Category : Swimming

I was approached by one of our athletes after our swim training one night and he asked why we don’t technique work and kicking sets. While I welcome pure swimmers to my squad as an opportunity for them to get fit, these swimmers can be very experienced, and this day, this athlete suggested the rest of our group would improve if we spent part of the session working on technique drills rather than fitness.

Coming from a swimming background, more specifically a breakstroker and sprinter, which is a combination that weighs heavily on technique rather than fitness, he just couldn’t relate to the challenges that most of our swimmers, as triathletes, need to deal with when it comes to the specifics of triathlon swimming.

I had to remind him that our group is a triathlon group and that’s why we do things differently to the traditional swimming master programme.  The article below should clarify the main points, and where your focus should be.

ironguides Triathlon Squad in Bangkok, Thailand

1)      Technique is individual

1.1 Background

At our squad we have athletes who have swam at the Swimming Olympic Trials to a first timer that can barely make it across the pool, and all levels in between. To prescribe one same drill to both athletes would be a waste of time and effort, since their needs are completely different, the experienced swimmer may need to work on specific open water skills or adjust the swim stroke to more sufficient style since the training load is lower than it used to be at peak shape and that impacts the technique used.

The beginner needs to go back to the basics, learn timing of breathing, basic balance work in the water and just develop a better feel and confidence for the water.

As we use a 8 lane pool with roughly 3 swimmers per lane, and prescribing specifics sets to each individual is just impossible. For that reason, I prefer to have our swimmers working on a 1-on-1 when it comes to technique, the coach can focus solely on that athlete, their needs and goals.

1.2 Body type affects technique

On a similar note to the background of each swimmer, the body type also has a huge impact on how you should use your swim stroke.

While the smooth and long glide swimming style is easy on the eyes and may work for a very specific type of swimmer that tend to do very well in high performance swimming, its definitely not the most appropriate style for most swimmers.

To hold a long stroke, one needs a powerful kick to avoid any momentum loss, otherwise the stroke becomes an “accelerate, decelerate, accelerate, decelerate”  type of movement and that is certainly no the most efficient way to swim.

Then we have the main component in the swim kick which is ankle flexibility. Triathletes, especially men, tend to have very pool ankle flexibility due to all the running and cycling, ankles and lower leg muscles are chronically tight which makes kicking almost impossible, in fact most triathletes couldn’t kick across the pool without getting to the other side in total exhaustion.

Another challenge with aiming to build a better swim kick is how much energy, or leg muscle glycogen that work will take that could be better used when cycling or when running.  On race day, muscle glycogen is your primary source of energy and applying a strong kick for the entire swim length will only lower the amount of energy left for the bike and run

1.3 Pool VS Open Water – different environments

Going back to the stroke types, we have your typical ‘glider’ that suits a tall male athlete with a strong kick, and the second option is a short and choppier stroke with a very fast turnover rate, that is the recommended stroke for most triathletes and also used by some pool swimmers, especially shorter athletes doing long distance events. The difference comes from the environment you are swimming at. Quoting my colleague Alun Woodward (ironguides UK) on his article published by Triathlete Magazine:

“First let’s start by understanding that “open water swimming” is not about extending the lane in your pool into an empty, 1500-meter long, flat water course with a lane rope on each side (as some swim instructors have recently suggested). Instead, open water swimming as experienced by the vast majority of Age Group swimmers is a churning, rough-and-tumble experience in which all the rules of pool swimming are broken! How long have you been able to hold a delicate, careful, well thought out stroke in a race?

That’s right – about 10 seconds! With every stroke there seems to be something to impede your progress and stall you in the water: Chop from the wind, other swimmers’ elbows, someone pulling on you or swimming overtop of you, ocean swell, murky water, air bubble froth, feet impeding your ability to catch water, and so on. It’s like swimming in a washing machine and needing to re-accelerate with every stroke! Because of this constant interference and challenge at every stroke, the truth about triathlon swimming is that to improve your abilities in the open water you need to do almost the opposite of what you did to develop swim technique in the pool!”

Choppywaters, wind, ‘White caps’, sighting, drafting, wetsuit, makes triathlon swimming very unique

2)      Cycling, Running training and its impact on swimming training

Lets start with the fact that triathletes are fatigued all the time from the accumulate training they do. Very often we have some athletes who cycled or ran in the morning of our evening swim session. Their legs are still fatigued, maybe sore and with less than ideal glycogen stores. One can’t expect a strong swim kick out of this combination.

This connects to my favourites training gear in the pool. The pullbuoy, paddles (and ankle bands for very experienced swimmers). They can be used separately or in different variations according to the goal of the session and level of swimmer.

The main benefit of the paddles+pullbuoy is to provide a little help to the swimmer, the pullbuoy will give the swimmer a lift, taking the struggle out of swimming, then one can focus on the workout intensity and other technique details.

The hand paddle will lower the swimmer heart rate while increasing the muscle load, this results in the swimmer being able to train very hard even on a fatigue state from a morning run or ride. The swimming arms will take all the work.

You may ask if this isn’t “cheating” and that on race day triathletes can’t swim with paddles or pullbuoys, then we need to think about the race day circumstances. First, most swims are done in the ocean and due to the different density of salty water to the pool, one can float a lot more and that simulates the same lift from the pullbuoy. So not only using a pullbuoy will help you in training but it is also specific to ocean swims.

The other factor is that fatigue levels on race day will be inexistent unlike in training, any experienced athlete will freshen up some before a race and that will allow him to swim faster and with a better technique than what this same athlete would be able to do in training conditions.

And finally, a lot of races, especially in North America, Australia and Europe, are wetsuit legal swims. And anyone who has swam in a wetsuit knows how much extra lift that provides you and also the extra stress on the shoulders. So other than swimming in a pool in your wetsuit, another way to train specifically for it is to use pullbuoy+paddles for a large part of your swim sessions.

3)      Swimming as part of cycling or run training

3.1 Allocating your training hours to swim fitness

Looking into a weekly training plan of a typical age group triathlete, we would see 2-3 swims per week along with 2-3 bikes for a total of 6 to 9 weekly sessions, to make it simple, lets say that our athlete is spending 2h30 (2x 75min sessions) in the pool every week, and is training for a Half Ironman Distance event, where the swim is 1.9km and will take around 30 minutes, those are average numbers to a working age grouper with family and other commitments outside of training.

Which training programme do you think would get you not only faster to transition one, but also fresher for the bike and run:

Option 1: Traditional Pure Swimmers programme, 50% of Main set/Fitness work (1h15 focused on specific fitness)

Option 2: Triathlon Swimming programme, 100% of Main set/Fitness work (2h30 focused on specific fitness)

3.2 Balancing your swimming training with cycling and run training

The next step that impacts your swim session is the type of work you did before that swim session on the bike and run, and the type of work you will be doing tomorrow.

ironguides training approach is based on hormonal balance, and the reason why our swim session is on Monday, and is focused on speed and strength, isn’t a coincidence. After a long weekend on the bike and run, usually the only available time for age groupers to go long, the endurance stimulus that you got from the weekend will trigger a catabolic hormonal reaction on your system, and Monday’s session mitigates that process by triggering anabolic stimulus such as increasing growth hormone and testosterone levels.  You know those all out sprints with hand paddles? They aren’t much different than lifting in the gym, but specific to your sport.

This not only allows you to train hard, but also is healthier as avoids the typical ‘aerobic breakdown’ that most triathletes deals with.

We like to say that triathlon is swimbikerun and not swim+bike+run, both in training and race day all disciplines are connected. Your swim training of today is planned based on your cycling training of yesterday and the run training of tomorrow

4)       Swim fitness impact on bike run on race day

Now that we’ve discussed the training differences of a pool swimmer and a triathlete, we also need to look into the race day requirements

We saw that triathlon is swimbikerun and not swim+bike+run, or in other words, your swim fitness on race day will have an impact on your bike and run splits.

If you are walking the last third of your ironman marathon for example, the culprit could be in your swim fitness.  The fatigue only accumulates during the day and it may ‘pop’ on the run especially if combined with other poor race day decisions related to nutrition and pacing.

One very typical scenario is the experienced swimmer who thinks he can get away with very limited swim training over the long course races, while this swimmer may still be able to finish the swim at a decent split, is very likely he will pay a high price later in the race. One thing is to be fast, another is to be fit, and fitness is everything when it comes to triathlon.

I hope the above article clarifies the difference of pool swimming training VS triathlon swimming training and help you to focus your efforts on what works. Make sure the swim program you are following understand the needs of triathlon swimming.

Happy laps,

Vinnie Santana, ironguides Head Coach

ironguides is the leading Lifestyle Facilitation company for athletes of all abilities. We provide coaching and training services, plans and programs, as well training education, health and fitness products to help you learn and live a healthy lifestyle. Come get fit with one of our monthly training subscriptions, event-specific training plans, coaching services, or a triathlon training camp in an exotic location! ironguides also provides Corporate Health services including Corporate Triathlons, Healthy Living retreats and speaking engagements. At ironguides, your best is our business!

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How to stay swim fit with dryland Swimming (exercises with elastic band)

to purchase the swim cordz on lazada thailand – shorturl.at/oBEU2

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Train with ironguides!

Personalized Online Coaching: Starting at USD190/month

Monthly Training plans (for all levels, or focused on one discipline): Only USD39/months

Event based training plans:

Sprint Distance (USD45 for 8-week plan)

Olympic Distance (USD65 for 12 week plan)

Half Ironman (R$95 for 16-week plan)

Ironman (USD145 for 20-week plan)

X-Terra (USD65 for 12-week plan)

Running Plans (10k, 21k and 42k – starting at USD40)

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When we look at the pro side of our sport over the last 10 years one point jumps out, you simply can’t afford to have a weakness anymore and that point plays particular focus to the swim. In the past there were iconic athletes who always struggled in the swim but were able to use their dominating bike or run performance to bring themselves back into the game, athletes such as Normal Stadler, Thomas Hellriegel and Peter Reid come to mind when thinking about such athletes.

In recent times we have seen the performance level of our pro’s rise and rise to the point we have huge packs coming out of the swim together and heading onto the bike together, so many athletes so close together is changing the dynamic of the race with these packs of riders driving a pace very different to what we have seen in the past with single riders, even if the athletes are legal distance apart the mental advantage of not being all alone on the road is a huge performance booster and is changing the race.

We saw the same thing happen with the ITU short course racing, yes its a different race as drafting is allowed but we see in those races that if you miss that front pack out of the swim the race is over, as a result all the athletes have raised their games and now we see a huge pack all leave the water together.

Every year watching the coverage of Kona we listen to Greg Welch say the very true words that the race can’t be won in the swim but it can certainly be lost.

This dynamic from ITU racing had filtered up to ironman and now it is very rare to find a pro who struggles in the swim and still manages to perform at the top level. When we start looking at the results of the top age group performers we can see the same trend occurring – the top performers are raising their game in the swim and if your not there in the mix out of the water you are putting yourself at a huge disadvantage.

So the hot question is how do we step up our swim performance? My answer is you need to learn to SPRINT!

A top pro swimmer once told me “stop focussing on endurance and learn to swim 200m in 2minutes, then you will never have a problem in the swim again”. These were the wisest words i ever heard and following them did exactly what he promised.

When we look at an ironman swim from a performance athlete we do not see a steady away 3800m swim – what we see is a very very fast 200-300m start and then the athletes settle to a steady pace.

While drafting is banned on the bike it is not banned in the swim and drafting in swimming plays a huge role performance. Just go along to any masters swim sessions and see the athletes frantically pushing off the wall at the start of the interval to get on the feet of the athlete in front even if told to wait the recommended 5seconds – if the athletes are actually waiting 5 seconds you will see a frantic sprint to get on feet of the swimmer in front then all calms down! We have all done this and we all know it makes a huge different, as much as 5seconds per 100m.

So if the athlete at the front of the race can swim an average of 80 seconds per 100m and you can swim 85 seconds per 100m then if you swim alone your coming out the water 3minutes and 10 seconds behind, but if you can get onto the fast swimmers feet then you will swim the 80 second pace with the same effort as the 85s pace you train at.

The next thing that happens is that the fast swimmer is very aware of this fact and does not want other swimmers taking a free ride so will swim a lot faster than their regular 80second at the start of the swim to make sure they take as few passengers as possible on their boat!

Physiology does come into play here though and there is only so far the fast swimmer can push this sprint speed at the start of the swim without sacrificing their performance over the whole race, the distance they will maintain this speed phase is generally going to be around 200m and from that point they will drift into regular race pace allowing the body to recover from the metabolic cost of their rapid start.

So knowing that this is what is going to happen in the swim we need to be building our training around this fact. We still need to be swimming strong, we need good swim endurance as i am sure has been the focus for most of your swims but we need to add a new element to your training and that is sprint speed, we need to be able to start FAST over the first 200m to make sure we can take a free ride on that lead boat for the last 3600m of the swim!

Sprint speed comes from 2 main area’s in our swim training.

Pure Speed – very short intervals with big rests to ensure full recovery – you may have a few or many intervals of this style in a session.

Speed Endurance – a short number of long intervals maintaining close to max effort for 150-300m intervals with long rests.

I am sure a lot of you are thinking we already do that but do you really do that and do you really know why and how to get the most out of these sessions.

As triathletes and especially ironman athletes we tend to think everything is about endurance and going to the pool, sprinting a few lengths and taking long long rests really does not follow our endurance training protocol. We may do our sprints and feel within a few seconds like we could go again but the energy system we are trying to change, the strength we are trying to develop is using a system that will take as much as 3minutes to recover fully and be ready for the next interval. I know many of you are reading this and will have had these sort of sessions in your plan and will have never ever stuck to the required rest interval or anywhere near the correct rest interval as you felt fine and were sure performance was the same on your sprints after you took a few seconds rest rather than your 3 minutes set – and after all less rest means more distance can be covered in the session which is just how we all think as endurance athletes!

The development of sprint strength and speed takes time, the visible gains in the training pool are going to be minute, you have to be patient and stick with the task at hand. Many of you will have been banging away at your swimming for years without seeing any real gains, continue to do that and you are not going to see anything different. Be patient, if you have long rests in your program they are there for a reason, if your program calls for you to swim ALL OUT then thats what you need to do and then take your rest so you can repeat ALL OUT INTERVALS – if you cut the rest short the effort will still be ALL OUT but you will be sacrificing speed and strength as the session progresses and you will not experience the development the session is designed to bring about.

This development of speed is not going to happen overnight, its such a gradual development especially for an endurance athlete but stick with the plan and over a period of a few months and come race day you will blow your old swim performance out of the water, not only will you be much further up the field out of the water but i guarantee you will find the swim both easier and more enjoyable as a result.

ENJOY YOUR TRAINING
Coach Alun “Woody”  Woodward

Train with ironguides!

Personalized Online Coaching:  Starting at USD190/month

Monthly Training plans (for all levels, or focused on one discipline): Only USD39/months

Event based training plans:

Sprint Distance (USD45 for 8-week plan)

Olympic Distance (USD65 for 12 week plan)

Half Ironman (R$95 for 16-week plan)

Ironman (USD145 for 20-week plan)

X-Terra (USD65 for 12-week plan)

Running Plans (10k, 21k and 42k – starting at USD40)

By Alun Woodward, Online Triathlon Coach, ironguides.net

While the swim portion of the ironman may only represent 10 percent of the race, it does play a significant role in the outcome. The time taken to exit the water is just a fraction of the whole picture of performance— the state in which we exit the water and how much energy is expended during the swim is critical to the overall performance at the end of the day.

There are two key elements to the swim: technique and fitness. Different combinations of these elements can lead to very different results:

* technique plus fitness can equal a great swim and great race
* technique with no fitness can be a great swim but terrible race
* bad technique but great fitness can lead to a slower swim but great race.

I want to look at training for the swim by separating the topics of technique and fitness into two articles and then show how we can bring these together for your best race ever in a final article.

TECHNIQUE

Swimming is a very technical sport and, as such, is hard for the brain to cope with. Professional swimmers spend hours per day in the pool developing their techniques and searching for the mystical feel for the water. They will perform endless drills to fine-tune small details such as hand position, finger position, timing of the kick, etc. Even with all this focus on technique for races lasting just 2-4 minutes, they are unable to hold perfect form in the latter stages.

As triathletes we simply do not have the training time available to do the above. On top of that, we are also racing in the water for at least 48 minutes in an ironman— there is no way we are going to maintain a perfect technique for this length of swim.

As triathletes we must look at the technique we need to cope with race conditions and then build a simple form that is easy to perform and maintain for the duration of the event — a technique that will not fall apart under duress.

Swimming in open water with lots of athletes around us requires a stroke that is stable and not easily disturbed by knocks and currents. To do this we need a slightly wider hand entry than we do in a pool stroke; the hands should enter the water slightly wide of the head,  shoulder width, and right in front of the head. Please check out the video below.

If we gently place our hands into the water and this water is moving sideways or back against us, our hand is going to be stopped or moved. We need to ensure that we hit the water hard and thrust the hand straight forward through the water with force to full extension. The hand should enter the water at an angle of about 30 degrees and push forward under the surface, always moving slightly down as it moves forward. The key here is thrusting the hand into the water—the more force used, the faster the hand reaches full extension and the less chance for thinking.

Once the hand reaches full extension, we need to get in position to pull. To do this, we keep the hand in position and kick the elbow outwards and slightly towards the surface – this brings the hand in position to powerfully pull straight back.

Following these key points it is possible to build a very stable and effective technique for triathlon swimming, summarized simply as:

SHOULDER-WIDTH HAND ENTRY
DRIVE HAND IN AND FORWARD AGGRESSIVELY TO FULL EXTENSION
KICK OUT ELBOW AND PULL BACK HARD

This technique is easy to develop and given a week of practice most triathletes can master these skills to a reasonable level of efficiency. Have a friend take a video of you to check that you are doing everything correctly, don’t look for speed now but simply focus on the three points and learn how it feels when you are doing this accurately.

TOOLS

Swim tools can really help speed up this learning process. An extra-large set of paddles will help create stability in the water and they force better movement patterns because they make it hard to pull through the water. The TYR catalyst paddle was designed to enhance elbow bend and bring your hands/arms into a better position to pull.

Using a pull buoy aids flotation and removes the focus on kicking and body position, which in turn allows us to concentrate better on what the arms are doing!

LEARNING

This technique is easy to learn as it keeps things simple: focusing on doing the three points mentioned above correctly removes many problems and develops traits that other technique-training systems spend hours trying to establish but never really succeed in as the movement patterns are too complex.

Spend your time learning to feel when the technique is correct. Make some key points that are easy for you to remember and use those as a cue when your form starts fall apart to get back on track. These key points will always be individual so feel what is right for you — create a picture with each one and set these in your mind.

Personally I think of the sound the hand makes as it whooshes through the water to full extension. Then at full extension, the elbow twitches out and towards the surface to start the pull back. Simply repeating this during a swim ensures every stroke is a better stroke. As a bonus it’s a great distraction from the pain and effort in hard sets!

The process of learning this technique should not take longer than a week to 10 days. Once established it’s time to start work on building your fitness using your new technique!

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PART 2 – SWIMMING FOR IRONMAN — SWIM FITNESS

In the first part of the article I talked about the process of developing a technique for optimal open-water swimming—here, I want to look at swim fitness and how we can build it.

Swim fitness for triathlon is not about getting out of the water as fast as possible—though of course this is a major part of swim fitness. Instead, we want to think about exiting the water both fast and fresh, a point many, many triathletes miss. The swim is a relatively short part of the race but it can have a huge impact on the rest of your race depending on the impact it has on your body.

Aside from all this, we should also look at the swim as one of the safest ways to gain aerobic endurance fitness; swimming is low impact and as such safe to train with volume without injury, especially when compared with running.

Pro racing offers many examples of triathletes who swim poorly but have great races. When we follow their blogs / twitter feeds, these athletes seem to swim incredible volume as part of their program, without improving much in terms of swim time. What I notice as a coach, though, is that these athletes always tend to produce the strongest bike and run performances. In races they get on the bike and they are on it from the start, whereas a lot of the front-pack athletes tend to be tired and need 20-30km to get into the ride.

With the dynamic of racing today, you cannot afford to lose time in that first 30km so those front-pack riders who left the water tired have to suffer and end up using way too much energy, which comes back to bite them later in the race.
The slower but fitter swimmers behind them, on the other hand, exit the swim and are racing the bike right away—riding fast and comfortably, as opposed to overextending themselves, and as a result they have a great ride and an even better run.

The above shows very clearly that triathlon is not just three individual sports but a sport all of its own; the impact of training mix and fitness in the three disciplines affects the final race result in a huge way!

SWIM PROGRAM

When designing a swim program, we need to consider several factors: the distance we need to cover on race day, how the sessions fit into our overall program, while the elements we will face in our event are also important.

THE LONG SWIM

To start off, I like to plan a race-specific session. For ironman this is going to be a long endurance swim with some harder work in the back-end of the session. Many athletes seem to struggle over the final 1km in ironman and can lose a lot of time here, despite their effort increasing greatly. This is due to a lack of conditioning and the fact that most triathletes swim sessions in one-hour intervals, sets of about 3km for a good ironman swimmer.

For an endurance swim, I want to aim for 4-5km, or 90min, and make this a strength workout so I will use a pull buoy for a large part of the session and add paddles towards the second half to further increase the difficulty, just as on race day.
Paddles have another important role to play—they also improve technique. So as we get tired by adding the paddles, we ensure more good strokes while also boosting the difficulty of the swim, a win-win situation in this session.

In the final part of the swim we do some short ALL OUT sprints to get the body used to fully activating muscle fibres while fatigued. This will result in a higher level of endurance and an ability to maintain form and speed in the closing kilometre on race day.

The long swim tends to lead to a lot of fatigue in athletes, simply because we do not tend to do them. We think nothing of going for a 2-hour run or a 2-hour bike, but a 2-hour swim is a big ask!

Scheduling the long swim is then important; avoid doing this before another hard session as we can expect to feel very tired after.

INTERVAL SWIM

This would be a shorter swim with a lot of hard work. Any specifics we need for race day I would like to include in this session. I like to use changes in pace within this workout to teach athletes how to control and check their stroke. An example would be swimming 300m intervals with an increase of pace every 100m—watching our times we can see if the effort is replicated on the clock.

Often an athlete will swim the same time for a moderate and hard interval as they are not able to hold technique under the duress of a hard effort. Through intervals as above we can learn to control effort and make sure technique is not falling apart.

I would use the reducing set at the start of the session, and then move into a set of hard short intervals in the back-end of the set to see if the athlete can hold times and form for effort.

Depending on placement of the workout in an athlete’s week, I may add paddles to the hard efforts to ensure better technique is maintained. Also, if an athlete is going to be aerobically tired or has a harder session to do later in the day, paddles will make the swim more about strength, and less about high heart rates and breathing. Remember what I said at the start, training mix is very important!

An example set:

* choice warmup
* 3×300 pull @ 100 easy – 100 moderate – 100 hard + 1min rest
* 9x100m hard pull/ paddles + 30s rest
* choice cooldown

We can further advance this set by making the hard intervals at the end specific to race conditions. For example, breathe every second interval with head up and looking forward for two full strokes. This would be appropriate if the goal/next race offers wavy conditions such as Hawaii. Lifting the head longer gives more opportunity for good navigation but uses different muscles, so these need to be trained.

If the technique is good, the times for the intervals will be the same—if not, the clock will let you know pretty quickly!

FURTHER SWIMS

Depending on the availability of training time in the week, further swims will be added to the program. These swims would have a reason, always building fitness, but used for specific fitness gains or recovery around other sessions!

In conclusion, we need to stop looking at swimming as a means of getting to the bike and instead consider the whole race picture. We need to ensure we get fast and have the fitness to swim fast while leaving the water fresh; this means we need training that is different to that of a swimmer who has to swim very hard for a short duration and can give everything for this duration. Triathlon is triathlon and we need to start training that way if we want the best results!

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PART 3 – SWIM DRILLS: WHEN ARE THEY REALLY NEEDED?

In the first part of the article in this series about swim technique, I talked about the process of developing a technique for optimal open-water swimming. In the second part, I discussed swim fitness and ways to build it. Here, I consider the reasons we use drills and when to use them.

When we think about swim training/coaching, we always think drills, drills, drills. Many top-end swim coaching companies base their whole business around drills—their own special drills—to produce the best stroke. I want to look at why we use drills and when we should use drills as I think they are often overused.

Firstly, a drill is breaking down the stroke into its component parts and refining movement patterns to enhance the overall stroke and so improving performance. Blindly prescribing drills to every swimmer, though, is not the route to go in my opinion; we need to see each individual athlete to assess what they are doing wrong and what needs to be fixed. We can use video footage of the swim stroke to gauge any potential problems and, if there are any, then go about fixing faults—if something is already working then there is no need to try and fix it. In fact, trying to improve something that already works fine can be very detrimental to the athlete.

When we train in the pool or open water, the aim is to perform as many good strokes as possible. If our technique is solid and we can repeat it then we do not need to be doing drills to change anything—in essence every stroke is a drill! This, though, is rarely the case and as triathletes we have days when we are so tired that our technique can just be terrible and needs a little stimulus to get back to good pathways.

In essence, the body gets lazy and wants to switch on the least amount of muscle to perform any task in order for the fatigued muscles to recover.

This “laziness” causes us to swim very poorly compared with when we are fresh but we can override the brain by performing drills that force muscle activation. So if you get in the pool and feel bad, your stroke timing feels off and power is low, then you need to do something about it: stop your session and perform a drill to fix what’s wrong and then get back into your workout.

It may only take 2-4 x 50m to fix the issue and you can then have a great session.

As an example I like to use what I call the power drill on days when I just feel wrong in the water: this is a great drill that sets stroke timing and also activates all swim-related muscle fibres.

POWER DRILL

Push off the wall on your front, head down and using a light kick, arms are always under the water—elbows and upper arms at the surface and wide of the body. Now pull one arm forward and the other arm back, so you are fighting one arm against the other. It is important that you always lead with the elbow so when pulling the hand forward from the back, your hand is pointing to the bottom of the pool all the way with the elbow leading the hand until it passes the shoulder—from this point the hand comes forward to full extension out front. The hand pulling back does the opposite so the hand comes down while the elbow stays forward of the shoulder and then all back together.

SEE VIDEO BELOW FOR DEMONSTRATION

When you master this drill, you should hardly be moving up the pool!

When we perform a drill in training it is important that we do the drill and then immediately swim after. This is helping the brain associate the drill to the full technique. So my advice: if you feel off, stop your session and perform 2-4 x50m, swimming 25m drill and then 25m moderate effort full stroke.

While the power drill is my go-to drill for most athletes right now (depending on the athlete and the issue), other drills can be used to fix specific problems.

DRILLS FOR INJURIES

I also recommend using drills when you are injured or notice a sudden pain. With swimming this is very common in the shoulder around the rotator cuff. When we swim with a technique that goes against our structure we can easily get inflammation in this area and it is very painful. The standard advice given to athletes is to stop using paddles or swimming until the problem goes away. This can take a very long time and not really addresses the issue so the pain is likely to return once back to normal swimming.

Shoulder problems occur easily in triathletes as we have stiff shoulders from all the riding we do. We need to swim with a style that takes this into account.

So if you develop shoulder pain, or if you already have, then a couple of drills will go a long way to solving the problem. The issue is normally bringing the recovery arm too close to the body and too high above the water—to remedy this we need to recover wider over the water while keeping the hand closer to the water.

DRILL ONE – hand drag

Simply swim as normal but the recovery hand must stay in the water all the way to the wrist—the only way to do this is by staying wide of the body and when you get this right you will instantly feel less stress on the shoulder.

DRILL TWO – finger trail

This is a follow-on drill from the first, so now the recovery hand is just above the water and the finger tips are still touching the water on the recovery.

If you have shoulder problems, these drills should be performed in your warm-up before every swim; if you suddenly develop pain during a session, you should stop and perform some drills before continuing. As above, I recommend just 3-4x50m of each drill, swimming 25m drill and then 25m moderate.

Drills have become an integral part of swimming and certainly have their place when learning to swim. After that, drills must be very specific to the athlete’s needs and performed only when needed. As triathletes we have limited swim-training time and we need to make the most of this for fitness gains. Swim fitness is very important when racing triathlon, as your condition (much more important than time) leaving the water affects the rest of the race. The focus of your swimming should be on taking as many good strokes as possible and using drills can aid this process at times.

***

Alun Woodward, ironguides Online Coach 

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Swimming is often the most difficult discipline to improve especially for beginner triathletes. While cycling faster is a result of cycling lots, doing it intensity and pushing heavy gears and running improvement is highly related to how often you run and your body composition (beginners improves their run as they get leaner), swimming requires both specific fitness and technique.

I’ve been coaching a triathlon club for almost ten years and a very common mistake I see people doing is looking ahead / up, as they swim, this only makes their legs sink, creating more drag and slowing them down. The steps below will force you to swim at an appropriate technique, when it comes to head position and how your upper body can impact where your legs will be in the water

Step 1 – Ping Pong ball drill

Place a ping pong ball under your chin and try not to lose it. This will force you to keep looking down. Stop to breath as you need to and do a few 25m repeats like that until it becomes easy to keep the ping pong ball in place

Step 2 – ankle bands

We’ve discussed swimming with ankle bands in other articles before, it creates extra drag and unless you press your chest into the water, kill your glide, and accelerate your stroke turnover, you won’t be going anywhere. Keep the repeats short, 25’s or 50’s

Step 3 – focus on the new technique for the rest of your workout

With the above exercises you should be swimming with a new and improved technique, you may then continue your main set but make sure you be aware of both your head position and keep on pressing your chest towards the bottom of the pool.

Lets go to the video:

By Vinnie Santana, online Coach, ironguides.net
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A triathlon race start can be stressful for athletes of all levels, often it begins with a faster than planned beach run fueled by adrenalin, and by the time you start to swim, your heart rate has reached closed to your maximum.

Then you either need to run around a buoy for lap two and start to swim again, or run to transition, both can let you feeling a bit dizzy and weak. The workout explained in this video by one of our coaches will help you to cope better with it.

Enjoy your training,
ironguides team

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Train with ironguides!

Personalized Online Coaching:  Starting at USD190/month

Monthly Training plans (for all levels, or focused on one discipline): Only USD39/months

Event based training plans:

Sprint Distance (USD45 for 8-week plan)

Olympic Distance (USD65 for 12 week plan)

Half Ironman (R$95 for 16-week plan)

Ironman (USD145 for 20-week plan)

X-Terra (USD65 for 12-week plan)

Running Plans (10k, 21k and 42k – starting at USD40)