Swim Faster And Stronger In 2009 - Part 1
Triathlon Training - Swim October 20th, 2008
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.
October 20th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
The off season is a great time to refocus, but I don’t think it’s the best time to build aerobic fitness. Most triathletes spend their entire year building aerobic fitness, especially those that train for 70.3 / IM distance events. From my experience, the off season is a great time to switch things up and actually go harder since daylight hours / weather / etc are all stacked up against you. Can’t wait to see the swim tips…I need’em!
Thanks!
October 20th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Thanks for the comments. However I must make the point that the key to a successful race season is a solid foundation in base training, which for most triathletes begins during the winter months. The base phase is key as it gradually builds general endurance in all three disciplines by performing an increasing volume of low to moderate intensity training. This trains the body to delay the onset of fatigue, which is what we’re all trying to achieve, and allows us to race at such high intensities during the key ‘race element’ of the season. There’s no harm in mixing up the training, i.e. mountain biking, cross country running etc as long as we’re at the appropriate intensity levels. Going too hard too soon, too frequently, could lead to injury quicker than you think!! Watch out for those swim drills in the next week or so !