If you’re having a hard time identifying a good backstroke pull, this drill may help.

Why do it:
Making sure you’re using a nice bent arm catch in your backstroke is very important.  Not everyone can really identify how to do it, or what it means.  Many of those same people have a nice freestyle catch, so that’s a good place to start.

How to do it:
1 - Start on your side with your face looking down.  Fins make it easier to focus on the sculling hand, so put some on if you find you’re kicking too hard.
2 - While on your side, initiate a freestyle front scull with the lower arm.
3 - Try to keep the upper arm very still, from the shoulder to the elbow, and only use the forearm and hand to scull.
4 - When you feel comfortable with the freestyle scull, rotate your head UP to air.  You’ll notice that when our swimmer rotates the head up, the body shifts more toward the side.
5 - Continue sculling on your side, starting with the more familiar freestyle scull, then rotating the head up.
6 - The important part of this drill is to try to maintain the feeling that is set up with the freestyle scull as you move more toward a backstroke scull.

How to do it really well (the fine points):
The idea here is that the arm can initiate the catch in freestyle and backstroke the same way.  For certain swimmers, thinking of freestyle on the back helps them make that connection of the early, bent elbow catch.

To move this forward, start the length on your side with your head facing up.  Focus on the same scull you’ve been doing, only this time, about halfway down the length, initiate a backstroke recovery and start swimming backstroke.  Repeat, drill, repeat, swim… then swim backstroke with a better bent elbow catch.

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Backstroke - Freestyle Pull on Your Back