Do you do drills?

[csh_01]

I've been focusing on increasing my endurance this last month or so. I picked up a couple of triathlon books and it looks like drills are an important part of training.

I'm wondering, do you do drills? Have you found it to be effective?

[eclectic]

I was a swimmer first and I do swimming drills everytime I go out.

I am just learning to run and I haven't started drills yet but I will get to them eventually

I am bad - i don't do cycling drills but I know i should but I have to learn some first

Drills are good and really help in the long run

(the swimming drills are especially good for helping keep an efficient stroke)

[Tri'inMomma]

I was a swimmer growing up too, so I also do swimming drills when I go out - freestyle catchups, kicking drills, etc.

I started going to a triathlon training group 4 weeks ago and we do run and bike drills as well. We do a lot of Fartlek training with our weekly runs (usu 30 sec all out and 30 sec recovery or 1 min hard and 1 min recovery, sometimes they pyramid them - 1 min hard, 1 recover, 2 hard .... etc), running catch up lines for longer distances, in addition to about 5 drills on the grass: high knees, soldier, backwards running, grapevine and side to sides.

Bike is new to me so I am still learning all the bike drills. Today we are supposed to bike for 45 minutes as follows:
-15 minute warm up
-15 minute workout (openers or pick-ups) - hard for a full minute then actively recover for 4 minutes. Do this three (3) times
-15 minute recovery

I can already tell a difference in my running. I think without the run drills we would be lulled into training at our usual pace and wouldn't push ourselves to pass the uncomfortable threshold needed to train our hearts and legs to go faster.

[rocknrollgirl]

I do drills in the pool and also running. I am an off road triathlete so they are tough to do on a mt bike. The terrain will determine what type of bike workout it will be.

You HAVE to do them if you want to get faster. I did running drills once a week all winter and one pool workout was devoted to hard drills. They will make a world of difference.
The nice thing about those workouts is although they are very hard, they can be a bit shorter. For instance, my running workouts were on 30-35 mins doing drills. Hard and fast. Good stuff.

Good Luck.

[csh_01]

That would be so awesome to have a triathlon training group!

My fear has been that I wouldn't be able to do the distance of my first sprint. I can now do each of the components individually and I have a few bricks under my belt which gives me a little more confidence. Now, if I can train myself to do it more efficiently and faster....


Where do you find drills? Do you have a triathlon book? Wesbite? Or a book for each activity? What are your favorites?

[roadie gal]

I took a few swim lessons early in the season. My instructor was very into doing drills. I got so bored with them that I can't make myself do them at all now.

I would like someone to show me how they help rather than just have my do them (like showing me what I'm doing wrong and then have me do it correctly and THEN point out a drill to help me).

[rocknrollgirl]

Running drills
Swimmimg drills

You will find tons. For running, I run hill repeats, and sprints, negative splits, which means go out at one pace and turn around and come back faster....

In the pool, there are also tons. I do a few at every workout and then do interval training.

[eclectic]

I took a few swim lessons early in the season. My instructor was very into doing drills. I got so bored with them that I can't make myself do them at all now.

I would like someone to show me how they help rather than just have my do them (like showing me what I'm doing wrong and then have me do it correctly and THEN point out a drill to help me).

That is too bad because drills really help in swimming. I found the main ones we did helped with body position and timing.
Also Drills are not to be confused w/ speedwork intervals. All the drills we did were at a nice easy pace so our form stayed correct.

The session my swim coach laid out consisted pretty much of this format

600 yards warm up (this varied among freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, kick only, done at a nice easy pace)

Then we would only do about 400 yds of drills (finger tip drag, catch up, hesitation etc - but she would mix them up so it would only be about 50 yds of each)
The drills were where she would look at our strokes, make corrections and we could practice the new form

THEN we would do about 800 - 1000 yds of varying speedwork intervals

Lastly we would finish out with 2- 400 yards of cool down.

all told we would get 21-2500 yds done in an hour and only 400 -600 of them would be drills. So if you don't overdo them they don't get boring. AND we did such a wide variety of them they were always a challenge.

Now that she is not doing the program anymore I still do the same format when i go practice on my own. But it isn't the same I don't push as hard when I don't have swim mates beside me who I want to beat on the interval work

[Torrilin]

I took a few swim lessons early in the season. My instructor was very into doing drills. I got so bored with them that I can't make myself do them at all now.

I would like someone to show me how they help rather than just have my do them (like showing me what I'm doing wrong and then have me do it correctly and THEN point out a drill to help me).

Good swim instructors will point out form errors. They'll also mix things up a lot. Warmups (both in and out of the water), form drills, speed drills, safety drills... Honestly, I find swim drills fun. This probably makes me a sick puppy, but *shrugs*.

If you poke around some, many Red Cross Swimming (ie, top level) instructors are quite good. I used to sit in on one session of the top level class at my pool every summer even after I passed my test, just for the practice. Helped cut down on my tendency to swim in circles (and a whole host of other bad habits). Free lesson time was one of the perks for volunteering to help teach swimming. Lifeguard classes can also be good if you need structure, tho the drills there will be slanted differently. A lifeguard cert never hurt anyone tho.

IME, the instructors for private lessons are not as good. They just don't push you as hard as a regular class will.

[Reesha]

Swimming is my weakest link in triathlons. Actually, running is pretty weak too. Quite literally, I didn't think I could run a mile a month ago and now I can at least complete a sprint distance tri... slowly. The bike is awesome because I always pass people and that feels awesome.

Right now, I'm comfortable swimming a 400 m breast stroke pretty slow. I haven't been swimming much, and my arms tire very quickly. I also have asthma which makes controlling my breathing a bummer. Any tips on how to improve from here? Should I bother with drills at this early stage in my training or just keep doing the 400m as often as possible. Our mini-tris are every Monday and I'm planning on racing every one.