Keep the Elbow Moderately Low During Recovery.

Why It Matters

Lowering the elbow in recovery stabilizes body rotation and improves stroke efficiency, which can lead to faster, more sustainable freestyle performance. The prescribed drill-and-contrast set provides a structured method to ingrain the technical change in training sessions.

Summary

Coach instructs swimmers to keep the elbow moderately low during the freestyle recovery to prevent over-rotation of the torso and leg collapse used to counterbalance an excessively high arm. Video analysis of a swimmer named Andy shows the desired position: elbow slightly lower with the hand down during recovery and entry. The coach prescribes a practical drill—wide fingertip drag—paired with contrast sets (e.g., 8-2-5s or 12-25s): perform two repetitions with the drill, then two normal freestyle laps, and repeat. The month-long focus is to transfer the lower-elbow recovery from the drill into regular freestyle swimming.