for me, that's lots of kick and lots of im. masters swim helps with this. that it the only way to get out of my natural plateau pace.

Swim more, swim harder. Seriously.

There is no single switch that gives you gains, for the most part. I've said this here, a long time ago, but it still holds true. Swimming well is 100% fitness and 100% technique, the 2 cannot be separated. Poor fitness means you cannot hold good technique, because good technique isn't easy to hold. When you see those top guys swimming with that nice high turnover and perfect catch, that's hard to do. You need good specific fitness for that.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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

of course, more volume is #1.

But....
Im no fish but this helped me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1KReTEXiBM

I haven't seen you swimming but first thing that comes to my mind when I hear people haven't difficulty maintaining speed above 75-100m is breathing issues. People can become good and get away with breathing partners issues or flaw under 100m like you mentioned 1:30 (90 secs) isn't that long but once you get over 2 mins than it bites you hard.. and your stroke will fall apart because you are trying to get some air in and probably pausing or doing anything possible that disrupt your technique for air.

Like others mentioned putting on more volume will help but 1:30/100y isn't fast and should be attainable simply with good technique no hard effort.

Get yourself film under water would love to see how much air you are blowing out... Are you inhaling/exhaling at the same time when grasping for air? Pretty common mistake by non-swimmers... ;)

Edit: BTW I feel the breathing is still a limiter for me even swimming in the 1:10-1:15/100y pace... I can improve on that technical item to get faster without having to pound in more mileage, disclaimer I have no swimming background what so ever... it's my pure feeling, I think it will help me be more efficient with other phase of my stroke.

MTL, Thanks for the input! I definitely feel like breathing is holding me back. Problem is I can't seem to find reliable sources that agree on best technique (some say hold all, exhale big right before breath, others say slow steady stream of bubbles). How would you succinctly describe your approach to breathing? I.e., something I can think about while I practice.

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CG

Pull buoy to teach you to get your legs up and streamlined. Drag chute to teach you to pull way harder and ups your cadence. Mix it in 10 minutes at a time. 10 minutes on, 10 minutes off. Repeat for an hour.

Are you sucking in the biggest breath you can every time? You shouldn't be - large, but comfortable breath, that's not hard to hold, with a push exhale just before turning your head. I wrote a bit more about it here: https://www.slowtwitch.com/...n_Swimming_6700.html

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I wrote this, you should read it:
https://www.slowtwitch.com/...n_Swimming_6700.html

I'm not the person you who originally posted about breathing, but I have always been told that if your face is in the water you should be blowing bubbles. I guess my experience is somewhat limited to a few coaches, but one of them was a former Olympic trials level swimmer and the other is the head coach of a competitive YMCA team... they both have forgotten more about swimming than I will ever know so I tend to go with whatever they tell me. Curious to hear if anyone else has a different approach though.

I attended a swim clinic with Andy Potts a few weeks ago... I will use is example to maybe give you some directions. Again, like Andy told us he simply breaths for pure swimmers it's a single nature they don't think about it, the same for most of us when running.

My understanding is to exhales small amount under the water, you don't want to exhale totally your lungs. The example he cited was think of your lungs as balloons, they tend float better when there's some air in them. If they are empty the will sink. So you want to keep some air in them to help your body floating, so exhale a certain amount under water and then inhale during the breathing section of your stroke, but avoid exhale/inhale during the breathing phase when your head/mouth is outside of the water. Of course you don't lift your head out of water always keep a goggle in the water...

So practice making bubbles under the water sufficient enough that you don't totally empty your lungs, it should be natural not forcing too much out.

Hope it helps.

If you're lacking oxygen, then breathing every stroke is a must. If that's the case, simply choose a side on which to breath. (e.g. left side) When your left hand is about to leave the water (after brushing your thigh), breath with your mouth and exhale (through your nose) while your right arm strokes. It's a "1-2" repetition.

I also happen to believe strengthening your shoulders really helps with endurance (freestyle).

Good luck and stick with it - you'll get it!

Pull buoy. Helps me dial in my form just right and then You can te intro your kick once everything upstairs is right

At this point, it doesn't matter that much, just make sure you are exhaling completely underwater, so that you aren't using your "inhale time" to exhale. One way to approach this stuff is like this. if you see that multiple experts in the area have divergent opinions on a topic, that indicates (to me anyway) that the thing they are talking about is mostly down to personal preference or a minor tweak. What "everyone" agrees on is to make sure you are fully exhaling underwater.

That doesn't mean you need to completely empty your lungs. Just that you need to be finished exhaling by the time you start to roll to breathe.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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

+1

Your coach is way way off base.

Yes, of course, you need to swim a lot to develop fitness and aquatic power. But with bad technique, you're basically only going to make things worse.

A good cycling analogy:

Imagine if you bike a huge amount and soon, with long and extended smart training, you develop Lance-like cycling power output. But every time you get on your bike, you're forced to connect a literal large parachute to the back of your bike. It doesn't matter how strong you get, even grandmas on 3-speeds will be beating you with you having to pull that high-drag parachute. And the faster you try to go, the parachute will only pull you back harder.

THIS is what bad technique does to you in swimming.

For me, the way I moved from back-of-the-pack swimmer to front-of- the-pack swimmer is that I got lots and lots of great technique help from smart coaches (not ones that said that the solution was to "just swim more"). So how do you find and select such a coach? Well, here are some ideas:

https://www.darkspeedworks.com/blog-swimcoach.htm

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I'm not about to second guess the guy who has actually seen him swim, and no other information. For all I know, he's swimming once a week for 2500y. There are some things that really aren't worth obsessing over until the athlete makes the commitment to put the time in the water.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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

Agreed.
Yes, you gotta do one with the other, you gotta get in the water frequently but you must also fix your technique.

Just like learning to bike fast:
You gotta put in the miles, but you ALSO have to lose the parachute.

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I've been told the same thing, I find swimming 4 to 5 times a week makes me faster than swimming 2 to 3 times.

Sometimes images and someone can explain better than I do... found this video that describes basically what I'm personally doing in terms of exhaling (nose and mouth prior to breath)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJikb2gnOf4

There's also an example of a sprinter doing is breathing pattern if you are more in short swim events... ;)

Again, going back to your initial post... for me breathing is my biggest limiter. Once I will get better at it, will be able to fix my other stroke flaws by not having to deal of lack of air.

80% of your swim improvements will come from the underwater pull. I was told this years ago by Sheila Taormina and it turned out to be true, along with increased volume.


I did some tubing drills (search Youtube using Sheila T/tubing drill) for dry land work which helped my form.


I do very few long continous swims. You need to learn how to swim hard and fast. Do 50's, 75's, 100's etc. at a very hard effort. Do sets of 5 x 100 for example at a 20-30 second rest interval, but go hard. Over time try to come in quicker, come in at 1:35 or better for a set of 5, then when those are more easily achievable then go for 1:30 and so on.


Don't overthink workouts, do a warmup, then bang out a bunch of 50's, 100's etc. I learned that from following Joel Filliol's recommendations.


This approach took me from 1:40/100 yd swims at sprint distance to 1:25/100 yd swims at Olympic to Half and full distance swims.

snorkel.

Sometimes, a problem with breathing isn't really a problem that is fixed by focusing on fixing breathing. It's something else causing the breathing issue.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

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

This is it. Hands close to your body and pull hard. Make sure your palms go all the way to your hip to get extra thrust.
Lengthen, catch, pull, follow through and repeat.
If you don't feel the water on your palm, you are not pulling hard enough.
Feel the water on your palm, not on your fingers. That way you use your lats rather than shoulder and arm.
I had a breakthrough a couple of weeks ago after the lesson.
I've been doing things wrong and no one was able to explain me correctly.
It's not about how fast you kick or move your arms.
It's about how much you can pull efficiently.

Until we get to watch a swim video of OP, everyone here is pure speculating and trying to give his best advice! ;)

So CeeGee90 if you really want advice that's really going to help you and serious about improving (just not I wish to get faster)... post a swim video! I know everyone will criticize your style but nothing like a Lionel thread at the end of the process you will actually get good hints for free!

I was a front of the pack swimmer, got into years of lots of volume, masters' program with terrific coach; still, I got stuck, actually slowed down a bit. Sounds too cheap and lacking in special sauce, but it helped me tremendously to pull out of my masters routine and run through the "Guppies" workouts thing on here. Focusing on reach and balance and swimming straight. Really, just focusing rather than grinding. Got my mojo back and regained some of the speed of my youth.

Things I did to get my IM swim to sub 1hr:


Did a TON of

A steady diet of:
- paddle/buoy work.
- 25's and 50's interspersed with all out 200's.
- hour of power: as many 100's as I could do on as even pace as possible.

flip turns - don't be a lazy triathlete, learn how to do them.

bilateral breathing only

changing from 6 beat to 4 beat, then correcting my 4 beat from 1-2, 1-2 to 1-2-1, 2

None of these things are technique, but my technique continually improved.

Your coach is right BECAUSE your most important technique improvement changes as you change.

At first I needed to be more level. Then a better catch and pull. Better stroke timing. Keep the stroke in front of me (front quadrant). Better with a buoy at my ankles. Better at two stroke kick with big fins. Better at breaststroke. Better at backstroke.

So the single biggest technique improvement is your ongoing body awareness as you put in the time.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

If your technique is good.....to swim faster you have to swim faster.

To answer your question. Make sure your arms/hands pull completely through your stroke down to the thighs of your legs. When swimming faster people tend to pull their arms out of the water too fast and you lost 10-15% stroke length that could be used to move you though the water.

When you really think about it, "breathing" is everyone's limiter.

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

One of the great truths of the ST forum, leave a thread going long enough and eventually it devolves into a discussion of Lionel.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

The fastest masters sprinter on my team (26.x for 50 fly SCM as a 40-44 y/o ) pulls his hand out at hip level. There really isn't a whole lot of propulsion going on down at the thigh, since the forearm is going to be parallel to the water surface. That extra 10-15% of stroke length may or may not be contributing to anything.

But, it works for some people, depending on other aspects of the stroke.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

^^^^^^^ this

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Two wheels good. Four wheels bad.

I think your coach may be right. How long have you been swimming? The 10,000 hour rule may apply to swimming;)
There are so many things that can make a big difference and what you aren’t doing could be many different things.
That being said I personally believe body position in the water is the hardest thing to master and the hardest thing to teach. That’s why hours in the water trumps everything.
Remember your chin and head need to be in neutral, hips up, heels at the surface of the water. Shoulder and hip rotation matter but don’t overdo it. Think of rubbing your big toes together when doing a 2-beat kick to keep the legs from scissoring. Last but not least use a tennis ball in each hand and swim a couple 100 yards. Then swim a 100 without them. Do this routinely to develop a good feel of the water. I am a decent swimmer having recently finished my Kona swim in 57:00. I am a 58 year old woman. I have coached but prefer to swim. Good luck!

Swim more while going hard with focus on technique.

Tim

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Dang - that's awesome!

Was that the fastest swim time in your AG @ Kona?

And were you a collegiate swimmer back in the day? I shudder to think of how fast you would have gone with -35 years of age!

I have been a pro and age group triathlete on and off since 1983. My fastest time in Kona was just under 54 minutes I was probably 36 at that time. I didn’t swim in high school or college but swam on a summer lake league in N.J. from age 9-13. When I started swimming again at age 22 I had quite a few youth swimming hours under my belt but nothing like the club swimming of today.
Keep at it, watch and I mean really observe the really good swimmers and try to apply that to your stroke. This helped me a lot. Watch videos of swimmers like Katie Ledecky. You can learn quite a bit by watching the most efficient strokes in the world. Note their stroke rate, body position and how they kick. Watch the 800 and 1500 freestyle events, it’s pretty amazing!

My general rule is that once an adult onset swimmer reaches an Ironman swim time of about 1 hour that it is about 1,000,000 yards for every minute to knock off from there. Just a general rule but a 1,000,000 yards is a lot of yards. I would tend to agree with your coach, but the biggest change I ever made was when I discovered the high-elbow catch, that was instantly like 15-30 seconds off my 400 time.

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Wrong.

Best tip for endurance swimming is not to use that phase of the stroke to try and eke out more 'length'. You want to start releasing the pressure when you're getting towards the end of your stroke. You won't get so fatigued and will be able to hold form longer as that last little bit of the pull phase provides very little benefit but does create fatigue. We were taught this way back in 1991...

damnit that post had already been replied to. lol i would say that for distance swimming it definitely doesn't work, if you want to maximise your ability to hold speed.

#1 is Posture.

You cannot make a bent or defective boat go fast no matter how much horsepower put on the hull.

Only a few "club" kids have truly great strokes, yet 90% with more than a 2 years under their belt will deep six most triathletes.

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Recently...tilting my head down. I'd drifted into the habit of looking too far forward.

I've said this numerous times on this forum but I can't recall anyone ever coming back and saying they really benefited from watching really good swimmers. I know with certainty that I have, and obv it sounds like you have also but apparently many people aren't as big on "visual learning" as you and I. I ALWAYS watch the really good swimmers at my club. Back in January, we had a really fast breast/IM guy swimming with us for awhile. He went 2:16 for the 200 m BR at the Oly Trials in 2016 at age 18 and hopes to make the team in 2020. His breaststroke was amazing!!!

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

Winter 2017-2018 was my first time getting some swim technique coaching once every other week for 4-5 months, after starting swimming september 2016 at age 24. Biggest thing there I think was lengthening my stroke more and getting the hand closer to the body instead of way out of streamline when I started pulling, which got me down to low 1:40's per 100m scm. This winter I got some technique coaching again where I tried to fix my bad kick and kick timing and tried to start my catch ealier and with a more vertical forearm and I'm down to averaging low 1:30's now. I also learned flip turns but don't do them or stop doing them when I don't feel like it, which is something I should work on too haha.

2018 bests:

25m: 17"
50m: 36"
100m: 1'23"
200m: 3'01"
400m: 6'31" although I didn't do one at the end of the year after improving my times in the shorter distances

2019 bests so far:

25m: 15"
50m: 34"
100m: 1'16"
200m: 2'53"
400m: have a test planned next week, hopefully I can get around 6'10"..

I do mostly Olympics so my coach focusses on speed a lot, take out speed to get in good feet. So a lot of those shorter distances at or over threshold on 20-30" rest.

Shall we call that "ST Halifax's law", in reference to the Godwin's law ? (where is the pink button ?)

I ALWAYS watch the really good swimmers at my club.
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Yeah, I think it's one thing to watch videos of excellent swimmers but something very different to see them in live action when you are in the water. Then, not only do you get to notice what they're doing, but you get to try it for yourself immediately. Watch. Mimic. Repeat.

Further, you get to set up your own mental race. The thing I think that holds back AOS the most is the lack of competition in practice sets. Getting on to some sort of club/ team challenges the ego as well as the body. I found that a vast majority of the stroke techniques I've ever experienced happened by accident due to the strong desire to win (or, in my case, not lose as badly) versus the other guys/ gals in the lanes near me. That goes for pretty much every interval of every set for everyday. Half the time, I didn't plan a change or even know what I did differently, it just clicked.

That's my advice to the OP. Get thyself to a club that has at least some people at and just a smidgeon above your talent level. Show up every day. Work really hard to get your ass kicked. But, have the mindset that you're gonna kick some ass in the very near future. Don't settle.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

I think a lot of us probably can't see what these good swimmers are actually doing - at least I can't. I can sure as hell see they are swimming fast AF, but in terms of what their hands and arms are doing under the water. . . nope. Need someone there to actually tell you what you need to look at instead of going in blind. After all, us AOS swimmers don't have the experience level in the first place.

Swimming is frustrating to me in that I feel like I can't get fast, but I know its because I am pretty much never able to get in the water - especially now training specifically for a marathon. When I do get back to the pool occassionally with a master's group its like I'm starting all over again (: So potentially what the OPs coach said about him swimming more often is the key for him specifically since his coach said his stroke was good.

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I think a lot of us probably can't see what these good swimmers are actually doing - at least I can't.
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You're overthinking it. Swimming has a thousand moving parts and no one can do them all perfectly. Pick up just 1 tiny thing that someone is doing. Hand entry. First movement/ catch. Head position. Eye position. Rotation. It really doesn't matter. Pick one. Watch someone that does it better. Work on making yours better. The deck clock (or, shudder, your watch) will give you feedback. And, we're talking like 1 sec per 100. Didn't work? Fine. Do something different. Once it works. Repeat, repeat, repeat. And while you're repeating, find the next tiny thing. Keep doing tiny thing 1 and start working on tiny thing 2. What you are not allowed to do is turn your brain off.

This stuff happens naturally on a team when your working day in and day out. If you can't get to a team, then race for time. You wouldn't expect a new runner to BQ in their first year of training. Nor would you expect them to BQ on 1-2 days a week of running. Excellence takes time and attention to detail.

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Take a short break from ST and read my blog:
http://tri-banter.blogspot.com/

Agree in general, but one thing to be aware of is that when you are talking about swimmers who really aren't all that good at it yet, there are a lot of things that a really good swimmer will do that only works because they are a good swimmer, if the poor swimmer tries to do it they won't see any difference in the clock, or just make things worse. Take the kick for example. A good swimmer with a 6 beat kick will have their heels bubbling the surface, because their legs are nice and high in the water. A poor swimmer might see that as splashing the water with the feet, but their legs are naturally floating 18" under the surface. So they overkick with a massive knee bend to try to splash the water with their feet.

I think watching and emulating without additional guidance works better once you have a pretty solid understanding of what it is you are trying to do in the water. If you don't have that, then having guidance is really important.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

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

I think watching and trying to apply what you see to your own stroke is a huge benefit. I was a lifeguard in college and there was a guy who would come in and swim primarily freestyle for long sets and had a a beautiful stroke. I would get in on my break and practice how he was swimming. I think it really made a difference! I still love to watch good swimmers. I actually like to watch bad swimmers too because it shows how crippling certain stroke dynamics can be. Gary Hall Sr. Has some great teaching videos on YouTube and when I am struggling with something in my stroke I go to the videos first. I did have the fastest swim in my A.G. In Kona. Not a huge accomplishment at my age;) The best part is having faster times than a lot of the pros!

I loved your post because I've been at this pace range forever.

I know you got a ton of opinions so I won't give you one. But I will share something i wasn't really expecting.

This winter I did a 10 week deep core strength training program and a bike intensive FTP builder for 11 weeks. Zero swimming or running basically from end of October.

When I got in the pool to get my season rolling in mid January I was swimming as fast as i did at the peak of my 2018 season which are ~1:32/100 and I wasn't killing myself to get it either. I was expecting to be more like 1:40.

My problem is I'm a lazy swimmer and if I put effort into good technique and more time ( i swim like 2x maybe 3x a week) I'm sure something would click and I'd pick up those 5 seconds per 100 that have been eluding me. But in the mean time, being stronger in my upper back, lats, deep core really made a huge difference, probably helped my technique and certainly in just raw power. I can't imagine getting those strength improvements simply swimming to develop muscle strength.

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Tri is my Tribe! "Sometimes you need to slow down in order to go fast."

Just wanted to say thanks. Watched the video. Tried keeping wrist locked while pointing fingers down (vs. previously bending wrist to point fingers down) to force EVF. Dropped 10sec off fastest 200y on repeats today. Couldn't maintain the 10sec the entire time, but still faster repeats than typical.

Sorry, I gotta draw the line at watching bad swimmers as they are like listening to someone scratching their fingernails across a chalk blackboard. Just can't stand it. :)

Have you heard of the Isoman Triathlon in England??? This race features a 7.0 mile swim, 62.5 mi bike, and 26.2 mi run, e.g. designed to produce roughly equal times in each of the three disciplines if the athlete is equally proficient in all three.

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

Eric,
I have not heard of this .. but now I am gonna have to look into it. ha (im a swimmer)

To the OP, there are some good points on this thread and some really non-useful ones. (But its nice people want to help)

Before you even decide to start swimming, it is most effective to look at what you actually bring to the water and how you "relate" to it physiologically. (meaning, your swimsuit, goggles and body. IE no floaty shorts or pull buoys etc)

There are two natural (unchangeable) factors that influence how to be the most efficient swimmer you can be. IE reaching your potential. Those two factors are COM (where you carry weight) and Density (ability to float or not). I have spoken about this before on this forum.
The two extremes are "floaters" or high COM and LOW density
and "sinkers" low COM and HIGH density.
Floaters have more options to reach potential and can chose, based on other natural factors to be DPS oriented or more TEMPO or turnover oriented.
Sinkers almost universally need to be Tempo focused. For obvious reasons.
A quick test is to keep your lungs filled with air and as horizontal to the surface as you can be. Then let yourself go. Maybe get someone to help. Check out how quickly you sink and how far your feet go down (angle from chin to ankle from surface) if you sink quickly and your feet are way below the surface, youre a sinker. And you can extrapolate from there up to being a floater. Youll need to do this test several time to get a more complete view bc even tho I called it simple.. its quite hard to let oneself go in the water.
Good luck

daved

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Ya, the Isoman is triathlon as it should be if everyone knew how to swim decently. They have half and quarter Isoman versions also, plus relays in all three, and all are held on same day. For us in the States, it is def a "destination race" but prob no more expensive than a trip to Kona or one of the Euro iron races.

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

Glad it was useful, it certainly helped me.