Almost every swimmer knows the importance of working on swimming technique. Many have an idea of how to perform effective drills properly. A few actually practice them, very few however practice them accurately and consistently. These are the swimmers who make dramatic improvements in their swimming when executing drills correctly. Will you be one of them?

Doing drills for the first time will most likely feel awkward. This awkwardness is a sign that you are doing something different. Different does not always mean better, however seeing yourself on video tape or using a coach to observe are the best verifications of positive change.

With these drills use fins as they are essential in providing extra propulsion to keep a good body position through the drills. In addition the fins help with making you more aware of your feet and legs which helps them keep in the streamline of your body. Short blade fins are the best as they provide a little propulsion, rather than a big splash.

Practice Drill 1
Kick On Side
This is one of the best drills for working on body position. The side position is one of the most streamlined forms a human can take. The objective here is to get comfortable with the head lying on the shoulder and having one goggle in and out of the water. This is the ideal position for your head when you breathe.

Lie on your side with your bottom are stretched out and ear pressing onto the shoulder. This arm should be just under the surface of the water with the hand parallel to the bottom of the pool. The top are should be on your side. Do a flutter kick and try to maintain one goggle in and one goggle out of the water. The natural tendency is to start lifting the head to get the mouth out the water to breathe. This actually makes you sink and work harder. If breathing while keeping a good head position is difficult, simply roll your head and look up, which will bring your mouth and nose out of the water to enable you to breathe. Do one whole length on one side and another length on the other.

Practice Drill 2
Catch Up
This drill is great for working on making the exchange of one arm for the other in front of the head, this movement ensures that there is always an arm in front of the head to glide out on, which makes the body longer. In general, a longer body moves faster through water. In addition, the hands meting in front of the head is a reminder to pull and rotate. If you breathe on both sides, this drill can balance out your rotation.

When both arms are fully extended in front of your head, you then pull with the opposing arm. When first doing this drill it is helpful to keep both arms in front of your head and kick a little while before switching your arms. This gives you time to visualise a good pull and good rotation during the power phase.

As with all drills, take your time, as the more slowly and accurately you do these drills, the more you will retain when you swim fast. Try to do 2 x 50 meters of each drill and 1-5 minutes of the vertical kick drill each session. More drills to follow.

Happy training!!

If you liked this article, why not subscribe to TrispaceRSS Feed.

Alternatively subscribehere to receive new articles by email.

Have you ever heard any of your club members ever say, ‘I don’t really kick much during the swim leg of a triathlon, I like to save my legs for the bike and run’?

Very few people actually understand the importance of the kick in freestyle swimming, which is why so many swimmers are such poor kickers. Their kick probably creates more drag than propulsion, or they may not even kick at all.

What many triathletes (and swimmers) incorrectly assume is that kicking is a waste of energy. The fact is that an efficient, easy kick, is the foundation of a good body position. If the kick is used properly, it helps get the body in an optimum streamlined position to take full advantage of every pull. We’re not talking here of a powerful kick, but an efficient kick that helps keep the legs up (reducing drag) and helps rotate the body in alignment.

When a swimmer drags the lower body from side to side (fishtailing), it is creating unnecessary drag. Driving the rotation from the kick and core helps keep the body aligned and long. Therefore, the key is in a small kick that stays in the slipstream and is co-ordinated with the pull and rotation.

The kick in freestyle is called a flutter kick because the legs alternate in position ‘fluttering’ whilst keeping the ‘legs long’, meaning that the feet are pointed and the knees bend only slightly at the end of each movement. The most common mistake with this kick is bending the knees too much. This creates too much drag since it comes out of your slipstream. Think of your slipstream as a hole in the water that your body has to pass through, or a narrow band of area that your whole body has to move through with minimal exposure.

Another important factor in the efficiency of the kick is the ankle range of motion. The better a swimmer can point the toes, the more potential there is due to less drag. Flexibility in the ankle joint (for pointing the toes)can be enhanced by stretching the muscles in front of the shinbone(anterior tibialis).

Practice: Kicking Drill

The purpose of this drill is to make the kick efficient. From a vertical position with your arms at your sides, use a flutter kick to keep your head above the water (provided your pool is deep enough of course). Look down at your legs and make sure that you are not bending the knees too much or bending forward at the waist. Utilise the upper muscles of the leg and make small, fast movements. At first this may be too hard to maintain for even 30 seconds, persist and work your way up to one minute.

If your pool is not deep enough to perform the vertical kicking drill you can always revert to the more traditional drill with a paddle out in front of you with extended arms either on your front or back. Remember to keep the flutter kick between the imaginary band of area, i.e. in your slipstream. Try to complete 2 x 50m as part of you drill set.

A set of (zoomer) fins may also be advantageous when executing (most) drills as they help make you more aware of your feet and legs, which helps keep them in the slipstream of your body. The fins should have a short blade so to offer a little propulsion but not too much to push you way out of your slipstream.

Happy training !!

If you liked this article, why not subscribe to TrispaceRSS Feed.

Alternatively subscribehere to receive new articles by email.

I remember not that long ago starting out swim training for triathlon. A colleague of mine at a gym offered me some swim coaching. Seeing as she was a qualified ASA coach and a very good swimmer herself I jumped at the chance. One of the first things I commented on from my previous experience was that I was unable to swim two lengths without being absolutely wiped out. She was not surprised by my comment at all, as this is a common issue for both new comers to freestyle swimming and to a certain degree those who would class themselves as experienced freestyle swimmers.

Before you start to look at executing perfect swim drills, you really need to look at freestyle breathing. One of the most important things in freestyle swimming is to make sure you fully exhale (breathe out) while your face is in the water so that when you roll to the side to take a breathe, you get maximum intake of oxygen.

Many beginning swimmers because of being tense in the water, completely hold there breathes, then when they roll they have to breathe out fully before they can breathe in again. Swimmers adopting this breathing style get less oxygen in than they other wise could since the time that the mouth is out the water is expelling air rather than taking it in. Usually these swimmers need to breathe every stroke and usually feel wiped out after a short swim, not necessarily from the effort of the swim, but more so because of the lack of oxygen. This becomes a vicious cycle of never really getting maximum oxygen intake before rushing for another. Sound familiar to anyone?

Breathing technique is one of the most important first steps in swimming efficiently and for many swimmers could be more beneficial than swim drill techniques, because without oxygen we cannot perform.

Intensity
It’s a simple fact, that the harder you swim the more oxygen you utilise. While your stroke rate goes up as your intensity and speed increases, it does not increase quite as much as your oxygen consumption. The important point to understand here is that for easy swimming you have no trouble breathing every third, fourth or fifth stroke. However increase the intensity and this is when you need to breathe every two or three strokes to meet the oxygen demand from your body.

Practice Drill
Do a set of five 100 meter swims and alternate between fast and slow throughout the entire 100. Take 20 seconds rest after each 100. Try and experiment with the different breathing patterns to establish what works best.

Bilateral Breathing (Alternate Sides)
Almost each and every one of us has a preferred side to breathe on. Until I was able to master a regular breathing pattern I would always breathe every stroke to my right. The rotation of my body was always better on that side because that’s the side I was rotating on all the time to breathe. However, for efficient swimming we should be comfortable breathing on both sides. Next time you swim imagine a long axis running through your spine that your body rotates around as you rotate to breathe on alternate sides.

By developing the skill of bilateral breathing your stroke will be more balanced by rotating equally to both sides. It will allow you to have a greater range of visibility on each side, which is especially important for open water swimming. Finally, bilateral breathing may also go along way to maximising your oxygen utilisation.

All drills that work on rotation assist in developing a naturally balanced stroke and should therefore be part of every practice.

What breathing pattern should you use?

This depends on a few variables such as your intensity, your lung volume, and how well you transfer oxygen in and out of your mouth. Some swimmers need five strokes to utilise all the oxygen that one full breathe provides yet others will start to fail after three strokes. So how do you find out what’s best for you?

Practice Drill
2 x 100 meter (freestyle) swims with 30 seconds rest as follows

First 25 meters – Breathe every two strokes
Second 25 meters – Breather every three strokes
Third 25 meters – Breathe every four strokes
Fourth 25 meters – Breathe every four strokes

Practice this drill once a week and you’ll find the best breathing pattern to suit. Be sure to fully exhale under water so that when you roll to breathe you are ready to take a full breathe.

Practice Drill
A particularly good breathing practice for beginners or those having trouble mastering freestyle breathing are breathing exercises at the side of the pool. Standing in the shallow end of the pool, bend at the waist while holding onto the side of the pool with one hand. Put the other hand behind your back and place your face in the water.

Fully exhale under water until you are ready to take a breathe. Rotate your body and head to your left side so your mouth exits the water line and you are able to take a full breathe. After taking a full breathe rotate your head so you’re now face down into the water again. Now repeat the process on your right side. Repeat this process until you have completed five breathes on each side, follow this by a 25 or 50 meter swim (depending on confidence) and practice alternate breathing.

Repeat the whole process a further four times.

Next time in swim training we’ll be looking at a few swim specific drills designed to improve your body position, leg and arm mechanics.

Happy training!!

If you liked this article, why not subscribe to TrispaceRSS Feed.

Alternatively subscribehere to receive new articles by email.

Now the race season has well and truly ended, most of us will be enjoying a well-earned break before beginning to train for next year. But before that it’s important to reflect on this past year’s performances and set goals for the 2009 season.

It’s hard to plan or feel happy about training if you don’t have clear goals. So now is the time what you want to achieve next year. Do you want to finish sprint races faster or do you want to complete a 70.3 or full distance Ironman? Setting goals not only helps you build a training plan, but enables you to identify the sessions you must follow to achieve your aims.

Your training should be geared towards your ‘personal limiters’; such as ability, free time, family commitments and so on, as well being specific to the time of year – at this point pre-season.

As we all know, swimming is a technique intensive sport where workout and frequency plays an important role. At this stage in pre-season swim training the main aim is to ease your body back into training and also to:

Develop your training strategy for the upcoming season.
Prepare your body.
Improve your skills and technique (especially during early training) for greater efficiency.
Improve your endurance.

Pre-season training is intended to improve cardiovascular fitness (heart, lungs & blood) through aerobic exercise. By working aerobically you’ll condition your slow twitch muscle fibres and in time, you can add in resistance work to obtain greater body strength for a more powerful stroke.

This is also the time to work on technique, leading into building an endurance base prior to the race season. Technique and your ability to maintain the stroke’s mechanics should be the focus of your training, as this will reduce drag. Les drag means more speed for less effort, which is what we all endeavour to achieve in swimming, not to mention triathlon.

Front crawl can be broken down into its component parts and worked into drills during your training. Drills improve specific movements carried out repetitively before incorporating them back into your stroke as a whole. For ease, front crawl can be broken down into the following components;

Body position.
Leg mechanics.
Arm mechanics.
Breathing and timing.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be introducing various swim drills focusing on the four components in order to assist you in improving your swimming technique during the winter.

If you liked this article, why not subscribe to TrispaceRSS Feed.

Alternatively subscribehere to receive new articles by email.

As I’ve said before time efficient training can make you a better athlete in the longer term. It forces you to think about the importance of each session and encourages you to scrap the junk miles. Limited training can also reduce the likely hood of injury though overtraining, giving you the consistency you need to keep improving year on year.

This 2K time efficient swim session minimises the time you spend standing still at the end of the lane, yet still allows you enough recovery time. Also the warm-up and cool-down forms part of the main set, keeping things simple and making the most of the time you have available.

200m front crawl (personal best (PB) pace + 20 secs)
50m easy backstroke
200m front crawl with pull buoy (PB pace + 20 secs)
50m easy breaststroke
45 second rest

200m front crawl (PB pace + 10 secs)
50m easy backstroke
200m front crawl with pull buoy (PB pace + 10 secs)
50m easy breaststroke
45 second rest

200m front crawl (PB pace + 5 secs)
50m easy backstroke
200m front crawl with pull buoy (PB pace + 5 secs)
50m easy breaststroke
45 second rest

200m front crawl (PB pace + 15 secs)
50m easy backstroke
200m front crawl with pull buoy (PB pace + 15 secs)
50m easy breaststroke
45 second rest

How’s that for efficiency? Could also be used as a session to keep you ticking over during your ’down time’.

Happy training!!

If you liked this article, why not subscribe to TrispaceRSS Feed.

Alternatively, subscribehere to receive the latest Trispace articles by email.

More swim tips and advice aimed towards triathletes of all abilities. If you’re a beginner, they’ll keep you from flailing about like you being attacked by sharks, or if you see yourself as seasoned veteran, they’ll show you how it is possible to shave off the seconds without having to shave your legs.

Swim Tall
Water is 1000 times denser than air. So the simple most important factor is to slip your body through the smallest hole in the water. Imagine a central axis extending from the top of your head to the opposite end of the pool. Rotate your body along this axis with each stroke, stretching your leading arm as far forward as you can. Keep the muscles in your lower back and abs taut as you power through the water. Doing so will keep the propulsion coming from both your arms and legs.

Drop An Anchor
Swimming with just your hands is like jumping with just your feet. Instead, grip the water with your entire forearm and hand, holding your forearm at a right angle to your upper arm and digging in like you’re gathering sand with a shovel. Keep your hands broad, flat and firm. You’re not pushing your arm through the water as much as anchoring it and pulling your body over it.

Heavy Rotation
Each stroke begins with your leading arm having entered the water, and that side of your body (the low side) pointing almost at the bottom of the pool. The other side of your body (the high side) should be raised, with the arm that just finished its stroke getting ready to return to the water. Power is triggered when you drive down the high side of your body, throwing your high side arm forward along the central axis into the leading position and rotating your hips and torso. Meanwhile, your low side arm is the pulling arm under water, working with your rotating torso to provide acceleration.

Keep Your Head Down
Freestylers used to hold their heads high. That forced the rest of the body to drop, turning it into a high-drag plough. Try and look pretty much straight down at the pool. Obviously in open water you need to sight, try to keep this to a minimum though in order to avoid and un-necessary drag. In both situations not only will keeping you head down avoid drag but it keeps your torso high, reducing strain on your neck and lower back.

Find Your Glide Path
In the pool, fewer strokes is better. Your goal should be a high distance per stroke. Elite swimmers like Michael Phelps can easily traverse a 25m pool in seven strokes(each hand entry counts as a stroke). Try to keep yours below 20 by conserving momentum. Pull yourself over your anchor and continue to glide forward with one arm forward and the other back. When you begin to slow, start the next stroke.

Drag Your Feet
If you’re a good kicker, you’re a good swimmer. The secret is turning your feet into fins. Leverage rules, your legs should be taut, scissoring though the water, while your feet remain flexible. This will help them snap at the down stroke of each kick, adding oomph and helping twist your torso along the central axis. If your feet don’t flex as well, buy a set of fins to add flexibility.

Don’t Waste Breathe
Gasping for air every time your head nears the surface is a great way to drown. Instead make each breathe count. Exhale all the air from your lungs before taking a quick, full breathe on the high side. Beginning swimmers need to breathe after each stroke, but as your endurance improves, try breathing on alternate sides – that is after three strokes. It’ll reduce the strain on your neck and shoulders that results from always breathing on the same side.

Happy training!!

If you liked this article, why not subscribe to TrispaceRSS Feed

Following on from Swim Fitness & Efficiency Part 1, here’s another post to assist you with your swim fitness and efficiency.

Intervals
Interval training is a great way to get more out of your time in the water. The aim of an interval session is to swim at race pace or faster over the distance you will be racing so your body is prepared come race day. An example is a set of 10 repeats of 100’s at 80% effort with 10-20 seconds rest between swims. This is a great way to improve your aerobic swim fitness.

Time Trial
Track your increased stamina and fitness to motivate yourself. Choose a distance up to two thirds of the race day distance and swim at a perceived rate of exertion of about 8 out of 10 (or roughly 80% maximum heart rate). Note down your time after each time trial. Try to keep the same routine on the morning of each time trial for true accuracy. Only complete the time trial every 3-4 weeks.

Recovery Swim
A slow paced swim can aid recovery during training. It will ease you into switching between activities. Your effort level should be at a perceived rate of exertion of about 5-6 out of 10 (or roughly 50-60% maximum heart rate). Another recovery swim is to just get in water and swim, granted at a much slower pace than normal. Again aim for 50-60% MHR or 5-6 out of 10 effort and swim for 30-40 minutes (distance specific of course).

If you liked this article, why not subscribe to TrispaceRSS Feed

As we all know practising technique is crucial for efficient swimming. If you’re wasting energy by swimming incorrectly, the chances are you’re loosing speed. Drill work, focusing on specific elements of your stroke for short periods of your time, pays dividends by boosting performance and giving you something to think about as you swim. Aim to practice all three drills in rotation, switching drill every 50m or two lengths. Rest when you need to, but no more than 45 secs.

High Elbow Drill
Some swimmers make the mistake of allowing their whole arm to rotate fully in a ‘windmill’ motion. Another mistake is to bend the elbow but let your arms go too wide. To avoid this try swimming with an ‘exaggerated’ high elbow position, when your arm is above and under the water. As you swim keep your elbows bent, imagine you are lifting your arm out of your pocket with each recovery and aim to enter the water with your hand in line with your shoulder. Ensure your hands are always lower than your elbows in the water.

Catch-Up
The best swimmers tend to take less strokes per length than most of us. This drill encourages you to ‘glide’ for as long as possible with each stroke and although you wouldn’t do it in a race, helps develop longer strokes.
As you swim keep your non-stroking arm out in front (in a superman position) until the other arm completes a full stroke cycle. Glide before you start the next stroke. You should touch hands each time. Be sure to pull under the centre line of your body and all the way past your hips so your thumb brushes past your thigh as it recovers out of the water.

Bilateral Breathing
Most swimmers (like me) are stronger on one side than the other and prefer to breathe on that side, with the result being that the stroke can become unbalanced. In a race chose a breathing pattern that feels natural, but practice breathing on both sides in training to discipline yourself and balance your stroke.
Breathe every three or five strokes so you are breathing on alternate sides. I found it un-natural at first, but it does become much easier. Now even when I’m racing I’m able to breathe bilaterally. Finally make sure you breathe out while your face is under the water and breathe in when you turn your head.

If you liked this article, why not subscribe to TrispaceRSS Feed