Butterfly Timing Drills

Skate Drill 

Skate drill is a great starting point for understanding your butterfly kick timing.  

To do this drill, start by lying on the surface of the water with your arms outstretched. Begin the drill by kicking and then beginning your pull. As you pull through, begin your second kick so that it finishes with the completion of your pull. Your goal is to kick before starting your pull and to kick with the completion of your pull. Recover your arms underwater and repeat. 

One-Arm Butterfly With Nonstroking Arm Extended 

One-arm butterfly helps you practice butterfly timing continuously without the demands of a full stroke of butterfly.  

Swim one-arm butterfly with your nonstroking arm extended in front of you. Focus on kicking when your hands enter the water and when they exit. By keeping your nonstroking arm extended, you’ll have a smaller undulation and a tighter kick rhythm. This drill allows you to get more practice at improving your kick timing. 

One-Arm Butterfly With Nonstroking Arm Down 

One-arm butterfly helps you practice butterfly timing continuously without the demands of a full stroke of butterfly.  

Swim one-arm butterfly with your nonstroking arm at your side. Your goal is to work on effective kick timing. Kick when your hand enters the water and when it exits. 

With your nonstroking arm at your side, you might have more undulation. This drill can help you work on your kick timing in a slightly different context. 

Butterfly With Snorkel 

Breathing while swimming butterfly can disrupt your timing. If you’re struggling with your timing and suspect your breathing is causing the issue, wear a snorkel. 

To do butterfly with snorkel, simply swim butterfly with a snorkel. Using a snorkel can remove breathing as an obstacle to effective kick timing. Emphasize kicking when your hands enter the water and when they exit. 

If you’re uncomfortable using a snorkel, do very short repetitions of three to five strokes without breathing to work on the same things. 

4-Kick, 1-Pull 

Kick timing is critical for butterfly. A simple way to emphasize this timing is by adding extra kicks to each stroke cycle.  

To do 4-kick, 1-pull drill, swim butterfly with four kicks for every stroke instead of the proper two. To make the whole stroke flow, your kicks will need to be added at the right time. You still need to kick when your hands enter the water and when they exit. Do two extra kicks after your hands enter. By placing the two extra kicks at the right time, the whole drill will flow smoothly.  

Head-up Butterfly 

Proper butterfly requires two well-timed kicks each stroke cycle. Many swimmers struggle with the second kick, which comes as your hands exit the water. 

Head-up butterfly is a great drill to work on your second kick. To do this drill, swim butterfly with your head out of the water and looking forward.  

This drill pushes your hips down in the water, which requires you to work very hard to keep them up. To recover your arms, your hips must be close to the surface, something that requires a very strong and well-timed kick as your hands exit the water. Head-up butterfly encourages you to develop a strong, well-timed kick. 

Butterfly With DragSox 

Wearing DragSox allows you to feel and understand what your legs are doing at various points in your stroke cycle. 

To do this drill, swim butterfly with DragSox. They make kicking more difficult, which is a great training tool. If you can do well-timed kicks while wearing DragSox, you can kick well when not wearing them.   

Stroke Count Gears 

Butterfly timing changes slightly when you swim with different stroke counts. When your stroke count is higher or lower than what you prefer, great timing becomes much more difficult.  

To do stroke count gears, swim butterfly but with different stroke counts. Start by taking one stroke more and one stroke less than normal, and then move to two more and two less when you’re comfortable. 

By changing your stroke count while trying to swim as fluidly as possible, you challenge yourself to swim with excellent timing. When you return to your normal stroke count, swimming butterfly should feel easier. 

Speed Gears 

Swimming butterfly with great timing becomes harder the faster you go. There’s less time to do everything, and you must be more precise with your movements.  

To challenge your timing, try speed gears, or slowly increasing your speed from slow to fast over a 25 or across repetitions. Aim to swim with great timing throughout. This can be done with full-stroke butterfly or drills.