This coming summer I plan on jumping into the sport. I know I can bike with the best of my age group and I am an above average runner(tri-captain of cross-country/indoor & outdoor track my senior year of high school). The swim will be my weak event. I would be in the pool working on becoming stronger except for two main reasons:
I’m at college and we don’t have a pool on campus, and
Even if I was home, it’s still about 30-40 degrees outside everyday.
Does anyone know any workouts or exercises to build up the muscles needed for swimming, or at least where to find them(lifting/rowing/etc)?
p.s. swimming is far less about having the muscles for it and a lot more about technique. You can have all the arm muscle and shoulder muscle in the world and suck at swimming. Just a thought… meaning you shouldn’t spend too much time lifting thinking it’s going to make you a rock star swimmer.
also, if you are getting into triathlon, you prob better try swimming at least some, the other spots will not get you through it.
i came into triathlon from rowing, and let me tell you no ammount of athletic background will help you if you cant swim. maybe find an indoor pool, even if it is 30-40 min away (i travel daily about 50 min for one), and get int there two or three times a week. wont not be a ton of travling then and you would be getting in the pool enough to not drown come race day.
I don’t have a car on campus and my schedule is crazy this semester. I’ve always been a decent swimmer since we have a pool at home. With no tri team, I was just looking to build whatever muscles might be used to make the training come summer that little bit easier.
I noticed that yesterday you said that you are looking for your first road/tri bike… What in the world makes you think that you can hang with the top age groupers on the bike???
I noticed that yesterday you said that you are looking for your first road/tri bike… What in the world makes you think that you can hang with the top age groupers on the bike???
Don’t mean to sound like a jerk but don’t know how else to word a response to this Q.
Probably the fact that last summer I was riding an early 1990’s 12 speed mountain bike 20+ miles averaging around 17-18mph stuck in the small front chain ring b/c of a busted derailleur. I was only able to top out at about 23/24 mph on a sprint and would have loved to shift to the larger ring but couldn’t.
Plus, the tri I’m looking at the top bike time for my age group was a 34 min. 11 mile ride on an almost flat course…there is only one quarter mile hill of 3% which is ridden twice and a second hill of 2% ridden once also a quarter mile. The last 2 miles or so are a straight downhill(-2/-3%). If I could average those speeds on that bike with those problems, I think a road/tri bike will kick those speeds up dramatically. Plus I rode 5 miles on an exercise bike in under 14 minutes last week and still felt REALLY good.
My guess is that in real life, since you can’t swim you will never even see the top age groupers, and while you are finishing up on the bike, they will be finishing up on the run. Just a real life scenario guess type a thing.
I never said COULDN’T swim. I asked what I could to do outside of the water (since it is still winter and I can’t get to a pool) to improve my swimming ability, so come summer I would be stronger. I’m not going to be 20 minutes behind on the swim…I’m only looking at sprint tri’s this year, and the key race I’m looking at in September is only a 1/4 mile swim…If I’m THAT far behind I gotta find a new sport.
PS. We have a pool and a house on the cape 1/3 mile from the beach. Swimming is part of my life.
i would like to give anyone the benifit of the doubt, and maybe someone more in the know can correct me, but to me it seems a bit fast to be in the small ring of a mnt bike going 18mph.
in my first tri i ave 19mph on at tri bike fresh off of a year of serious rowing, that seems a bit off to me.
I guessing that his bike has only two chainrings as he said it was a 12-speed.If that is the case then 18mph is not that hard to hold for 20 miles(depending on his tyres).The 24mph sprints would have been interesting and I’m surprised that he was welcome on any road-ride with an mtb.I currently not welcome at any group ride here in Oz as my road bike is in Canada and I only have an mtb and a hybrid to use.
I have a computer on my bike, and I compared the speed with what my cousin’s cpu said and it was dead on.
And I clocked these speeds on my own. No one in my family really rides, so I do A LOT of solo riding.
I second cords. But if you are confident swimmer, you only need to swim train a few times before the race to come out mid pack or better (1-2 minutes down in a sprint race), then you can catch everyone on the other legs.
I was a mediocre j.v. high school swimmer, barely swam laps for 15 years, and lap swam about 10 times (no more than 1,500 yards) before my first sprint race. Swam a 6:40 for 500 yards in the pool, which was one of the better swims in that little race. Six years and 1.5 million yards later I still can’t break 6 minutes …
I don’t doubt that you can ride that fast.I work with a young guy who has never done any serious riding but just commutes on his MTB.He has sat on my wheel at 25mph while riding a cheap Scott with flat pedals(no clips) and knobby tyres.I checked his computer and his average overall speed for his commuting is 17.25mph.
For you though I would caution you to not expect too much in your first few tris.You may well be a very fit guy and clearly you are a comptative but there is a lot to learn about putting the three sports together in a race.
Good luck for the 2009 season and don’t let the knocks you will get here on ST discourage you.