Set out below are the 21 rules of triathlon swimming that JF wrote back in 2012 based on an earlier article from 2007. JF and Paulo revisited this in a podcast a few years back, which recently JF has referred to as one of the fundamentals of his podcast.
It’s called the Real Coaching podcast.
Having spent (or wasted) many hours of my life listening to this guy’s podcast and reading his webpage, you’d get more enthusiasm from an accountant when doing a tax filing. This guy is more understated than a fatally hungover English gamekeeper from the 1920s. Wish more people would adopt that approach now a days.
Waverider’s edits are below:
The Top 20 Rules for Faster Triathlon Swimming
1. Conditioning trumps drills. Technique matters, but the way most athletes try to improve technique doesn’t work. Get fitter, and your ability to hold good technique improves. It takes a lot of work to develop aerobic conditioning in your upper body. If you think you are already swimming a lot but are not improving, swim more and keep at it. There are no shortcuts.
Waverider - swim more, get better. No shit sherlock. But something to note here, what is more and what is the rate we want to improve season to season? Is a second every season and a half worth it, over 10 seasons, or do you need 5 seconds now.
2. Traditional drills don’t work. The type of drills and the way that most triathletes do them don’t actually have any material effect on swimming technique.
Waverider - the triathlete who spends more time stretching, flexing on the side of the pool, to then put on flippers and do no splash one arm drills, kick on a kick board and fill up the lane going 4 minutes per 100, yeah that doesn’t work… wannabe IG influencers and posers do that.
3. Swim more often. Frequency is the best way to improve your swimming. Also see rule #4
Waverider - a ST prophet on here wrote it best, when they said if your swim suit gets dry you’re doing it wrong.
4. Do longer main sets. You can’t expect to swim fast and be fresh on the bike if you rarely do main sets with the same or higher volume and pace than you expect in the race. For short course these should be at least 2km, for IM 4km, or more. And that looks like 20-50x100, not many short broken sets adding up to 2-5km.
Waverider - you absolutely don’t need to do 4k sets to do an Ironman as your staple training set. 10x400m is a punish and sure if you never swim more than 1500 and want to do an Ironman and don’t have some money in the bank you’re going to suffer.
That is a sure way to kill the fun of it.
But if you’re doing lots of no shit 20-50x100 each time you hit the pool (mainly between 20 and 30 you’re going to be fine).
Build it out to 4km main sets or total volume sets once every week or 10 days and you will be on the path.
More on PACE below.
- Don’t over think it. Don’t under think it. Be engaged with what you are doing in the water, and use tools to help get a better feel for the water. But don’t over think every stroke, and suffer from paralysis by analysis. Swimming fast is about rhythm and flow, when good technique becomes automatic.
Waverider - my half a brain cell can neither think nor under think. Therefore I merely am.
- Increased swim fitness translates to the bike and run. Being able to swim harder, starting the bike both fresher and with faster riders is how that works.
Waverider - I get passed by grandpa in flip flops riding home from the pub I am that slow on the bike. But this is an often repeated statement. Additional anecdotal evidence welcome.
7. Deep swim fitness allows you to swim on the rivet. See rule #6. Most triathletes don’t know how to really swim hard for the duration.
Waverider - Swimming more lets you know pacing. That lets you swim hard with knowledge of your pacing. This rivet you speak of? Some cycling pseudo babble.
8. Include some quality in every swim. If you are swimming less than 5x per week, having easy swims is a waste of time. Always include quality, from band, to paddles, to sprints, in every swim.
Waverider - what is quality? Is it race pace, is it faster, and how much of it? Is it a few seconds below? I want to come back to this - we need to be clear on PACE.
Band and paddles - I don’t have room in my man purse for those when I head to the pool. Exclusively speedos, Swedish goggles and joi de Vivre is all I take. Drip dry for life.
Having easy swims is the way to get out the door. But easy means a certain thing and slop easy waste of time is not it.
More on PACE below.
9. Don’t count strokes. See rule #2. The objective is to get faster, not take fewer strokes.
Waverider - Terry Laughlin’s record was 24 or 26 in a 50m pool that he did with Shane Gould coaching him once. But he also wrote that he had years where he never got faster as he was focussing on lowering his strokes not his times.
Some swimmers benefit from lengthening their stroke, some from increasing their stroke rate.
Doing fewer strokes is fun, but it can drop off your sense of slow and rhythm. It’s not the way most people swim well in OW and over distance. Your stroke is likely lower than you think it is. It will likely feel fast but it’s actually slow.
10. Learn now to use your kick but don’t spend a lot of time with kick sets. Kicking is about stroke control and body position, not propulsion for triathlon. Kick fitness doesn’t matter.
Waverider - Kick fitness doesn’t matter, the man is right. But learning different kicks in your freestyle gives you something to live for, and a way to get down to the pool.
11. Use a band frequently. The best swimming drill there is. Do short reps with lots of rest at first. Both propulsion and body position will improve.
Waverider - Once you can swim with a band - what’s the point?
I tend to think there is false sense of accomplishment from those that can “swim” with a band. Some videos on YT of people claiming they can swim with a band but there legs are 45 degrees pointing down. People have no shame man!
12. Use paddles with awareness of engaging lats. Paddles are primarily a technical tool to take more strokes with better mechanics, the result of which is learning how to use your prime swimming movers: your lats.
Waverider - swim so much that lifting your arms to wash your hair hurts afterwards.
I don’t know enough to explain myself but I think of the hips as being of equal importance. Hips are often forgotten.
13. Keep head low on breathing and in open water. Head down, feet up. It’s a common body position error.
Waverider - one goggle in, one goggle out. Need to be able to see under the water when you breath with one of your eyes. Feel the heels break the surface.
14. Do many short repetitions for stroke quality. It takes fitness to swim with good technique for long durations. Start shorter, and swim faster. 50x50 works wonders. Don’t have time to do a 2500m main set? Drop the warm up and warm down.
Waverider - Now is a good time to talk about PACE. Joel doesn’t touch this.
Some sets are counter productive to aerobic and endurance gains. When you know your 1500 time you can set paces from it. Call it X or CSS.
Don’t go above X plus 9 on long steady swims. Don’t go below X plus 1 on swims longer than 200. Keep your best in the bank for your next event.
Swim a lot at X plus 4-7. As much as you can. Be greedy and swim at plus 3 but it will cook you after a few weeks. Save that for a few quality sets bringing up to peak shape.
Swimming hard wears you out. The spreadsheets don’t write themselves when you’re too stoned from super hard sets. But swimming hard does make you better.
Master the art of fobbing off work or doing the minimum viable. Get better at AI prompting. Joel F doesn’t talk about this. This matters to people so you can coast at 30% of your mental operating capacity to get by at work.
15. **Learn to swim with a higher stroke rate.**This takes conditioning. It will pay off on race day, and particularly anytime swimming in a group and in rough conditions.
Waverider - Something else Joel doesn’t touch. How to swim well in OW. There are skills here, drafting, take out, finding the right feet, surging and holding position where you’re comfortable. It’s like group riding. It’s a skill that you need to learn and if you keep fucking up you’ll keep crashing. Some people suck at it. Some people enjoy it.
16. If you need to write your swim session down on the white board or paper, it’s too complicated. Keep it simple.
Waverider - No harm in changing sets part way through. Just get in the time.
17. Find a good masters programme. Long main sets is a good sign. Swim with others to challenge yourself. Good programmes are the exception rather than the norm, unfortunately.
Waverider - Swim training is like rolling cigarettes. Everyone can roll their own but sometimes it’s nice to have it made for you, albeit with greater cost and more chemical additive shit.
Swimming alone gives more flexibility to your schedule and lets you swim your own paces with softer water.
- Don’t use swim tools as a crutch. Paddles and bull buoys are tools with specific uses. Don’t reach for them out of simple laziness, because the set is hard.
Waverider - these can mess your stroke up badly. Turns off your hips chronically if you don’t know how to use these.
If you know how to use these and actually burn your shoulders, go for it.
I prefer fly and backstroke for my change of clothes.
19. Do use swim tools when you are very fatigued, and will otherwise swim with poor quality. See Rule #18.
20. Dry land and gym can help swimming for some via improved neuromuscular recruitment. Use body weight and tubing not machines.
Waverider - absolutely do some prehab work for your shoulders. Every time you swim do some external rotation band work. Hold the band between your two hands, hold one hand to your waist, externally rotate on the other side. Don’t need a pole or fulcrum that way. Build up to 50 or 100 or 200 each arm.
Bonus: Love swimming if you want to get faster. Embrace the process of getting faster in the water. Chlorine sweat is a good thing.
Waverider - Eau de cologne.
Follow the rules above to swim faster, and ultimately to be a faster triathlete. Enjoy.
EDIT:
#21 Repetition is your friend. Variety is for the weak minded, and interferes with the learning process. Repetition, Repetition, Repetition.
Waverider - There is nothing wrong with changing it up a bit. But really there are only a few sets you need. A steady one. A getting faster one. A fast and hard one. A sprinting one.
