Cool new swim drill

I call it the 'watch check.' I used to have a really bad habit, during recovery part of the stroke, of lifting my arm up with my whole back and holding my arm really flexed, with the bottom of my forearm facing my body. I ended up with bad posterior shoulder pain.

Then I found out this is really bad. Of course, you don't want your arm flexed you want it relaxed. But also, you should move your arm so the top of your forearm is facing you, like you are looking at your watch. So that's one of my drills now. On each recovery I "check my watch". Not literally with my eyes, but I bring my arm/forearm into the 'checking my watch' posture with the forearm top facing my body.

It is sort of like the motion of the windup in baseball, I have toyed with the 'throwing the ball' analogy, but the 'checking the watch' is more universal and works really well.

I start out with a few laps of checking the watch, and my shoulder pain has gone away as my recovery phase has become more natural and relaxed.