly. The most important part about what they're doing is... practicing starts with focus to make them better, and seeking feedback not only from the feel of slipping through the water, but by checking their breakout points, and speed. The goal should be... drag down as little air as possible, and escape from that air as soon as you can.

Starts - Cord Breakouts

Want really fast breakouts from your starts? Here's a quick drill that will help. Why do it: Maintaining your speed from the blocks is probably one of the most important aspects of fast swimming. Slow down too soon and you may have already lost the race. How to do it: 1) Take a normal stretch cord, and shorten it by looping it around the back of the blocks. This length can be varied depending on the strength of the swimmer, and what part of the breakout you want to work on. 2) Have the swimmers do a start to test the resistance of the cord. You want the cord to either work on the initial dolphin, or the breakout. Today, we're working on the breakout, so the cord is a bit longer. 3) Do a bunch of starts, with the swimmers taking a couple strokes through the breakout, and this should be against very strong resistance. How to do it really well (the fine points): You can time them, or vary which stroke you use on your breakout. Where is your shoulder when you breakout, and are you popping up or creating a smooth transition to the surface? When doing this correctly, with full explosion and intensity, you should only do 5 - 10 of these. Don't keep doing them if you're not able to maintain full speed through the entire exercise. For safety, whenever a cord is wrapped or used with part of it out of the water, use a cord with a safety strap INSIDE the cord, or double check that nobody is behind the block. Swimmers rarely get hurt if a cord breaks as the water disapates the energy of the snap. Bystanders or people behind the cord are generally the ones who get hurt. Be very careful.

Starts - Box Jumps

Want to develop a great start that gets you to the other end in about 10 seconds? Learn to jump like Cullen Jones! Why Do It: How quickly you leave the blocks is part of the race. Entering the water with power and speed is a good thing! How to Do It: 1. First, whenever doing dryland exercises, make sure you're supervised by your coach or a professional. Safety first. 2. There are boxes, or platforms, specifically made for this exercise. Pick one that's easy for you to step up on. If you can step up on it, you can step down off it. 3. Stand in a power position, with your feet about shoulder width apart. 4. Jump UP on to the platform, and then step back down. 5. Repeat. How to Do It Really Well (the Fine Points): Use your arms to help gain a bit of momentum. Try to land on the box as softly as possible. When you've mastered the box at the current height, try a higher box... or create your own challenge.