Image: @MIKE2SWIM
Swimming Dive Progression
These simple drills can help you refine your swimming dive
This is one of my favorite dive progressions to help you either learn how to do a dive or refine the dive that you’re already doing. To do that, we’re going back to basics. Note: Always practice dive drills and starts in the deep end and under the supervision of a coach.
Drill 1: Top View
Take a seat on the edge of the wall with your knees bent and lower legs in the water, feet planted flat against the wall. Raise your arms above your head and place one hand on top of the other. Squeeze your arms against your ears so you’re in a nice tight streamline.
Tuck your chin toward your chest, hinge at the waist, and push yourself into the water, hands and head first. Let your butt follow as you push off the wall in tight streamline.
Drill 2: Pencil Dive
Start with your arms above your head in a tight streamline and step to the end of the deep end of the pool. Plant your feet next to each other and tuck your chin, then jump out and away from the wall. Enter the water feet first while holding that tight streamline. The point of this drill is to help you feel how to hold that streamline while you’re entering the water.
Once you get used to using your legs to push yourself off the wall, it’s time to move to the third drill.
Drill 3: Squat Dive
Stand on the edge of the pool with your arms overhead in a tight streamline, the same way you did for the pencil dive. Bend your knees slightly, tuck your chin toward your chest, hinge forward at the waist, and push through your feet so that you dive into the pool headfirst while holding that tight streamline.
You can also perform the squat dive with a split stance, with one foot forward and the other back. This stance can help you translate this progression to diving from a starting block.
Training with a USMS club and working with a coach can help you continue to improve your technique.
