Last week, I (Jen) wrote about the importance of building your base during early season training. One thing I noted was how boring base training can be due its low intensity. A good way to complement base training and increase efficiency is to build drills into your workout routine.

When most people think of drills, they probably think of swimming drills such as finger tip drag, thumb-slide and one-armed swimming. These are great drills. If you don't know what they are, you should look them up or have a local coach show you how to do them.

On the bike, common drills are one-legged cycling on a trainer or "scraping the mud" where you concentrate on the bottom half of your pedal stroke by thinking about scraping the mud off the bottom of your shoe. While these are extremely helpful and should be incorporated into every triathletes' training program, I also want to share some other fun, exciting and dynamic drills that can really spice up your base workouts.

Swimming
The major goal of swimming drills is to overemphasize different parts of the stroke so that you can feel the change in your regular swimming stroke.

> Partner drills: One person holds on to the other person's legs while swimming. The swimmer in the front focuses on pulling while the swimmer in the back focuses on the kick.

> Hypoxic work: Swim one length of the pool without taking a breath. First try freestyle, then once you can do that try swimming underwater.

> Swim with large paddles: These help emphasize proper pull with the forearm, however, be careful if you have shoulder problems.

Cycling

Triathletes and novice road riders tend to neglect bike handling skills as part of their training. These drills help you feel more comfortable on the road and can make you a safer rider.

> Fast pedal: Practice holding a cadence of 100 to 120 revolutions per minute (rpm) without bouncing. A cadence monitor is helpful for tracking your leg speed.

> The Hamburger drill: Place hamburger buns, or any other object that you can ride over easily in case you hit them, and practice riding so that one wheel passes on one side of object and the other wheel passes on the other side of the object. This will help you pick your way through rocks while mountain biking or dodge small objects while riding on the road.

> Water bottle pick-up: Place a water bottle on the grass and practice picking it up with one hand. Once you can do that, lay it on its side so you have to reach even farther.

Agility
> Dot drill: Remember hop scotch as a kid? Well, the dot drill is similar. Use chalk or tape to create a pattern of dots in a hop scotch formation. Jump from dot to dot on one leg going side to side and forward and backward. It’s a lot more difficult than it sounds.

Incorporating these drills into your workouts will help you realize more efficiency. After all, speed is part technique, part fitness and part mind.

See you out on the trails.