Competing on Technique in Backstroke

Ryan Woodruff, Lynchburg YMCA

Yesterday I posted that we were using the classic backstroke drill balancing a cup on the forehead. Today, we added a competitive component.

50m backstroke (LCM) race with a cup…winner is the person who goes the fastest without having the cup fall at all. Everyone else does 20 squats after the 50. We had 2 swimmers per lane go at a time, so they were racing 8 swimmers across in our 4 lanes. Most swimmers were able to make it without losing the cup, but it was interesting to see who pushed the envelope in terms of speed.

For the second competition, we split into two groups, and we tried to see which group could have more people make it an entire 50 LCM without losing the cup. 14 out of 17 made it the whole way successfully. Got me thinking about what other kinds of “technique competitions” we could have…got any ideas you would like to share?

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