Swim Drill – Chicken Wings

Jeff N April 21, 2012

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In swimming lessons and triathlon training the “Chicken Wings” is one of the classic drills exercised.
The challenge of this exercise is swimming without the support of your hands and – even more difficult – with a reduced arm length; your arms are bend to short “Chicken Wings”.
Shoulders and elbows have to come high out of the water in order to generate thrust.

Here we go:

1) Hook your thumbs at right angles into your armpit , with the fingers below the knuckles
2) Crawl!

You will have to swim with the elbows high what gives you a slow recovery. Since the arms swinging rounds have to cover more distance now, the recovery is hindered causing you being imbalanced in the water.
To increase the effect of this exercise, you may use little or no leg movement and/or no kicks in turns.

This drill will reinforce the need for longer more powerful arms while swimming normally. In some ways this is very much like swimming with fists.
This swimming drill will benefit and improve your front crawl and will improve the coordination.