Strengthen your freestyle catch with this 4,000m swim workout featuring targeted drills to improve hand acceleration and water grip for faster swimming.
One of the best parts about swimming fast is the moment you “get” the catch.
That moment when your hands and forearms grip a bunch of water and your lats and shoulders fire, pushing your body across the surface of the pool like a greased-up torpedo.
But a strong and clean catch can be a little infuriating to develop. Catching water can often feel like trying to catch sand.
The swim workout below is designed to increase your ability to feel this phase of your freestyle so that you can pull/push more water than ever before.
We’ll try out some different drills, including one of my favorite freestyle drills for building a lightning-fast freestyle.
Let’s dive in.
A Swim Workout for Building a Strong Freestyle Catch
For this workout, grab your swim goggles, kickboard, paddles, and your trusty swim snorkel.
Warm-Up
800 choice stroke alternating 100 swim, 100 kick (build the last 25 of each 100 to around 80% effort)
Pre-Set
8×25 freestyle with swim snorkel on :40
- ODDS: front scull
- EVENS: Build to 90% effort
Main Set
5×100 freestyle with swimmer’s snorkel on 1:40.
- Focus on swimming with rhythm and a symmetrical stroke.
10×50 freestyle as 25 Long Dog Drill, 25 swim build on 1:00
- Set the catch during the drill 25s, and then carry over the strong focus on the catch to the build swim.
10×25 freestyle fast on :40.
- Use that perfect catch at speed.
5×100 freestyle with paddles, breathing every 3 on 1:40
- Breathe every 3 strokes to maintain stroke symmetry. Focus on gripping lots of water with each stroke.
10×50 freestyle as 25 Accelo-hands Drill, 25 swim build on 1:00
- Accelo-hands Drill is where swimmers purposely increase the acceleration of the hands from the catch through the push phase. Aim to 2x hand velocity during the pull while maintaining a regular arm recovery velocity.
10×25 freestyle fast on :40
Focus on combining a strong catch and aggressive pull to “grip” lots of water and move quickly across the pool.
Warm-Down
10×50 freestyle on 20s rest between repetitions
- ODDS: Choice swim
- EVENS: Kick w/ board
Total Distance: 4,000m
Catch Status: Strong
More Freestyle Tips and Workouts
- Try This Swim Workout for a Silky-Smooth Freestyle. Ready to build a smoother freestyle? Here’s a workout that will help you swim smoother than ever.
- 8 Benefits of a Strong Freestyle Kick. Wondering why you should be spending more time kicking? Here are the benefits of training your freestyle kick.
ABOUT OLIVIER POIRIER-LEROY
Olivier Poirier-Leroy is a former national-level swimmer, author, swim coach, and certified personal trainer. He’s the author of YourSwimBook, a ten-month logbook for competitive swimmers.
He’s also the author of the best-selling mental training workbook for competitive swimmers, Conquer the Pool: The Swimmer’s Ultimate Guide to a High-Performance Mindset.
It combines sport psychology research, worksheets, anecdotes, and examples of Olympians past and present to give swimmers everything they need to conquer the mental side of the sport.
Ready to take your mindset to the next level in the pool?
Click here to learn more about Conquer the Pool.
