Multisport 101: The Swim

Hey! Where’s the Vegan 101 post?!  Nothing to fear, folks, as I have two new posts coming your way in July. In the meantime, I thought I would use the next three Mondays to provide a short fitness series.

If you’ve read my fitness posts you know that I have run two marathons, numerous half-marathons and I’ve done lots of triathlons, all after turning 40. It’s been two years since I have competed in a triathlon (I suffered an injury after completing my first, and only, Olympic distance triathlon in August 2009).  Lucky for me, my husband recently became a certified USA Triathlon (USAT) coach and he’s been giving me training tips this summer.

I’ve asked him to share a few of his tips with you. I know some of you are training for your first triathlon. Others of you may simply want to add a new sport to your current fitness regime.  Dave’s three-part Multisport 101 series will cover each individual sport — the swim, bike and run.  Don’t expect a “how to do a triathlon” primer. Do expect great tips to improve in all three sports, whether in a triathlon or simply to work out more efficiently.

Today, the swim.

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Swimming technique.  The Basics.

Swimming is all about efficiency and technique.  And it’s not that cycling and running don’t have efficiency and speed gains from technique.  They certainly do.  But as we look at swimming, a little extra attention on a few key areas will help make the swim leg of your triathlon – or just doing laps at the pool – a less taxing and more fruitful exercise.

There’s so much that goes into swimming that it can’t possibly be covered in one article.  There are books upon books on swim technique and stroke refinement.  I have a few in my own library.  However, what I want to cover are some simple basic stroke techniques and training tips to help make your swim a little easier and hopefully a little faster.

Before I continue I have to stress that before you begin any exercise regime – either for fitness or for competition – you need to consult your doctor.  Get a physical, and make sure that there are no issues that you’re not aware of that could cause injury or worse as you move down your road to better health and competitiveness.

First things first.  You need to be comfortable in the water.  If you’re not comfortable, are nervous in open water, or aren’t quite as strong a swimmer as you’d like to be, you can tend to thrash and fight the water and your stroke.  Relax.  A relaxed stroke is easier to manage and will make it easier to keep your breathing and heart rate under control.  By the way, if at any time you do become panicked (especially in open water swims) or nervous – stop and tread water.  If you’re in a pool, just stand up.  I know it sounds silly, but taking a few deep breaths will help calm you down.  More importantly, if you feel that you need to become a stronger swimmer then stick to working out in the pool for a while.  Open water swimming is a whole other animal.

Now that we’re all nice and comfy in the water, let’s focus on the stroke itself:

• A streamlined body position is key.  Straight, long, tight lines with your head in a natural / neutral position.  And by neutral, I mean looking down – carrying your head as if you were just walking down the street, though this varies depending upon your personal buoyancy.  If your legs tend to ‘sink,’ looking straight down will help remedy that a bit.  If you tend to be more buoyant, and it’s more comfortable to do so, then looking slightly forward is just fine.
• High elbows: On the recovery phase of your stroke, above the water, your elbows should be ‘high’ and your hand recovering ‘below’ the elbow.
• Don’t let arms cross the ‘center line’ in your stroke.  Your right arm shouldn’t cross over the center line to the left side of your body.
• Palm down entry, but don’t slap the water.  Fingertips enter the water first.
• With a flat, palm down, hand entry your ‘catch’ and underwater pull can start easily and efficiently.  It should be a natural movement with your elbows ‘high’ underwater.  There are many theories out there as to what your stoke is supposed to ‘look’ like.  For now let’s just keep it simple.  Pull back, with high elbows.

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• Shoulder roll.  Helps keep you streamlined.  Imagine a big freighter with a flat front bow.  It’s pushing the water in front of it.  A speedboat, with an angled bow, cuts through the water.  Again, efficiency.  “Be the speedboat.”
• Finish your stroke at your hip.  Don’t shorten your stroke by pulling your hand out too quickly.
• Bilateral breathing.  Otherwise known as breathing on both sides of your body.  During practice, do this as much as possible.  During a race, do what is comfortable and practical with the conditions at hand (waves, sun, keeping an eye on a competitor or open water swim buddy).  There actually is impact to only breathing on one side constantly that can come back to haunt you later in a triathlon.  More on that in another article.

Speaking of breathing……don’t forget to exhale when your face is in the water.  Don’t hold your breath until the next time you take a breath.  By doing so you have to then exhale, and then inhale, in a very short window of time when your head is turned to the side to breath.  This, obviously will make it harder to get a full breath.  Remember when you were little – your swim instructor told you to “blow bubbles”?  This is just like that mathematics course you hated in high school.  It’s coming back to haunt you as being a useful thing you needed to learn.

“All of that sounds great” you might be saying.  So how do you work on all this?  There are lots of drills that can be implemented into your workouts to help to ingrain these techniques into your swim stroke.  To this day I still take half of my warm up before every swim workout – at least 300-400 meters out of an 800 meter warm up – and do stroke drills.  You just can’t not do them.

There’s so much going on during a single stroke pull and recovery phase that it’s hard to focus on working on multiple things at once.  You need to focus on smaller parts, individually, and over time pull all the pieces together.

You do this through individual stroke drills.

One arm swim drill:
With one arm held in front of you, in a streamlined position, you’re going to just pull and stroke with the other.  This will help you focus on your underwater catch and pull phase of your stroke.  It will also help you to not cross the center line with your arms and will help lengthen your pull phase.

Catch up drill:
This drill uses both arms, but one at a time.  Similar to the one arm drill, you’ll hold one arm in front of you in a streamlined position and do a complete stroke with the other arm.  As soon as your two hands are together, you’ll do a full stroke with the opposite arm.  This drill helps you focus on your underwater catch and pull phase of your stroke and keeps your stroke balanced.

Fingertip drag:
This drill is pretty simple.  You’re going to use your normal swim stroke, but on the recovery portion – when your arm is out of the water – you’re going to drag your fingers along the surface of the water all the way back to the entry point of your hand.  This drill will help with hand entry position, as well as helping to keep your elbows ‘high’ on the recovery phase.  It will also help you think about shoulder rotation.  Yes, you must think while doing stroke drills!

Fist swim:
Simple.  Your normal stroke, but keep your hands balled into fists.  This is going to help you with the underwater phase of your stroke by forcing you to focus on high elbows and arm position during the pull phase.  It will help you start to ‘feel’ the water.  You’ll need to feel how your stroke is moving through the water and how to get the most out of your pull. You’ll be swimming slowly during this drill, so don’t get frustrated.

In all these drills, stay relaxed and rest as much as you need.  This isn’t about fitness it’s about improving your form and technique.

Oh, and don’t forget to kick. A lot of triathletes think that you don’t need, or want, to kick too much.  The prevailing thought being that you need to save your legs for the bike and the run.  While there’s some truth to that, kicking does more than help move you forward in the water.  It helps your body position by driving your body rotation, and by doing so helps reduce drag.  Here we go with that efficiency thing again.  You don’t need to kick a lot, but a little kick is certainly in order.  There are numerous kicking drills out there.  But here are a couple of good and simple ones:

Stomach kick drill:
With your arms in front of you in a streamlined position, you’re going to kick.  Point your toes and relax your ankles.  Stay relaxed and slowly exhale while your face is in the water.  Breathing can be a bit tricky, so to make it easy, just take a stroke (alternate sides – remember the bilateral breathing?) when you need to.  When you’re able, just turn your head without taking a stroke.  But the main point of this drill is the kick.  Kick for 25-50 meters and rest.  This isn’t about fitness – again, it’s about form.

Simple kick board drill:
This is the easiest drill of them all.  Get a kick board, grab the top of it and rest your forearms and elbows on it with your arms stretched in front of you.  Now kick!  You can use fins during this drill (or any kick drill for that matter) if you don’t feel strong enough in the beginning.  Same rules apply – kick for 50 meters (maybe 100) and take a rest.  Rinse and repeat.

You don’t want huge splashes during your kick.  Keep your feet just below the surface.  The water will be churning and frothing, but you shouldn’t have huge splashing going on.  Another key point: Kick from your hips, not your knees.

There are a number of web sites out there that provide details, videos, and instruction in regards to the above-mentioned drills (as well as many other drills)–slowtwitch.com, Trifuel and Swimsmooth are all great resources.

Now, that’s great in a pool.  But what does one do in open water?  Not much will change in regards to your stroke.  What you will need to change is how you sight, deal with other swimmers, and adjust to adverse conditions.  We’ll cover this in another article.

In the meantime, go swim.

While he does have a full-time day job, Dave Burgess is a competitive 40-44 age-group triathlete and USAT certified triathlon coach.  His group, Podium Training Systems, works with all levels of triathletes to help improve performance and attain individual goals through customized training plans and one on one interaction.  He blogs at Stalking the Podium.

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Great info, right? The breathing tip was a game changer for me. I totally freaked during the swim of my first triathlon and ended up swimming with my head up and out of the water the entire distance.  After learning how to breathe correctly, it fell into place. The swim is my weakest triathlon link and since following Dave’s swim workouts–utilizing the techniques described above–I’m much more confident in the water.

Do you have questions for Dave about your swim workouts? Ask away!

LAST CALL! The very vegan giveaway ends tonight at midnight (EST).  Don’t miss your chance to win a Vegan Mainstream Vegan Revolution t-shirt and glass straws courtesy of Vegan Cuts!

Tags: fitnessmultisport 101podium training systemstriathlon

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