Showing your age. :o)

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

Boom Nutrition code 19F4Y3 $5 off 24 pack box | Bionic Runner | PowerCranks | Velotron | Spruzzamist

Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

qoute
What's the real secret to the Sutton swim camp? Being in a swim camp with Brett Sutton standing on deck and other swimmers in the lanes next to you. By virtue of being in a camp, you will swim a bunch. You are swimming with a world class coach watching. And you are swimming with other people who are also trying to improve and who are probably very competitive.

This is what most people overlook when they try to go into the little details they dont look at the big picture. For pretty much 80 % of top Itu coaches and athletes thats what they do,they create a competetive environmwnt with world class coaching and a good group and then it dosnt really matter if it is leeds the basque country , leysin or st moritz, boulder . Its so uncunny its not even funny and in a way more important than any of the 3 R s.
or as a wise man has written on his website
Surrounded by commitment, success is inevitable.

Ya, I could not have said it better myself, just moving gracefully through the water, at whatever speed and swimming whatever stroke, is such a nice feeling. In particular, it is nice when there are only a few people in the pool and the water is nice and smooth and still. Moving smoothly through still water, what a treat. I'll prob never become a serious OW swimmer cause i like the smoothness of the pool too much, whereas OW is often pretty rough and you can't really feel your stroke at all. I'll prob just stick with mid-distance and distance events, 200 and up in all 4 strokes:)

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

It would be really interesting to know what exactly is gained and lost from swimming alone in perfectly still water vs the benefit of a draft off a faster swimmer, but getting less still water to lock on to. My own two cents is that the draft for me far and away sucks me along overcoming whatever I lose with catching sloppy water. I still do an occasional open water swim when the water is cool like fall/spring time. I always end up being able to swim with faster people than I would be capable of in a pool, but then again my turns/breakouts are nowhere near the level of a lot of those peeps. So many dang variables!

Sounds like what our coach said to us. "Don't think, just swim". Of course we still worked on technique, but the message was to just swim hard, in races forget about technique (it should be automatic at that point ) and just think about race strategy.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

Ha ha, well said :)

I'm glad that the majority posting here seemed to gain something from this short video. It is just a tiny glimpse behind the scenes of daily training in camp. Maybe I'll post some more insights in the future, if it is deemed helpful to some, as we are all just doing what we can to be the best that we can be, so happy if someone gets something out of it.

While standing on the pool deck this morning, I was telling Brett about the great response to the video, which he was unaware was being filmed at the time. As I said this is daily in the trenches coaching, just another day at the office. He was interested to hear about the details, and wanted to post a reply, so here it is. As not many speak Sutto I already did the translation ;)

Safe training,
Robbie
http://www.trisutto.com


As you know, I leave the forum'ing out. Not because my history inevitably gets brought up when someone wants to denounce a point I make on completely different topics, but because the misinformation is so deliberate to sell a product or way of thinking that you can't make a difference anymore .

Yes, I do have a first draft of a Sutto training bible, haha. It was started in my swim days, then morphed with chapters when my early triathletes started to kill everyone, then I added more in the late 90s. I thought I had completed it in my sabbatical in 2005, and had a couple of publishers offer to print it. I thought why? So it's just sitting there. Maybe I should take some time off to finish it, and give the triathlon world a hand book they can understand, and that makes sense of real triathlon.

As to Dan, well he isn't a coach, just another age grouper when it comes to expertise in this area. However one with a lot of experience. I think his points were valid, in the fact that people just don't swim enough, and I like his pastor approach of helping out. I don't have a pastor but I live by that thinking.

As to copying the best, well what is the best? That seems to be the conjecture. Do you watch films of a sprinter and say that is the best swim technique?, when most 100m men can't swim 4km without floaties. Do we study Usain Bolt when we want to run the marathon in an ironman? I don't think so, but it happens in swimming all the time.

As to rappstar, he seems to only be echoing an article I wrote somewhere. I can't send it to you as I don't know when and where it appeared but I said that a few of my athletes left me as they were not happy I wasn't as hell bent on improving their swim as they were. They were also miffed that I said no matter how much they improve, Kona won't suit them. I told them going to a swim coach that doesn't know triathlon may make them a 1 minute faster swimmer, but a 10 minute worse athlete. I can only say after watching some of them for two seasons, over half of them swim better to various degrees, however all are much slower triathletes, and none will be successful in kona. Just as I said in the first place, sometimes you must beware of what you wish for. Mick Jagger penned it correctly "you can't always get what you want, but sometimes you can get what you need". The rapp is not so much a star anymore. A going back to his roots both physically and more mentally, will see him bounce back at the races that suit him, racing the way that suits him. The ole change of heart on Kona has cost him dearly. Just my take.
Cheers
the doc
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this is gold!!!!

one of the main aspect people need to realise is, Brett is a high performance expert. he create a high performance/high commitment surrounding for the athletes and train them really hard and in a very smart not bullshit approach. But even more, he is a mastermind motivator/talking/story teller. He can sence and feel when the energy level is low with the athletes and he make those pep talk like in this video. he as million of stories...he is so much fun to listen to when you take part daily in the training. He as this ability to turn you from exhausted and tired to ready to smash yourself and go to war. That video is very much this, ....like slowman and Rappstar said... it s not like those 3 R help you directly improve.... but it s just one more talk in his registry of 1000s that he use to create this environment of high performance.

somes coaches are poor at been ''motivator'' and entertainer. Some will argue it s not part of there jobs and want athletes to be self motivated. Brett take control over this aspect and make sure you re fired up before each session like he take control over everything else in the high performance environment of a athlete

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Jonathan Caron / Professional Coach / ironman champions / age group world champions
Jonnyo Coaching
Instargram

Thanks for posting, Great read.

I love the part that not everyone is suited for Kona. Boy does a Type A NOT want to hear this from anyone.

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Dave Campbell | Facebook | @DaveECampbell | h2ofun@h2ofun.net

Boom Nutrition code 19F4Y3 $5 off 24 pack box | Bionic Runner | PowerCranks | Velotron | Spruzzamist

Lions don't lose sleep worrying about the sheep

I seriously wish I could put some of that Brett Sutton crazy and motivation into a regular podcast and blast it into my ears on those days where I'm not supposed to be dogging it but just feel so blah. I agree with you - after his 'ranting', I wanted to jump in that pool and destroy myself! Seems to be working...

His (younger?) brother, Brian is a pretty handy swim coach too. Also has a stack of interesting stories and "outside the box" thoughts on training including transferring training principles from race horses to humans and vice versa. Still involved in High performance swim stuff here in Aus and worth looking up down here if you want a bit of personal coaching.

One other comment I'd make is that in terms of "emulating" top athletes, there is certainly one area that's worth copying - They all spend lots of time doing their stuff. I hear all of these yds/ week, month or whatever being mentioned but as Sutto mentions, you gotta get out there and just swim lots. 60 - 70,000 will do it....per week! My kids came home this morning from swimming training. Their set - 10,000 scm (main set was 10 x 800 ). Seems to me that if you want to improve your triathlon swimming, the big block method has some validity.

U.S. Masters Swimming has an annual online fitness challenge with diff milestones and awards for those milestones, with the ultimate milestone being to swim 1500 miles (2.64 million yd or about 2.4 million m) in the calendar year. Last year I swam 1338 miles, or about 47,000 yd/wk (42,300 m/wk) over 50 weeks, with 2 weeks off. This year I'm on track to hit 1500 miles, which is 52,800 yd/wk or 48,300 m/wk over 50 weeks.

On a related note, Sutto's "swim lots" is identical to Eddie Merckx's statement way back around 1967 or so, when asked about the secret to becoming a great cyclist: "ride lots".

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."