Sculling
By Doug Garcia
You’ve heard or seen me put sculling as part of the workout, and many of you give me a deer in the headlights look about this request. Sculling as part of your swimming is a good thing to do for many reasons, but the main reason is so you can feel the water in a different manner from regular swimming. Sculling is usually very slow and not very efficient in terms of propulsion.
You can scull in a number of ways:
- Face up, feet first, hands at your side
- Face up, feet first, hands above your head
- Face up, head first, hands at your side
Face in the water, elbows near the side—great for honing in on breaststroke technique
There is no right or wrong way to scull, the concept is just to use your hands in smaller, shorter motions to move down the pool. Sculling is usually included with warm-up and cool-down sessions, and I personally do a bit of sculling in almost every practice session as part of my cool down.
The question becomes, are you sculling when you do regular swimming? To be the most efficient with each stroke, the arm and hand motion should follow the path of most resistance, or, get the best distance per stroke as possible. Many swimmers, especially Masters swimmers, include a bit of sculling in their stroke at the most inopportune time, right after the catch. This sculling motion is counter to having the best distance per stroke possible. Freestyle is not the only stroke where a bit of sculling slips in; breaststroke and butterfly also get a fair amount of unnecessary sculling. Be aware when that little sculling motion creeps into your stroke. If a coach has pointed out this extra movement to you in the past, it’s probably one of those things that creeps back into your stroke when you’re tired.