Swimming Drill: Thumb to Thigh

Besides doing pilates on the reformer (with my daughter agian!) today, I did a short swimming workout. I would have done 30+ minutes, but my daughter really wanted to play. So, I asked her to let me have 20 minutes to swim laps and then we'd play. After doing the reformer today, do you know what she 'played'? Aqua Yoga! It was a pretty good workout, too!

Anyway, I found a 'new' site called "trinewbies" and have been reading over it the past 2 days. I wanted to find new drills to improve my swimming. This site has 4 drills and says you might work on one at a time, so that's what I did! Tonight, I started with the "thumb to thigh" drill. www.trinewbies.com/tno_s
wim/tno_swimarticle_13.asp Basically, this drill helps you to make sure you are pulling the maximum amount of water by keeping your hand underwater until your thumb grazes your thigh! (You can read more on the site.)

So, tonight's swim workout was as follows:
20 x 25 yards of "thumb to thigh" with fins w/4 breaths between 25s
100 yards freestyle w/o fins
100 yards freestyle with paddles
100 yards freestyle w/o fins...FAST!

Oh! My coach had suggested I use the paddles to develop arm strength. And, the lady at the pool store warned me to be careful with me...you can hurt your shoulders! So, I decided just to do the 100, and WOW!!! you can certainly feel the difference! I swam it SLOW!

I'm a little uncertain about what I'll do tomorrow. Hubby is out of town so I can't wake up & run or bike. And, it's my dd's last day of summer! I might either swim in our pool in the morning or do a Jillian Michael's DVD or something off of NetFlix. Or, I might see if my dd wants to go for a run or bike ride in the morning, though it'll be pretty slow.

On Thursday I have my first 'real' HILL workout! And, I need to do Strength Training. On Friday I plan on SPINning! Then, Saturday is my long run...7 miles. And, I'll probably bike Sunday morning and take Monday off. We'll see, though! But, that's the general plan for now.

With my 5K, 3 half marathons, and sprint triathlon coming up, my basic plan is to: run 3x, swim 2x, bike 2x (1 on the road & 1 spinning), pilates 1x, other strength training 1x. That's 9 workouts, but with my dd in school I should have time! At least until my volunteer 'job' starts in less than a month!