Open Water

Swimming in open water, like lakes, rivers, and oceans, is one of the biggest factors which prevent athletes from becoming triathletes.  There are many real concerns that stop beginner swimmers from signing up for their first race.  Training in the safety and comfort of a pool is far different from racing in the open water.  In a pool, there are lifeguards near by, lane lines to grab hold of, crystal clear water, and relatively shallow depth to stand up in.

While the concerns and fears potential triathletes have are real, they can be suppressed and overcome with the proper amount of knowledge and practice.  This article discusses different areas of concern new swimmers may have about racing in open water along with tips and suggestions on how to swim past these issues and on to the finish line.

1.  Swimming in deep water

One of the biggest fears that triathletes must overcome is swimming out in the middle of a lake where they can not touch the bottom.  Many new swimmers have little anxiety about deep water in the pool because they can stand in most areas and if need be, they can hold on to the lane lines.  The anxiety can grow, though, when you are in the middle of a lake.  The nearest buoy or lifeguard on a paddle board may appear like small dots in the distance.  Having a high level of confidence and comfort in deeper water can be beneficial if you struggle during your swim.

Two skills you can work on to bring confidence for when you swim in deep, open water are treading water and swimming breast stroke.  Being able to tread water allows you to catch your breath and assess where you are in the water, without wasting too much energy.  Breast stroke is known as a rescue stroke because it does not use a lot of energy and you can keep your head above water to catch your breath and focus your eyes in front of you.  Having the ability to relax and keep yourself afloat in deep water will make you more confident if you find yourself struggling in the middle of a race.

Tip:  A fun way to practice treading water is to play a game of water polo in the deep end of the pool.  This will improve your treading skills and your level of fitness, all while having fun!

How To Swim Like A Graceful Dolphin….Not A Clumsy Human! (Part 1)

This is the first post in a multi-part series designed to share my thoughts on technique that I discuss with my swimmers to help them go from swimming like a clumsy human to swimming like a graceful dolphin. The first two topics are about proper head/body position and body rotation during freestyle. Once these two areas have been mastered, swimming becomes exponentially easier and more fun.  You’ll notice that when you swim with proper body position and rotation, breathing becomes easier, your stroke will become longer, and you will feel as if you are gliding across the pool. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive updates when the other posts in this series are published.

---

Freestyle Head/Body Position

The reason that many new swimmers feel as if they are sinking while swimming is not necessarily because they have a poor kick.  Instead, the swimmer’s head and body position are causing their hips and legs to drop in the water.  Even a swimmer with an effective kick will drag slower through the water if their body position is incorrect.   To swim like a graceful dolphin, you want to be floating on the surface of the water, where there is less water resistance.  Swimming with proper head and body position will greatly improve where your body is in the water and may also increase the effectiveness of your kick.

Courtesy of headstrongposturetrainer.com

Good: Face down looking at the bottom of the pool.

Keeping your face towards the bottom of the pool will keep your spine aligned with the surface of the water.  This will make it easier to keep your hips and legs from sinking.  Your eyes can look up through your goggles to see what is in front of you.  Use the line at the bottom of the pool to keep yourself going in a straight direction.

The Eight Laws of Swimming (Part 2: The Epic Conclusion)

This post is a continuation of the Eight Laws of Swimming; maxims I have updated and modified from talks one of my first coaches gave us at the beginning of each swim season.  If you missed the previous post, make sure you read the first four laws before reading this post.  For more in-depth thoughts and analysis on swimming, subscribe to my email list.  You’ll have access to additional swim related resources and get updates when new blog posts are published.

5.  Power is generated from the hips and torso.  Use your shoulders for your recovery and to generate additional arm speed.

What do baseball players, golfers, martial artists, and swimmers all have in common?  They all use their hips and torso to generate power to excel in their respective sports.  When a baseball player swings their bat, they are using the rotation of their hips and pelvis to drive the ball over the fence for a home run.  The force needed to drive a golf ball off its tee and send it flying towards the green is generated in the hips of the golfer.  Students of karate, kung fu, and taekwondo are often reminded to put their hips into kicks and punches to add power and reach.  The same is true for swimming; you should be generating most of your power from you hips.

Rotating your body after each stroke helps to produce hip-driven power.  This is one of the reasons why most coaches implore that their swimmers should swim from side to side, instead of flat in the water.  By engaging your hips into your stroke, you will be able to apply a greater amount of force to the water with each stroke.  Hip-driven swimming incorporates the larger upper body muscle groups into your stroke, which translates into more power in the water.  Some triathlete swimmers will only use their shoulders to power through the water.  Using only your shoulders may produce a faster stroke turnover rate and some power, but it will tire you out more quickly.  You’ll be the fast swimmer to the halfway point, but may be the last one to the finish line.  To help get a more powerful stroke, incorporate a dry land workout that focuses on strengthening your core.  Not only will it help you in the water, but will make you a stronger athlete out of the water as well!!  

The Eight Laws of Swimming (Part 1)

At the beginning of each season, when I swam in high school, my coach would gather us together and discuss the most important aspects of swimming that we should think about while training throughout the season.  Over the years I have updated and modified these maxims into the “Eight Laws of Swimming”.  Check out part two to read the rest of the Eight Laws of Swimming. Subscribe to my email newsletter for blog post updates and additional advice to help you master the water.

1.  The three most important parts of swimming are technique, technique, and technique.

One of the best swimmers I’ve ever coached was the perfect embodiment of this swimming law.  He was an average height with an average build.  He never did much dry land work and rarely was in the weight room.  When he stood behind the starting blocks, he stuck out from the other competitors who looked as though they lifted every morning before practice.  He wasn’t as tall, as strong, or as fierce as the other guys, but he did have one thing that allowed him to stand alone on the winners podium; flawless technique.

You can use sheer strength to become proficient at swimming.  But to truly maximize your potential in the water, you need to become an expert in the technique of swimming.  Technique can sometimes be overlooked by new triathlon swimmers.  They focus instead on speed or endurance, without realizing that both of those are products of quality technique work.  This is what makes swimming such a difficult skill for new swimmers to master.  In many other sports, regular practice will improve your ability at that sport.  Unless you are swimming with proper technique, you can practice swimming for years with minimal improvement.  Poor swimming technique will not only slow you down, but it could also lead to injury.  It may not be the most glamorous or exciting part of swimming training, but if you want to enjoy swimming and start to master it remember: technique, technique, technique.

Three Mistakes All My New Swimmers Make…And How You Can Avoid Them

Swimming is not that natural of an activity for humans.  It can be difficult at first, for beginner swimmers to find the most effective and efficient techniques for moving through the water.  There are several bad habits that new swimmers can acquire when they learn to swim on their own.  If these mistakes are caught early enough they can be prevented from becoming habits, which are difficult to change.  Swimming takes a lot of practice and hours of repetition in order to perfect the skill.  Here are three mistakes that I see from my new swimmers and what you can do to correct them.  If you enjoy this article and want access to more swimming tips and advice, sign up for our newsletter.

1.  Crossing hands

When many swimmers swim freestyle, their hands cross in front of their face as they extend their arms instead of in a straight line parallel to their body.  This is a problem that I see with most new swimmers and is a problem that can be difficult to correct without someone watching you swim.    When I tell swimmers that they are crossing their hands when they swim, they fervently insist that I am wrong.  They have trouble believing they are doing this incorrectly, until I show them a video of their swimming.  Its’ fairly obvious from the outside when swimmers are crossing their hands, but just as difficult for swimmers to realize they have this problem.

There are several reasons that crossing your hands when you swim is ineffective.  One of the keys to having a strong pull is getting full extension of your arms during your stroke.  When your arms cross, you are not able to extend your arms completely and get all of the power from your pull.  Swimming with your hands crossing over can also cause significant strain on your shoulders and can also cause you to wiggle while you swim.  Pulling across your body, instead of straight along your body, will cause your body to “fish tail” from side to side.  This extra movement will cause you to expend more energy and tire you out more quickly than if your body moved less.

Photo courtesy of http://www.feelforthewater.com

Photo courtesy of http://www.feelforthewater.com

To correct this problem I try to have my swimmers over exaggerate where their hands enter the water.  Thinking about the face of a clock, you should try to have you hands to enter the water at 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock.  Your old muscle memory will want to pull your hands across your body, but having them wider at the entry point should counter this, straightening out your stroke.  Two drills that can help straighten your stroke are single-arm drill and catch-up drill.  These two drills get you to focus on keeping your hands and arms straight during your stroke.  To check your progress fixing this problem, have a friend record your swimming and watch yourself swim.

Swim Terms For New Swimmers (And Advanced Swimmers Who Never Asked)

When I show my swim workouts to new swimmers they sometimes stare at the paper as if it is written in some indecipherable language.  The sets are full of numbers, x’s, and terms the swimmers have never seen before.  I am so accustomed to writing workouts this way that I have to remember not everyone is used to all of the terminology.  If you find workouts online or in some training plans, they may also have the same terms without offering an explanation.  Below is a list of terms that I include in my workouts regularly, that sometimes give my new swimmers trouble.  The first three are sure to be included in most training plans and are easy to get mixed up.  The rest of the terms a little more obvious, but still require explanation from time to time.

If there any other terms or drills you have seen on your swim training plan and you aren’t exactly sure what they mean, send me an email at kyle@ironswimming.com and I’ll add them to this list along with a definition or description.

BUILD

The term “build” means to start a set or swim easy, and gradually increase your speed until you are sprinting at the end.  Build  is similar to descend, with the main difference being that build occurs within a set.  For example, 4 x 100 build, means you would start each 100 off with an easy 25 and then swim each 25 faster until you are sprinting the last 25.  Each 100 would be swum in the same manner.  Build helps you regulate your speed and is good for increasing your sprinting as it helps you to gradually get faster until you are swimming all out.

My New Year’s Resolution Is Not To Have Resolutions

I’ve never liked the idea of New Year’s resolutions.  Like everyone else, I have thought of changes I’d like to make to improve myself at the beginning of each new year.  And like everyone else, I have obediently stuck to these changes for several days, if not weeks, before regressing to my old habits.  New Year’s resolutions are wonderful in theory, but difficult to execute consistently in practice.  It is hard to make cold turkey changes in one’s behavior, which can quickly lead to a return to those bad habits, now accompanied with a feeling of failure for not being “strong” enough to make permanent changes.  After listening to interviews with very successful people in various fields, I noticed one thing they have in common.  They do not focus time or effort eliminating their bad habits.  They spend their energy on ways to improve the things in which they excel.  By trying to get better in areas they already are strong in, they make better use of their time and become even more successful.  Instead of making New Year’s resolutions, I like to think of a couple goals to reach by the end of the year.  These goals are things I would like to improve on, and elicit a change in my behavior to achieve them.  They are things I can progress towards throughout the course of the year and if I am unable to reach them by December 31st, I can always extend my personal deadline by another 365 days.

TANGIBLE

One reason that people fail to keep or achieve their New Year’s goals is that they are unachievable.  While your goals should not be super easy to reach, you should not set yourself up for failure by setting impossible goals.  I may be an exceptional swimmer, but I am a particularly slow runner and a slightly better cyclist.  I am also in the 30-34 age group, which is one of the most competitive age groups.  One of my New Year’s goals could be to qualify for the Ironman World Championships at Kona, Hawaii.  I would love to qualify for Kona.  I watch the race every year, read tons of stories about people who participate in this race, and get thoroughly inspiring by photos taken in such an awe inducing venue.  I could train relentlessly the entire year.  I could find the most effective training plan, stick with it every month and push myself harder than I ever have before.  I could do all these things…and still not come close to qualifying for Kona.  My Ironman PR is hours away from the time I need to qualify.  No matter what I do, it is impossible for me to drop enough time, in one year, to achieve this goal.  I would be setting myself up for failure.  There is a difference between a dream and a goal.  My dream is to one day race at Kona and  I definitely think that with the proper training, over a few years, that I can get my overall time low enough to earn a spot at Kona.  But in order for me to keep myself motivated and confident throughout the entire year, my goal needs to be reachable.

Music To My Ears

I have never listened to music through headphones during swim training.  Not once.  I have swam for more than 15 years, completed hundreds of thousands of laps over the span of countless hours and during all that time, I have never listened to music while swimming.  Granted I have had practices where a boombox has been playing, but that music is difficult to clearly hear it when swimming.  I know there might be some people who disagree with me, but I strongly believe that you should not listen to music while swimming during triathlon training.

If you are training for a sprint triathlon, where you may only be in the water for under ten minutes, go ahead and use music if it helps you get through your practices.  If you are training for a half or full distance triathlon, take out your ear buds and throw them in your desk drawer.  I can definitely see the appeal of listening to music while swimming.  Swimming back and forth, up and down a lane, can quickly become extremely monotonous.  You can easily distract yourself when running or cycling because the scenery is constantly changing and there is a lot of extra stimuli to keep your mind off of the training.  When your swimming the scenery never changes.  Swim training should be physical as well as mental.  Training without music will better prepare you for the mental rigors of swimming for thirty to ninety minutes while having just your own thoughts to occupy yourself.

What I Train With In The Water

I often get asked what specific gear I use during my swim training and during my races.  I have a fairly minimalist view towards swim training with regards to tools, gear, or “toys”.  This post is dedicated to the different products I personally train with and have found great success with.  Included with each description and review is an affiliate link with Amazon.  If you interested in buying any of the gear I train with I’ll get a small commission if you use these links.  Thanks.

Make Swimming Fun

I almost gave up swimming during my junior year of college.  Once I graduated, I took a 4 year self-imposed ban on swimming.  During my training for full distance triathlons, I sometimes struggle to get myself to the pool.  Swimming can be a monotonous, mind numbing drag.  If you have a similarly negative view of swimming that is preventing you from fully realizing your swimming potential, keep reading to learn how to spice up your training sets and motivate yourself to train your heart out.

MISERY LOVES COMPANY

The best way to stay motivated to swim on a regular basis and have fun while practicing is to join a masters’ class or find a training partner to swim with.  Suffering through tough workout sets and gasping for breath at the side of the pool is enormously more tolerable if there are several other swimmers panting alongside you.  It can be difficult to push yourself alone in the pool, but swimming with someone a little faster than yourself, makes it easier to find that little bit of energy needed to make quicker intervals.  Knowing that there are people expecting you to join them early in the morning during the cold, dark winter months will provide you with the needed motivation to throw your warm comforter to the side and trek to the pool.  Head over to the U.S. Masters’ website to find a team and pool near you.