# Become a faster, more efficient swimmer - avoid these common triathlete mistakes! | Ep 483

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 3 Apr 2024, 17 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/ea99f7d8/podcast/play/84877283/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2024-3-2%2F373004739-44100-2-29c90402d3981.mp3

Almost all age-group triathletes make at least one of these mistakes in their swim training, and you probably are too. Fix these issues, and you'll become a faster, more efficient swimmer for less effort - the holy grail for triathletes! * * * * * * * * SPONSORS * * * * * * * * Like what you heard in this interview? Join hundreds of other age group triathletes making the most of their limited training time, training with Team OxygenAddict! http://team.oxygenaddict.com - The most comprehensive triathlon coaching program for busy age groupers. Join the Team Oxygenaddict waiting list and be the first to find out when a space becomes available: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/waiting-list * * * * * * * * * * * * precisionfuelandhydration.com Precision Fuel & Hydration help athletes personalise their hydration and fuelling strategies for training and racing. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised race nutrition plan for your next event. And then book a free 20-minute video consultation with a member of the PF&H Athlete Support Team to refine your strategy. Listeners get 15% off their first order of fuel and electrolytes with Precision Fuel & Hydration. Simply use this link and the discount will be auto-applied at the checkout. * * * * * * * * * * * * Watch on youtube Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts

## Transcript

[0:03] Hello and welcome to the Oxygenating podcast.
[0:05] We're brought to you every week by our sponsors Precision Fuel
[0:08] and hydration.com. You can personalise your
[0:11] fuelling and hydration strategy so you perform your best with
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[0:18] fuel. Decode Oxygen 24 at Precision
[0:21] Fuel and hydration.com Welcome to the show everybody.
[0:24] I'm your host, coach Rob Wilby, and every week we bring you an
[0:28] episode of this podcast to help motivate and inspire.
[0:31] You for your. Triathlon goals.
[0:32] For this season. Listen, a couple of quick things
[0:35] you could do for us before we jump into today's episode.
[0:38] If you do like this episode, please consider following us on
[0:41] Spotify or Apple Podcasts. And also if you're watching on
[0:45] YouTube, if you could like and subscribe.
[0:47] That would really help out the growth of the show.
[0:50] It helps the show get shown to more.
[0:52] People by the algorithm on on the.
[0:54] Podcast players and on YouTube, so we'd really, really
[0:56] appreciate that. And secondly, if you're looking
[0:59] for help and advice with your. Triathlon training.
[1:01] Please consider getting in touch with us.
[1:03] You can read. All about.
[1:04] What we offer at Team Oxygen. Addict.com.
[1:07] And then you can e-mail us. At help at.
[1:09] Oxygen addict. Dot com.
[1:11] Or there's a link in the show notes to book a call with me or
[1:14] one of the coaching team. We can discuss how we can best
[1:17] help you out with your triathlon goals for this season.
[1:22] OK, on this episode I'm going to be talking about the three
[1:26] biggest mistakes that I see triathletes making in their swim
[1:29] training, especially if the training for 70.3 or Ironman
[1:33] distance triathlon. So the 1st and the By far the
[1:37] biggest mistake that I see people making in their swim
[1:40] training is the thought that just trying harder in swimming
[1:45] is going to make you faster and that just doing more training,
[1:49] just doing more laps, is going to make you a faster swimmer.
[1:53] And it's a belief that's held over it.
[1:55] I think a lot of triathletes come into, they come into the
[1:58] sport through a running background or a cycling
[2:01] background. People who come in from a
[2:03] swimming background definitely don't make this mistake, but
[2:06] it's really common with with cyclists and with runners or
[2:09] people from that background because in those sports, just
[2:14] doing more work, just training more, just increasing the
[2:17] volume, just trying harder, does make you faster.
[2:21] It does give you a guaranteed return on your investment and
[2:25] unfortunately swimming just isn't like that as I
[2:28] unfortunately it it isn't unfortunate actually, but it's a
[2:32] different way of thinking about things.
[2:34] So typically what I would see as a swim coach on swim deck, I
[2:38] would see an athlete come to a Tri club swim session from a
[2:41] running background, say, obviously very fit person.
[2:44] They've got low body fat, they're in great shape.
[2:46] We're doing great times on the running track to get into the
[2:49] pool and they're absolutely exhausted after 25 metres or 50
[2:55] metres, really, really out of breath.
[2:57] They have to stop bent over, you know, head on the hands, really,
[3:02] really, really gasping for breath.
[3:04] They get themselves together again and they go again and and
[3:07] almost mentally it comes across like this session to them is the
[3:11] equivalent of a set of 200 metre repeats on the running track or
[3:16] 400 metre repeats on the running track or one minute VO2 Max
[3:20] repeats on the bike turbo trainer.
[3:23] And what they're the, you know, the the really shocked and they
[3:29] don't like it at all. The fact that they workout that
[3:32] this kind of swim training doesn't actually translate to
[3:36] any gains in their swim speed. They're working really hard but
[3:40] they're not actually getting any fitter and they're not seeing
[3:42] their hundred metre repeat times come down unfortunately.
[3:46] And the reason for this is is both really easy to understand
[3:50] and also at the same time completely counterintuitive.
[3:53] And it's that swimming has a lot more in common with golf or with
[3:58] tennis than it does with running or with cycling.
[4:01] It's a very skill based sport rather than a fitness based
[4:04] sport. And although there's a very
[4:07] large fitness component to it, without the skill element you're
[4:11] never going to be able to apply force to the water, and so
[4:14] you're never going to be able to get speed through the water,
[4:17] regardless of how fit you may be.
[4:20] Cardiovascularly from from running or cycling or any other
[4:24] sport. It's not going to translate to
[4:27] speed through the water until the body learns the skill of
[4:31] connecting and applying force to the water in a way that moves
[4:35] the body through the water and in a in a meaningful way.
[4:40] And so runners and cyclists who come into triathlon are often
[4:44] amazed that swim sets include so much technique work.
[4:49] And often they'll say to the coach, can we just get through
[4:53] the drill set? Can we just get on to the main
[4:55] part of this? Can we do the real interval
[4:57] training? The bit that's going to make me
[4:58] fitter? And while that might be true in
[5:02] or truer, at least in cycling or in running, it absolutely isn't
[5:06] true in swimming. And so the thing to get your
[5:09] head around if you're in this position is that think of your
[5:13] body like a boat in the water. When you first start to swim,
[5:17] you don't even really have a boat.
[5:19] You've got a solid block of wood and what you want to be doing is
[5:24] using the technique training to gradually carve away pieces of
[5:28] this very inefficient block of wood to make it gradually more
[5:32] streamlined and gradually more shaped.
[5:34] Like firstly like a boat and then like a sailboat and then
[5:38] like a speedboat so that you can move that speed boat through the
[5:42] water with speed. I think that's the way to think
[5:45] of it. The technique training and the
[5:48] drills and the technique sessions that you'll do are
[5:51] going to teach your body to apply that fitness in the forms
[5:55] of force to the water. It's going to teach you to
[5:58] balance your body in the water better, so you move through the
[6:01] water more efficiently and therefore you'll move through
[6:04] the water faster for the same or even less effort.
[6:08] So that's the first big mistake, thinking that just trying hard
[6:12] or just trying harder is going to translate to to to faster
[6:17] swim times in the water. And unfortunately it's not.
[6:20] You have to dedicate yourself to doing if you like.
[6:23] You have to do the right drill sets for your body and your
[6:27] stroke floors to mean that you get rid of your stroke floors
[6:31] and to mean that you can then translate this into practising
[6:36] perfect form. And I think that's the take away
[6:40] from this, is that in swimming practise doesn't make perfect.
[6:45] Practise makes permanent and what you need to be doing is
[6:48] practising perfect technique to make that perfect technique
[6:53] permanent. If you are just doing more and
[6:56] more laps, all you're doing is you're embedding in your muscle
[6:59] memory the incorrect technique and you're going to have to undo
[7:03] that at some point. O right from the outset,
[7:06] dedicate that swimming time that you've got to improving your
[7:09] technique so that then any fitness training you do is
[7:13] practising and embedding that improved or that perfect
[7:16] technique. A really good way to do this is
[7:19] to go online, watch videos of really good swimmers doing this.
[7:22] I'll point you towards the Swim Smooth website, the Swim Smooth,
[7:26] the YouTube channel. They've got tonnes of great
[7:29] examples on there filmed above the water, below the water from
[7:32] the side of what a really perfect swimmer looks like.
[7:36] And you can then embed that idea in your brain and you can then
[7:40] go away and try and copy that. And another tip, just before we
[7:43] finish. Uh, mistake #1.
[7:45] If you can get permission and get somebody to film you
[7:48] swimming, ideally below the water and from the side as well.
[7:52] But even if you can just see a video of yourself.
[7:54] Swimming athletes are often really amazed what they actually
[7:57] look like and how far away from what they think they should look
[8:02] like they actually look like. And that in itself can be very,
[8:06] very revealing. Just seeing a video of yourself
[8:09] and thinking, right, Well, I've I've looked at this video on the
[8:11] swim smooth channel and I know what I should look like in the
[8:14] water. This is what I actually look
[8:16] like. Let's see if we can start to
[8:18] change the stroke so that my current stroke looks more like
[8:22] the stroke of the really good swimmer.
[8:25] OK, tip #2 or mistake #2 that I see athletes making is swimming
[8:33] continuously all the time and thinking that the goal of swim
[8:37] training is to be able to swim continuously as soon as
[8:41] possible. So again, this is often carried
[8:43] over for triathletes from a from a running background or from a
[8:47] cycling background. It kind of makes sense that
[8:50] you've come from doing your long Sunday ride or your long Sunday
[8:53] run and you know you've got to do a long swim as part of your
[8:56] 70.3 or Iron Man. So you should start to try to
[8:59] build that up as soon as possible.
[9:01] And we want to, you know, the the myth is we want to get to be
[9:04] able to swim 1000 metres, 2000 metres, 4000 metres
[9:08] continuously. And while there is a place for
[9:11] that, and there's definitely going to be a time in your
[9:14] training where you'll need to do those long continuous sessions,
[9:18] you can afford to think of those as as the last block of sessions
[9:22] before your goal race. And depending on how far you are
[9:25] away from your goal race, all of the other training needs to be
[9:28] done very differently. And what I would suggest is if
[9:32] you're currently doing a really long continuous swim, you've got
[9:36] more to gain by breaking that swim up into repeated 100
[9:40] metres. So let's say you can currently
[9:41] swim 1000 metres as an example, as your lungs were.
[9:45] You will improve your swimming faster by breaking that thousand
[9:49] metres up into 10 repetitions of 100 metres and have like a three
[9:54] to five second break at the end of the 100 and then go again.
[9:58] And the aim isn't to turn this into an interval set where you
[10:01] try hard and you recover. I still want you swimming at
[10:04] your endurance pace, but I want you to just break that up with a
[10:08] three to five second break. And typically with my athletes,
[10:11] I get them to just stand up in the shallow end, take three
[10:14] really deep yoga breaths and off they go again.
[10:17] And the benefit of this is a lot of the small muscles in the
[10:22] shoulders in the back and the the linking of the the arm and
[10:26] the back muscles around here. A lot of these smaller muscles
[10:29] are the ones that fatigue the fastest and fatigue soonest.
[10:33] And if you can give them a little break if you like what
[10:36] you're doing is you're resetting your technique.
[10:38] You're allowing your body to have that micro recovery and
[10:41] then it allows you to swim with certainly with better form and
[10:46] as close to perfect form as you can.
[10:48] That little break is magic in just allowing your body to have
[10:52] a little reset. Those little tiny muscles that
[10:54] are suffering the most to recover and then go again.
[10:58] And in an ideal world, what you're looking for in this, in
[11:02] this previously continuous swim that you're now breaking U into
[11:06] 100 metre repeat, is to come in on the same exact time every
[11:12] time. So let's say, I don't know,
[11:14] let's say you would swim 1000 metres in 20 minutes.
[11:18] What you will probably find is that the earlier reps of the
[11:21] hundreds would be much faster. They might be 145 or 150 and
[11:25] gradually slow down and tail off so that the last five might be
[11:29] 205. That's not what we want.
[11:32] What we want you to do in an ideal world is to come in on one
[11:37] 57158 each time, take that 3 second break and go again and
[11:42] come back in again on one 57158. And the benefit of this is
[11:47] twofold. Firstly, there's that physical
[11:49] benefit we talked about that you'll have that little micro
[11:52] break, you'll be swimming with better or more perfect form for
[11:56] longer, but also mentally you're learning that you can come in
[12:00] and you can hit those repeats every time and you'll gain an
[12:04] awful lot of confidence from doing it that way as well.
[12:07] So that's my tip for you. Break your continuous swim up
[12:11] into repeats of 100 metres and get confident that in the early
[12:15] days you can repeat these and you can build that set U and we
[12:19] will have you do some continuous swims, but not until you're much
[12:23] closer. Typically in the four to six
[12:25] weeks before your goal, a race of the season, that's when we'll
[12:29] switch over to doing those continuous swims.
[12:33] OK, now the third mistake that I see triathletes making with
[12:37] their swim training is not knowing what their training
[12:41] paces are, not even really being aware that there is a range of
[12:45] paces you can swim at and just kind of swimming and coming in
[12:50] at the end of the Rep on whatever the clock happens to
[12:53] say at the end of that. And again, it's really hard for
[12:57] people from a running or from a cycling background to get their
[13:00] head around swim paces. So we'll put a little framework
[13:03] on this for you. You can do a test called THC
[13:06] test, which involves doing a 400 metre time trial, a 200 metre
[13:11] time trial and then plugging the results of those into a
[13:14] calculator. And it will.
[13:15] Give you your CSS pace, and to give you an idea of what that's
[13:19] relative to, it's like threshold pace for swimming or threshold
[13:23] pace for running or FTP on the bike.
[13:26] It's that kind of number. Your CSS paces what you can
[13:29] probably hold in about a 30 minute time trial on your own in
[13:33] the pool. Once you know what your C pace
[13:37] is, you can then define a range of paces relative to that, and
[13:41] each of your swims should be exactly targeted at one of those
[13:47] specific paces for a specific reason.
[13:50] So just like you would go out and do an endurance run epace or
[13:54] an endurance ride at a specific percentage of your FTP, I would
[13:58] have you doing your swim sessions at a specific range
[14:02] relative to your CSS. So for most people, think of it
[14:06] as CSS base itself is your threshold type swims.
[14:11] So you'll be doing 1 to 400 metre reps at your CSS pace, but
[14:16] then for 73 athletes, C + 4 seconds per hundred, it's going
[14:22] to be about your race day pace. For 70.3 CSS plus about 8
[14:27] seconds 100 is going to be your race day pace for Ironman
[14:31] distance racing. So that gives you a kind of
[14:35] reading on the sort of pace you should be swimming at relative
[14:39] to your own current swim fitness as measured by a CSS test.
[14:44] And lots of people don't do the test because honestly, they're
[14:48] afraid of what the answer is going to say.
[14:50] So I'd encourage you don't think of the test as a pass or fail.
[14:54] Have I got better at swimming or not?
[14:57] Should I do this test or not? The reason that you're doing it
[15:00] is it will then inform and underpin every single one of the
[15:04] swim sessions that you're going to do coming up because you want
[15:08] to be able to have something to measure your pace against and
[15:12] make it relevant and relative to.
[15:16] OK then that brings us to the end of this week's episode.
[15:19] So here are some discount codes and deals for you.
[15:22] I've got Precision Fuel and hydration.com.
[15:24] Use the code Oxygen 24 for 15% off your first electrolyte
[15:28] order. And over at teamoxygenaddict.com
[15:32] I think we've got the most comprehensive triathlon coaching
[15:34] programme for busy age groupers. If you've enjoyed what you've
[15:38] heard today and the advice has helped you out, well, great
[15:40] stuff. I hope that's helped put some of
[15:42] your fears at rest, and I know from some of the calls we've had
[15:45] it's helping raise the right questions in the minds of people
[15:49] as to whether their current coaching relationship is working
[15:52] for them. If you're looking for a change,
[15:55] or if you're looking for high quality proven coaching for
[15:57] Ironman or 73 Triathlon this year, you can just check out the
[16:01] details of our coaching packages on our website at
[16:04] teamoxygenaddict.com. And then if you're interested,
[16:07] there's a link in the show notes below.
[16:09] You can join our waiting list and you'll be notified if the
[16:12] slot becomes available, and at that point you'll have a chance
[16:15] to book a call with us. And see if you'd be a good.
[16:18] Fit for joining the team though we don't have slots available at
[16:21] the moment. We'll make those call
[16:23] appointments available to people as and when.
[16:26] We do have athletes who end their coaching packages during
[16:29] the season if and when that happens.
[16:31] So remember there's links in the show notes so you don't have to
[16:34] remember them till next week. Have a great safe training and
[16:37] racing week. I'm coach Rob Wilby and you've
[16:40] been listening to the. Oxygen added podcast.
[16:42] See ya.

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