Someday, with my incessant quest to enumerate things, I'll go through my pool list and create a parallel list (or at least count) of the different US Masters Swimming teams I have trained with on my aquatic adventures. Without fail, my training with other teams has included a warm welcome and a good (to great) swim workout. What's more often than not been a bonus is learning something new about the sport of swimming.
Today, I was at the exquisite setting of the Westlake (California) Athletic Club with a handful of
swimmers in the water and coach Kevin Lane on the deck. Kevin is an assistant coach at the nearby Cal Lutheran University and had brought some drills over from those workouts to this workout.
This will get a little swim-geeky here, but one of them, in particular, sounded like not a big deal - kick on your side while holding a 3 pound weight in your 'bottom' arm tight against your thigh while simultaneously holding your other arm (your arm on top of the water) vertically straight up into the air above the water. The dual effect of the weight trying to pull you down and your other arm vertically out also pressing you down turned this into a highly effective and challenging core + kick drill.
I loved it - got in a great swim and learned something new by 6:15am!