I’m a mediocre swimmer. When I started tris I didn’t have any real swimming experience and just slowly got into some training at a local pool, pretty bad. Over the first winter I joined a master’s class and that seemed to help, got my swim pace down to a consistent 2:00/100m. I haven’t been to a master’s class since that winter but have done a lot of swim training. Sometimes I’ll go a few months with no training and be ~2:00/100m when I start back, then I’ll train super consistent ~4 times per week and not really improve. So do I need more coaching? I can’t afford it at the moment as I’m at Uni internationally, have a membership at the pool and swim a bunch, but it’s extra for the Swim For Fitness classes with some stroke correction stuff. So am I wasting my time in a sense just going and swimming with the form I have now? Or with consistent training and no extended breaks, can I improve upon that time, or will I just become slightly more swim fit, thus maybe expending a little less energy over my mediocre speed? Like how many people find that master’s swimming or swim coaching is necessary to get faster? I went 1:18 in the water at IMC and want to go no slower than 1:15 this year at IMWA…
it’s extra for the Swim For Fitness classes with some stroke correction stuff.
Stroke correction is good as at 2:00/100m, you have some technical issues.
However, a swim for fitness class isn’t training you like you need to be for a fast triathlon swim split, so I would supplement the class with more workouts on your own. You know how you do run workouts ocassionally in the week? Swimming = a workout (intervals) every day - no pounding, you can get away with that.
So technique should be your first concern, and then lots of focused swim training.
Thanks for the advice! So do you think I need a coach for the stroke feedback or can I get away with referencing internet and books for technique tips to focus on?
I see a lot of swimming in the very near future, may be all I can manage after a 100k run this Sunday!
While a knowledgeable swim coach could help, a picture is worth 1,000 words. Find someone that can film you underwater, point out your flaws & provide some corrective tips and/or drills. Practice, practice & practice some more. Then get filmed again to see the progress. Until then, check out some You Tube videos to see world class swimmers at their craft…get a mental image of that person swimming as being you. Mental imagery can be quite useful especially in sports highly technical like swimming or cross country skiing. Remember that the important part of the swim stroke is what happens below the water, not above (the recovery).
I have a related swimming question, if you are having trouble keeping good form because of fatigue, is the right answer to do sets of 50s until you can keep good form for longer? I was told this by someone but wanted to hear what other have to say.
What kind of training are you doing? Give us a workout example.
Like TG said, improvements in swimming come from practicing good technique, and with a LOT of hard intervals at threshold. If your workouts are something like;
1000 warmup
2x500 easy
500 moderate
500 warmdown
even though you’re putting in 3k, you aren’t going to get faster. Especially if you aren’t drilling good technique. To get faster you need to swim fast, alot.
I would only swim with good form,
if you fatigued and your form breaks down and you start to do things you know are incorrect, then you are not in great swim shape (if you can swim and maintain form, then you are in good shape but are getting an ass kicking workout)
So, slowly build up your swimming, it will take some time for the muscles to develop correctly,
If I am trying to redevelop my stroke, I will cut back my swims to only 500 yards a session for about month (even though I could do 5k-6k without thought) and slowly build up again. The reason why, I am recruiting under used muscles and will fatigue quicker, if I resort to the old technique, then it is a wasted workout.
I’d say to ease up on the exertion level when you’re trying to get back into swim shape rather than going short and hard.
When 'm just getting back into it, one of my favorite workouts is:
500 warm up easy
5x300 aerobic moderate pace on no fixed interval- take 20 seconds of rest after each (30ish if you don’t have a fish background)
8x50 on 1:00
100 warm down
The key is to not kill yourself on the 300s, just end up breathing moderately hard after each one. The first three of them will feel like utter crap, but if I keep a consistent pace as I work on form, it all finally starts to click and feel right again at the end of the main set.
Well most of my workouts are just sets of intervals at various distances. So if I want to focus on form I’ll do 50s and 100s on like 1:10 or 2:15 or something like that so I have time to recover a bit and my form doesn’t go completely to crap from fatigue. Or like yesterday I did 1000m x 2, 500m x 1 and a small mix of 50s/100s to get another 500m in. I’m terrible with doing drills, which is what I probably need the most!
I’ll see what I can do about the filming underwater thing. That’d no doubt be helpful. I downloaded that Mr. Swim Smooth thing last night which shows the ideal freestyle swimming stroke. I’ll study it and focus on one or two key elements that I feel I need to work on. Good idea also about watching elites, I did that for a while and it helped me visualize for sure… pretty sure i have some grant hackett videos saved on youtube.
When I was younger, I attended Stanford’s swim camp. The late, great Richard Quick told the group that swimming with poor form due to fatigue is plan stupid (he used nicer words). If he had a swimmer that was in the middle of a set and their form was slipping, he would prefer they stop vs. losing form and finishing.
His thought was that if you aren’t training your body to do it right, you will never be able to hold your form in a race. Obviously, a simple rational.
I would definitely agree with him as I’m sure most would. Keep up the good form as long as you can vs. hammering out yardage. Eventually, it will pay off although you may not be getting the workouts you want in the beginning.
If you can’t find someone to watch you swim, start by breaking your swim down into little piece and practice them individually.
Streamline and side kicks will help with body position. One thing I found to REALLY help with body position is to kick 100’s with fins with your hands to your sides, breathing like normal freestyle. In order to breathe, you HAVE to have proper body position. It also tells you immediately if you are using your arms to prop up your head to breathe. Once you get the body position dialed in and develop a rhythm, its actually a lot of fun.
The anchor drill is probably one of the best catch drills I’ve used. The way I do it (technically correct or not) is to do a breast stroke recovery until my arms are at streamline, then drop my hands and initiate a high elbow catch (both arms at once), then pull back together. It removes body roll and timing from the equation and lets you focus only on getting an early vertical forearm and holding water. It’s also a great time to get a feel for sculling, as you can really feel the additional grip. Finis also makes a set of paddles called “forearm fulcrums” that really help develop the high elbow catch.
For forward reach, I really like the pencil drill too. It’s like a catchup drill, but you carry an (unsharpened) pencil in your forward hand. When your other hand recovers, it takes the pencil before starting the stroke. You can do it with a kickboard too, but the pencil works better for me. I found it helped to do this drill after the streamline kicks, as I could really get a feel for how higher hips tied into the longer reach.
Once you have the pieces, work them back to back until you feel them connect.
you need a coach for some one on one stroke help.
if you can figure out the technique youll go twice as fast at the same effort.
Thanks for the advice! So do you think I need a coach for the stroke feedback or can I get away with referencing internet and books for technique tips to focus on?
I see a lot of swimming in the very near future, may be all I can manage after a 100k run this Sunday!
