What technique do you all use for open water swims and keeping on tract in direction. Swimming in a pool is simple because your body is naturally looking down at the lane markers. However, during open water swims, what works best…looking up from your left or right breath? how often do you look? or do look forward between breaths. I want a set routine so I can keep streamline and prevent my legs dropping from the surface everytime I look up. I swim 1500m in a pool at <25 min, my 1500 open water is 31-35 min and if its not a out and back swim it’s longer. I consistently find my self in a zig zag in the open water and using too much extra effort but in a pool I am straight, smooth and seem to swim effortlessly.
I don’t know why I am doing this but I’ll tell you a secret. Listen up, I don’t think I’ll ever repeat this again.
As far as learning to swim straight in open water, most people waste their time in the pool, following the black stripe on the bottom. Open water doesn’t have lane lines. However, in the pool, if you do your laps swimming six inches off the lane dividers (or closer if your stroke and hip rotation are good) is a good (great) test of your ability to swim straight. Veering into the lane will let you know instantly, veering away is a little harder to detect initially, but it will be obvious after a little practice. Keeping your nose within six inches of the divider when you breathe is a great indicator that you are swimming straighter.
Even better, is when you get half a lane to yourself. Bilateral breathing lets you look at the divider under any circumstance, but when ramping up the tempo, you can go down, say the right side of the lane, breathing to your right every breathe into the divider, and then return, breathing to your left every time again into the divider. It can be eye opening how out of balance and how non straight one swims breathing to one side vs the other.
Now, don’t tell any one else about this.
You’re not alone in this! Please tell us, experienced open water swimmers! At one tri last year (which I enjoyed tremendously - 4 foot (1.5m) waves)) I found myself going at right angles to the direction I was supposed to swim in.
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the trick to “sighting” in open water is to find something big on the shore line (eg, a tree, a house etc) that lines up with the appropriate buoy. with practice, you can then “sight” easily while swimming. having something big to find on the shore automatically allows you to not lift your head right out of the water and to keep your stroke a smooth movement - which basically prevents the shoulders from lifting and the hips dropping like a stone. In the beginning of the race you should be sighting every 10-20 strokes or so, when you get out of the pack and are swimming relatively “straight” you can then cut the sightings accordingly dependant on your confidence in sighting.
in my case, i only breathe to the right when i swim so when I “sight” I take my normal breath but then instead of turning my face down to continue stroking I look forward, tilting my head upwards slightly so just my eyes can just see over the top of the water. By pulling harder on my left arm for that stroke this also allows me to get higher in the water than normal. By the time my left arm comes out of the water my head is back in the water. If you miss seeing your target the first time, you can then have another look on the next stroke. If you’ve managed to swim relatively straight between sightings this should prove adequate as if you’re slightly off course you can then just adjust your direction without pause. Missed sightings is mainly when the water is choppy. There have been times when I’ve had to do 4 or 5 sightings straight after each other but have gained time on other swimmers because they’ve either stopped to see where they are or they’ve picked their head right out of the water and broken the rhythm of their stroke …
good luck, with a bit of practice it will come naturally.