ericmulk wrote:
Cody Beals wrote:
SteveM wrote:
Cody Beals wrote:
I swim harder, longer and more often than ever. And with the group, it's way more fun! I was previously doing most of my swimming alone, with only occasional group sessions and training camps.Firstly thanks for doing this, it’s been really interesting & congratulations on the win.
Could I ask, when/why did you start swimming 6+ times a week?
I've done swim focused weeks or months in the past and a couple swim training camps (with Magnolia Masters in Texas), but it wasn't until I moved back to Guelph last fall that I began consistently swimming 6-7 times most weeks of the year. That was also when I began consistently swimming with a group (mostly Guelph Triathlon Project, sometimes LPC).
Despite being my first competitive sport, swimming has always been my weakest discipline. I've had some shockingly poor swim performances and lost at least half a dozen races in the swim (if that can ever be said). Even last year, my swim performances were unpredictable and I often found myself in the unfortunate position of leading the chase pack (ideally, you're at the back of the fastest pack you can hang with). I knew that something had to be done about my swimming if I truly wanted to be a world class triathlete.
I experimented with various swim changes, everything from stroke analysis (mostly not helpful), technical/drill focus (complete waste of time), USRPT (good, but brutally hard), training camps (helpful, but hard to maintain gains). The two things that I found most helpful were swimming with a group and swimming more frequently. Those two factors go hand in hand, since it's easier to swim more when you're having fun with great lane-mates!
Another factor in my swim progress that I forgot the mention earlier was my switch to mostly two beat kicking. I gradually began introducing two beat kicking as an alternative to my usual and the more common six beat kick. At first, it felt awkward, but gradually became more efficient at slower speeds. The pace break point at which it was more efficient to switch from two beat to six beat gradually sped up. Now I'm at the point where I almost exclusively two beat kick and it's more efficient for anything up to high end threshold (~1:11/100scm). In long course races, a two beat kick feels so cruisy and efficient. I now use a two beat kick almost the entire swim and reserve the less efficient but more powerful six beat kick for the fast start, any surges and briefly at the end to wake up my legs. This kicking change was the closest thing I've had to a technical epiphany in swimming.
Cody - Congrats on the great race!!! As a swimmer turned triathlete, I found your comments on how you went about improving your swim very interesting. Swimming was your first sport but yet you consider, or until coming 2nd out of the water this past race, used to consider, the swim to be your weakest discipline of three; this is quite unusual in my experience but i can see how it could happen, since kids start swimming on teams at a younger age than they start running in races, much less cycling in races. Your analysis of what helped you improve squares 100% with my experiences, espec the part about drills being a waste of time. Your deliberately switching from a 6-beat to 2-beat kick is interesting b/c in my experience, most swimmers just unconsciously select the level of kicking they need/want. As a well-known swim book put it, many 2-beat kickers just fall into this kick as a way of surviving swimming 6000 or more yards/meters per workout; IOW, they find that using the 2-beat is just easier due to less effort needed in the legs. That's how it happened for me back in my teenage swim years when first started swimming twice a day. In any case, you've provided a really good case for the need to swim long and often in order to improve, and that a person needs to mostly just swim, with very limited drills. :)
Cody - on the bolded portion, I'm curious to get your opinion of stroke analysis for weaker swimmers who are looking to make improvements. I fall into the weaker swimmer category and as I start to age, a little run speed is falling off and am considering trying to pick up the swim speed to compensate in races. Larger swim blocks in the past have typically not helped much and I asssume your comments are directed more at the folks who already swim sub 1:30/100m?
Last part of the question around who you believe are good AG swim coaches in the Halton/Guelph area that can measurably help with improvements.
Congrats on a great race and appreciate the insight into your training and racing.