Have you 'grabbed the earth' in beach swim with waves?

Triathlon Forum
1

I’ve heard folks talking about ‘grabbing the earth’ and holding onto the bottom in a beach entry open water swim when there are a lot of waves.

I’m admittedly a weak swimmer, but I can’t even hold my breath long enough to hold onto the bottom for a wave set! It’s one thing if you’re just staying in place and leisurely making your way out, but if you’re swimming forcefully, it’s hard enough to hold your breath for 20 seconds, let alone the 45-60 that may be needed to duck a multiple big wave set. I tried it in the ocean, and I’m lucky if I can hold my breath for 30 sec in the middle of the swim.

Anyone do this?

2

How long are you taking to breath that you can’t sneak one between waves?

Swim through the wave, try to take a breath. If it works, great, if not spit the water out and try again next stroke cycle. Even in 2/3 of the attempts fail it should result in more breathing than trying to hold your breath for 20-60 seconds in the middle of a race/workout.

3

I totally do that, but I don’t stay under for multiple waves. I dive, grab, tuck my feet under, push off after the wave passes, and while I break the surface, I grab a breath and judge my next action - another leap, start swimming, if a wave is coming, dive to the bottom, grab again and repeat as necessary. You can hold your breath longer than you think, but at the most, I think it’s a 10 to 15 second breath hold, even for big waves. If you are that out of gas, you are trying too hard.

4

I use this one wave at a time in shallow water, especially when the waves are breaking on a sandbar. Much easier on a non-wetsuit swim. For a single wave, probably don’t hold my breath more than 5-10 seconds. I would have to hold it a lot longer than that if I got caught by the wave and pulled back in.

5

I use several techniqes for beach swim starts, depending on the conditions and the situation.

If it’s calm, then just swim.

If the waves are under say 2’ tall, I generally just swim through them.

If they are over 2’ tall, I generally dive under them, with a sorta “kip” action as I grab a pull of my stroke.

If they are crashing, then I generally dive under them too, but add a couple of dolphin kicks to stay under a little longer.

Remember, you want to pop up between waves, for a breath. And remember to relax when you are under water. Depending on water conditions, it can be cool to look around and check out your fellow racers. Oh yeah, when you pop up out of the water, take a stroke and breath, (to the side) then look forward for the next wave and decide your strategy for that one. Swim hard between waves, then rest for your last stroke to get ready for your dive uner the wave.

If the bottom is close enough, you can grab it an use it to launch yourself forward, or if the waves are really big, just to grab and hold on while it passes!

I LOVE big wave swimming. I know most others don’t like it, so that makes me even better in big wave races.

I have an open water race coming up in about 5 weeks. One year I swam it, it was an outgoing tide (from the harbour, around a headland) with an incoming wind! The waves were not that big, but they were really steep! Swimming into the waves, you’d lift up, then pop out of the top of the wave and then drop what would feel like a mile, and splash on the water below. I LOVED it. I heard several others took on too much sea water and were puking their guts up! Hilarious I thought.

6

If they are BIG. Dive to the bottom, grab the bottom, put your feet down and drive up and forward to get past the pull of the back of the wave.

7

If you want a semi-good visual on how to go under a larger wave & the timing, watch this video & in particular the wave he goes under at about 55 seconds (it then repeats that wave in slo-mo):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3x8CRfSH7c

With this angle you may get a better perspective on what’s going on over your head when you go under a wave & the turbulence you’re trying to avoid.

8

I totally do that, but I don’t stay under for multiple waves. I dive, grab, tuck my feet under, push off after the wave passes, and while I break the surface, I grab a breath and judge my next action - another leap, start swimming, if a wave is coming, dive to the bottom, grab again and repeat as necessary. You can hold your breath longer than you think, but at the most, I think it’s a 10 to 15 second breath hold, even for big waves. If you are that out of gas, you are trying too hard.

This.

9

I do it every time I go through the surfline. I dive down until I’ve got fists full of sand, but I don’t stay down for 20 seconds. I use the ‘dive for five’ method.

Dive, grab sand, count to five, come back up.

10

Yup. I love ocean swims with beach starts. I tend to be one of the first one’s out through the surf, only to be caught by the real swimmers once in the open water :frowning: I go under, grab the sand and hold, then propel forward to surface between the waves. I love the chatter before the swim when there is surf. It builds my confidence to hear that so many people are sketchy when swimming in surf. It also amazes me how many people that do triathlons in the ocean, swim so little in the ocean during training. Oh well, better for me :wink: