Effortless Swimming's Brenton Ford has spent years growing a following as a swim coach on YouTube and social media. Photo: Effortless Swimming
Brenton Ford has been coaching swimming for many years, but not just at his local pool. Ford runs Effortless Swimming, a YouTube and social media page that many triathletes will know well. Effortless Swimming has hundreds of thousands of followers and subscribers across multiple platforms, and it’s all thanks to Ford’s ability to break swimming down into simple terms.
Slowtwitch was lucky enough to have a chat with Ford in which he discussed swim tips, drills and workouts for beginners as well as more experienced swimmers. The beginners article can be found here, but if you have a few seasons under your belt as a swimmer or triathlete, you’re in the right place.
Room to Improve
Ford recalls a conversation he recently had with an athlete. This athlete is one of Ford’s online clients, so he also works with an in-person swim coach.
“His coach said to him that he wasn’t going to get any better and to just, like, be OK with that,” Ford says. This athlete swims in the 1:50 to two-minute range for 100 metres.
“He’s got so much room to improve,” Ford says. “But there are some coaches who just have that mentality. Like, ‘No, you can’t change, that’s the pace you’re going to swim.'”
Ford shakes his head at the thought of delivering a line like this to an athlete.
“It’s just the wrong message,” he says. “Even if that was the case, why would you say that? It’s just going to demotivate them.”
While the athlete in question was swimming in, or around, the two-minute mark per 100 metres, Ford says there’s no point at which a coach should say their athlete has plateaued. Yes, the faster someone gets, the more difficult it will be to improve, but there is always something that can be done, adjusted or tweaked to shave time. It’s even the case with the best swimmers in the world, as they are always chasing personal bests and world records.
Ford has built a massive online community of swimmers and triathletes through Effortless Swimming. Photo: Effortless Swimming
The key to getting faster is technique. Anyone who has watched Ford’s Effortless Swimming videos will know he stands by this rule. He has multiple videos catered to specific barriers, whether an athlete is looking to break two minutes in the 100 m, 1:30 or another time.
While running and cycling certainly have technique and form that must be perfected if you want to get the most out of yourself, swimming is in a league of its own. As a full-body workout, it requires attention to detail from your head to your toes and everywhere in between.
“I think that’s a big part of why we’ve managed to kind of stay in business in a way for the last 18 years,” Ford says with a laugh. “Because it’s frustrating for people and they don’t understand why they can’t get faster, but it’s all about technique. Everyone can improve and get better.”
Tense But Relaxed
Ford says a big tip he gives swimmers is to “find that balance between tension and relaxation.”
He uses “soft hands” as a cue to help his athletes find this balance.
“It’s enough tension to hold the shape of the hands and the forearms together, but no more than that,” he says. “It’s like picking up a glass of water. You don’t grab it as hard as you can, just enough to hold it in your hand.”
Ford says a lot of swimmers — even people who have been swimming for years — will have tense fingers and tense shoulders. This is especially the case when trying to go fast — it almost feels natural, in a way, to tighten your muscles for better, quicker results. That full-on tension can make you faster, but it can also actively slow you down.
“It does take a while to get there to that sweet spot of tension and relaxation,” Ford says, adding that it is so worth it when you can nail it down. Like most things with swimming, you will need to focus on maintaining that middle ground for a while, but eventually, it will become your go-to zone in the pool.
Hitting the Pool and Gym
For triathletes, Ford recommends getting in the pool a minimum of twice a week.
“Two times a week you tend to maintain your level,” he says. “My general rule of thumb is three times a week and you’ll generally improve.”
Adding more swims, whether it’s four or even five times total each week, will, of course, boost your gains even more, but Ford recognizes that triathletes not only have to train for cycling and running, too, but also that they have other parts of life that may keep them from the pool that often.
When it comes to strength training, Ford says “it certainly doesn’t hurt” to get into the gym (or to work out at home) at least once a week. He says the focus for your swim-specific strength routines should be core and upper-body.
Strength work is an important part of your training schedule as a swimmer and triathlete.
On the note of gym training, Ford points to Dutch swimmer Sharon van Rouwendaal, the reigning Olympic champion in the 10K. He has worked with her before and picked her brain on training load and techniques. She told Ford that she solely works her back and shoulders in the gym, as these are the muscle groups used in freestyle.
“I think that’s a pretty good take, especially for people who don’t have a lot of time,” he says. “Even if it’s just five or 10 minutes of band work prior to swimming, just working on strengthening those muscles that surround the shoulder blades is great. Working your lats, traps, back, shoulders can go a long way, especially for preventing injuries.”
Effortless Swimming Workouts
For experienced swimmers, Ford recommends a pair of workouts that will both challenge you in the moment and prepare you for races later in the season. The first is 20 x 100m on your best average with 45 seconds of rest between each rep.
“This is a challenging set that will help build real fitness for an Olympic up to to full IRONMAN swim,” he says. “Best average means to hold as fast as you can across the entire set, so the speed that you start at should be the speed that you finish at.”
The second set is just a tad longer, but since it features 200 m repeats, it will test your endurance even more. The set is 12 x 200 m with just 15 seconds of rest between each rep. The first three 200s are held at 70 percent of your maximum effort. The next three reps boost to 75 percent, followed by three at 80 percent before finally closing the set out with three more 200s at 85 percent.
“Distance sets with short rest where you progressively get quicker towards the end of it can be great at helping you maintain your speed in the back half of a race,” Ford says.
As always, be sure to do a proper warm up before both of these workouts and don’t skimp on the cool down afterward. To find more tips from Ford and Effortless Swimming, click here.