Effortless Form: Butterfly Module One - Timing And Kick In the first module we are going to cover the timing of the breathing, kick and recovery. Weʼll also cover the most effective way to kick in butterfly for maximum propulsion. The timing is the key to a fluent butterfly stroke. The drills in this module are designed to help you get a feel for the right timing of each part of the stroke. If you are finding any of these drills difficult, you can wear fins as this will help you when you are starting out. Letʼs get into it. Standing Recovery This drill is designed to help you practice the recovery and breathing timing of the stroke. Find somewhere in the pool that is waist to belly button depth high. Stand with your feet shoulder width apart and lean over so your upper body is just above the water. Start with your hands behind your hips and bring them over in the recovery stroke. Your little finger should exit the water first and your thumb should be pointed down as your arms come over. Enter the water shoulder width apart. To breath, lift your head when your hands pass your shoulders in the pull through. Your face should begin to re enter the water as they are coming over on the recovery. Practice this drill slowly and get comfortable with the technique.
Front Kick (Hands By Side) This drill helps you become comfortable with the kick and raising your head to breathe. To do this drill, kick on your front with your hands by your side. Every two dolphin kicks, lift your head just out of the water and take a breath. You can see Jeremy breathing every four or five kicks which is also okay to do. I prefer for swimmers to breath every two kicks as it helps to become familiar with the timing of the breathing in butterfly swimming. Keyhole Drill This is one of my favorite butterfly drills because it isolates the pull through and helps swimmers time the pull and breathing. This drill starts by sculling in the water with your arms sculling back and forth and doing freestyle kick. When you are ready, do a dolphin kick and a butterfly pull through and take a breath during the pull. You arms should pop out of the water at the end of the pull as you drive yourself forward. The pull through should be in the shape of an old style keyhole, hence the name of the drill. To get back into the sculling position, bring your arms back under your body and begin sculling again. One Pull Four Kicks This drill is the same as normal butterfly swim but instead of doing two kicks per pull, we do four kicks. The extra two kicks are done after youʼre hands have entered the water. Your
body should be roughly 20cm below the surface. This drill will help you familiarize with the timing of the kick and the pull together. It also promotes good body position. You can see Jeremy is flat in the water during the extra kicks. If you donʼt consider yourself a strong butterfly swimmer, I suggest using fins for this drill in the beginning.
Module Two - Arms and Recovery This next module contains drills that will help you pull through with power, enter in the correct position and develop a recovery that will rest your arms each stroke so you have more energy to pull through the water with. As we mentioned in module one, your hands should enter shoulder width apart, your pull through should be in the shape of a traditional keyhole and your thumbs should point down as your arms recover over the top. During your pull through, you should catch the water strongly at the start of your pull. Another important thing is to bring your arms over, instead of forward. Forcing your arms forward will drop your elbow and make it hard to pull through. Having your thumbs pointing down in the recovery will help bring the arms over. Entry Drill This drill might look a bit silly, but itʼs an effective way to get a feel for where your hands should be entering the water. With each dolphin kick, enter your hands in the water shoulder width apart. Consistently enter and exit your hands at the top the stroke and familiarise yourself with the entry position. Take a breath every so often so you donʼt tire too quickly. Limit yourself to 25 meters at a time with this drill. Single Arm (Side breath) The next two drills are variation of the the single arm drill. In this drill we breath to side, rather than the front. Itʼs easier to get rhythm and momentum breathing this way. Itʼs a good drill to practice a clean entry, so no bubbles on the hand, and feeling power in your pull through. Have one arm by the side, and the other arms puling through as normal. Remember two kicks to every stroke.
Single Arm (Front breath) This variation is a harder to perform, and I only recommend doing it every now and then as I find the breathing to side is more beneficial. It is quite an advanced drill so fins may be needed. You do it exactly the same as the previous drill but you breath to front just like you would in normal butterfly. You get the same benefits as the other variation but this is a bit more challenging.
Module Three - Momentum And Speed This module is designed to be more advanced and provides some challenging drills once youʼve gotten the hang of the drills from the previous modules. I recommend wearing fins for these drills at least initially while you learn these drills, even if youʼre an experienced swimmer. You will find these drills are based around finding momentum in your stroke and increasing your speed. These are the keys to maintaining your stamina in butterfly. Single Stroke - Start From Hips This drill is similar to the keyhole drill in module one, except we start our stroke with our hands by our hips. So to begin, kick with your hands by your hips and be on top of the water. When youʼre ready, bring your arms over in the recovery and take one butterfly pull, remembering to flick your hands at the back as they exit. I find this drill is also very good for timing your stroke, because you need to time your kick and pull right in order to start a recovery stroke from your hips which can be difficult in the beginning. As I mentioned earlier, fins will help you learn this drill right. Biondi Drill +1 I learned this drill when I was young swimmer, and my coach said the drill came from Matt Biondi, the legendary butterfly swimmer swimmer from the 80ʼs and 90ʼs. This drill is quite similar to our last drill. Rather than starting from the hips, we start with our hands at the top
of the stroke and we take one pull, and then a full stroke, flicking our hands out the back after the stroke. We then return our arms to the front by bringing them under the body. This drill is good for finding your stroke rhythm. Biondi +2 This drill is a variation of the previous drill, the only difference is we take an extra stroke. You can see Jeremy keeps relaxed throughout the drill a works on stretching out his body and keeping a good body position. Blockhead drill Just like a body builder uses weights for resistance to build his strength, this drill uses the frontal resistance of the blockhead position to work our kick harder than we normally would. Blockhead is simply crossing your arms over your head, holding on to each tricep with your opposite hand. Do 3-5 kicks on your front and then take 2 strokes, making sure you breath on the second stroke. If you need more air feel free to breath on both strokes. You can do the blockhead kicking on top or under the water.
Module Four - Butterfly Swim Now weʼve come to the final module, which is the entire butterfly stroke. Putting together everything you have learnt over the the last three modules will help you swim a smooth and fast butterfly. The keys to remember are: - Keep a low profile in the water, when you take a breath donʼt come too high out of the water - Point your thumbs down in the recovery - Enter shoulder width apart - Pull through with a clean stroke, no bubbles on the hands is the goal. - Two kicks to every pull - Bring your hands over, not forward Swimming well is more than just doing drills. It comes down to eating right, doing strength training, training consistently and setting yourself goals along the way. Practice these drill regularly and you will see results.