I hear it all the time at team practices, “swimming is my weakest leg.” I have to say when I first started the sport of triathlon 3 years ago, I thought I would ROCK the swim. Needless to say 5 laps and one hour later, yes you read that correctly, I was thinking I may need to rework this whole “triathlon thing!” This is not meant to scare you, but more to humor you and enlighten that you too can get better. I just did the Lake Norman mile in 34 minutes, so I think that is a vast improvement. I definitely had help along the way, a great coach and teacher Steve Hightower and some well placed advice from Coach Nicole Gross. Here are some things I feel are important to improvement:
DRILLS, DRILLS, DRILLS. I can’t say it enough. Each work out should have some drills attached to it. See examples below…
- Fingertip drag: swim freestyle, but when pulling arm down, open fingertips a bit and drag.
- Wrist flick: same concept as above but flick the wrist when coming out of the water. Both drills should be intentional, slow and precise.
- Pulling: focusing on elongating the strokes and reach out as far as possible as slow as possible then to pull back in strong.
- One arm drills: swim with one arm doing the stroke only. Have other arm straight out in front of body. Breathe on the side of the arm stroking every 3rd breath.
- Kicking on side: be sure to suck belly button in and have shoulders parallel to your ears, looking straight out NOT up.
- Pull buoys or Paddles: to also work on pulling with little effort from legs.
- Vary your work out. It is important to choose something different each time. Being monotonous will not only make it boring, it will make you hate the workout. Vary not only the routine but also the distances you do. Be sure to rest between the each set and have plenty of fluids available. I pack my swim bag with multiple Ziploc lunch bags. Each bag has a workout inside- one on front and one on back- it lists the work out and the distance. I go into the bag and look at what I feel like doing. The Ziploc allows me to use it over and over without getting wet. I’ll post some workouts on the discussion board soon.
- Land work is just as important as water work! WHAT??? Yep, you need to focus on your core to improve your breathing and strength. You can achieve this with yoga, Pilates or even simple stretching, like superman’s (lie on belly and keep core tight, while lifting arms and legs up like you are superman flying).
- Don’t compete against the person in the lane beside you! For those that know me, know this is a shock coming from me. It is the hardest one for me to follow. I see someone and want to beat them, but the key to swimming is form, so slow it WAY down to go faster. You will know when your form goes…you won’t be able to breath.
- Work on switching up your breathing technique. Coach Nicole gave me probably the best advice I’ve ever gotten and that was my breathing practice specific to racing. I breathe twice on each side. That is, breathe right, right, left, and left, repeat. This is perfect during a race, as it allows more air intake when trying to get through the washing machine of swimmers. You can add a sighting to the middle in between each side. Also while working out, make sure to breath differently during different drills. Some breathing patterns to choose from are:
- Two on each side and switch
- Breathing every 3rd stroke (bilateral swimming)
- Breathing every 4th stroke (unilateral- one sided)
- Go for more strokes (5 or 6 strokes)
- Breath every stroke
- Breath only on one side
- The last thing is to be sure to vary your location. Do not always swim in the same temperature. We all know that cold water can take your breath away, but warm water is often even more difficult. Does anyone remember the water temp at Tri Latta in 2008. I thought I was going to fry! I literally was thinking, “Can you boil in this water?” So prepare your body ahead of time. Swim in the warm pool; what I like to call the arthritic pool ?. Swim at the frigid MAC pool. Swim in open water because it is MUCH different than pool swimming when you have lane lines to follow and you can see. Also swim in 25 meter (short course) and 50 meter (long course) pools.
I hope that some of these tips help you in your swim adventures. Trust me you DO have to practice in order to improve and you can’t slack on your swimming. You will never win the race with swimming, but you very well could lose it.
Repeat my mantra…”Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming.” Thanks Dori!!
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