All Strokes - Medball Toss

If you're looking for challenging ways to gain fitness for your legs, while adding a fun aspect to your training, medballs can certainly help accomplish that task.

Why Do It:
Eggbeater, dolphin, or flutter kick, take your pick.  Improving any and all of these will help you be a better swimmer.  Kicking in practice can allow for breaks or lack of effort at times.  This drill requires constant work for as long as the coach wants you working.

How to Do It:
1.  Get swimmers of like ability and strength to partner up, facing each other.  Select a medball of a weight that's challenging, but the swimmers should still be able to toss it.  Anywhere from 4 - 10 pound medballs should suffice.
2.  Without allowing the hands to go below the surface, have the swimmers toss the ball back and forth a set number of times, 10-20 is typically good.
3.  Now give them a target.  Make them toss it over the lane line, as if it were a tennis or volleyball net.
4.  Have competitions to see who can toss the medball back and forth 50 times the fastest without dropping.  If the ball drops in the water, the count starts again from zero.

How to Do It Really Well (the Fine Points):
Adding movement to the mix makes the swimmers' muscles work in all the various ways they may have to work in practice.  Since the water is always a changing substance, moving down the pool will require a good connection and knowledge of how to stay in touch with the water.