# Winter IRONMAN Training - Smarter Indoor Riding & Swim Mistakes to Avoid | Ep 559

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 8 Oct 2025, 30 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/ea99f7d8/podcast/play/109348023/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2025-9-7%2F42f55799-2f1a-ba08-1f75-64ee5d6389dd.m4a

Coach Rob's tips this week are answering questions from listeners who are starting to think about winter training - particularly focusing on indoor bike training and swim technique Including: -> Whether you should use the same bike to train indoors and outdoors... -> How to structure bike and swim sessions... -> The importance of swim technique over endurance during winter training... -> And other common questions on the use of equipment like Wattbike and buoyancy shorts * * * * * * * * SPONSORS * * * * * * * * Thinking about your first Ironman or 70.3 in 2026? September is the perfect time to start. At Team Oxygenaddict, we specialise in helping busy professionals fit high-quality training around demanding jobs and family life. We’ve just reopened for new athletes with only a handful of slots available. Book an application call today to find out if you'd be a good fit for Team Oxygenaddict for the coming season here: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/consultation-call/ * * * * * * * * * * * * 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 click this link and the discount will be auto-applied at the checkout. * * * * * * * * * * * * Watch on youtube Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts

## Transcript

[0:04] Hello and welcome to the Oxygen Addict Triathlon podcast.
[0:07] We're brought to you every week by our sponsors Precision Fuel
[0:09] and hydration.com. You can get 15% of your first
[0:12] order with the code Oxygen Fuel 25.
[0:15] Welcome to the show everybody. I'm your host coach Rob Wilby
[0:18] from Team Oxygen Addict Triathlon Coaching and every
[0:20] week bring you an episode of this podcast to help educate,
[0:23] motivate and inspire you for Iron Man 70.3 triathlons.
[0:27] On this week's episode I'm going to be talking about when to
[0:31] triathlon training, some ways you can use indoor riding and
[0:35] indoor training in a smarter way to help you get better results
[0:38] in shorter amounts of time, and also some tips on swim mistakes
[0:43] that I think you should avoid. I've got a bunch of questions
[0:45] have been sent through from athletes.
[0:47] I've grouped them together and hopefully in answering these
[0:49] questions, it's really going to help you out in your triathlon
[0:52] training as we as we go into this winter.
[0:54] So before we kick things off, there's a couple of quick things
[0:57] you could do that would really help us out.
[0:59] Please, if you like and enjoy this episode, please follow us
[1:01] on Spotify, our Apple Podcasts. And if you're looking for help
[1:05] for training and coaching for your first time, Mano 70.3,
[1:08] please check out the coaching memberships over at
[1:10] teamoxygenaddict.com. I think we've got the most
[1:13] comprehensive triathlon coaching programme specifically designed
[1:17] for busy age groupers. You've got family lives and and
[1:19] working jobs and trying to balance all of that around
[1:22] trying to do Iron Man at 70.3 heading into winter is the
[1:26] perfect time where you can make massive gains over this winter
[1:29] block that will really affect the time that you do in the
[1:32] summer and the success of your Iron Man at 70.3 next summer.
[1:36] So it's the perfect time to jump in and get involved.
[1:39] I've got a few slots available here in October as we stand
[1:42] right now, and we've got athletes who have come to the
[1:46] end of their years coaching contracts with us and are moving
[1:49] on to other things. So I've got 3 or 4 slots
[1:51] available due in October. If you're interested in those,
[1:54] it'd be great to hear from you. There's a link down in show
[1:57] notes. Book a membership call with me
[1:59] and see if you'd be a good fit for joining us and how we can
[2:02] best help you out. OK, first question, is there an
[2:06] advantage to using the same bike on the turbo inside as I ride
[2:10] outside or is it fine to have a separate indoor bike?
[2:14] OK, So what I'm going to say to athletes here is as long as
[2:17] you're getting the bike training done indoors, especially in the
[2:20] early part of winter, everything is fine.
[2:23] But the more you're concerned about a race day performance and
[2:27] the more you're concerned about going fast, the more specific
[2:31] you can make your training, the more chance you've got of going
[2:34] fast come race day. What I mean by that is if you
[2:38] can use the same biking doors on the trainer, then great.
[2:42] Now that's not to say you shouldn't go to a bike spin
[2:45] class at your local gym. It's not to say that you
[2:47] shouldn't use a what bike or any kind of exercise biking doors,
[2:51] because any kind of training that you get done is much better
[2:53] than no training. But the more specific you can
[2:56] make your training, the faster you're going to be able to go on
[2:59] race day. And it's especially true for
[3:01] athletes who are really focused on on performance on going quick
[3:05] on race day or athletes who are going to be up against the cut
[3:09] offs on the bike and are going to need to make the most of
[3:12] their bike training. If you can get yourself indoors
[3:15] and train on the bike you're going to be racing on in the
[3:18] position you're going to be racing in, the more specific
[3:21] that is the better and the better chance you've got of
[3:24] turning out that better performance on race day.
[3:27] So that means if you're going to be riding on race day with arrow
[3:31] bars, with clip on bars on your road bike, get those clip on
[3:35] bars on as quickly as you can. Train with them in that position
[3:39] for as much of the winter as you can, and your body will become
[3:42] adapted to putting out the power in that position.
[3:45] If you're going to be riding a dedicated TT or Tri bike for
[3:48] your race in the summer, the sooner you can get that bike and
[3:51] the more sessions you can get done on it, the more prepared
[3:55] you're going to be in that position.
[3:57] Now a common lead on question from this is often, but I seem
[4:00] to be putting out less power in the arrow position.
[4:03] Surely I'm losing out if I'm putting out less power in the
[4:06] arrow position than if I was sitting up.
[4:08] So what I'm going to say to you here is the raw number doesn't
[4:11] matter if you're putting out, I don't know, let's put some
[4:14] numbers on it. If you're putting out 250 watts
[4:16] sitting up on a road bike and you change to clip on arrow bars
[4:20] and you're only putting out 225 watts, it can be tempting to
[4:24] think, well, I've lost power and therefore I'm going to go
[4:27] slower. What the reality of that is is
[4:29] you're just using different muscles and recruiting them in a
[4:32] different pattern in that time trial bike.
[4:35] And you are going to go much faster because of the
[4:38] aerodynamic position, riding in the aero position on race day
[4:42] than you would do sitting up on a road bike position but putting
[4:45] out more power. So the more you can train in
[4:48] that position, the better you're going to be prepared.
[4:51] That extends to testing as well. If you're going to do your
[4:54] sessions in the arrow position, test in the arrow position.
[4:58] And at the end of the block, don't be tempted to muscle your
[5:01] way to the biggest possible number by getting out of the
[5:04] arrow position and sitting up, because that's not what the
[5:06] testing is about. It's about working out what your
[5:10] accurate zones are for the position that you're riding in.
[5:14] So try as much as you can to use the bike in the position that
[5:18] you're going to be racing in come race day.
[5:21] Next question, what are your thoughts on using something like
[5:24] a what bike Atom for Swift sessions?
[5:27] Is it a good investment? So again, this leads on from the
[5:31] last question. My personal preference will be
[5:35] for you to use your normal bike on a bike trainer like a Wahoo
[5:39] Kicker or something like that because of the specificity of
[5:43] that bike position. Now that being said, massive
[5:47] changes have been made to things like the Watt bike, Atom and the
[5:50] the Kicker bike. You can get to the point now
[5:53] where you can really accurately replicate your position on those
[5:57] bikes that you would on your normal bike.
[6:00] And that's the thing to do. If you're going to invest in
[6:02] something like a walk bike Atom, that's great, but you're going
[6:05] to have to take the time to make sure that the measurements are
[6:08] exactly the same as they would be on the bike you can be riding
[6:11] on race day. So typically that means
[6:13] obviously getting the saddle height correct, but getting the
[6:16] saddle for and aft correct. So relative to the bottom
[6:19] bracket, getting the handlebar height from the ground correct,
[6:23] getting the handlebar for and aft relative to your saddle and
[6:27] getting the position of the arrow bar extensions on those
[6:30] bikes. So as long as you can make those
[6:32] measurements the same, absolutely the Watt bike, Atom
[6:35] or the GB, fantastic investment. And it means obviously you've
[6:38] got something there looks like a quality piece of kit in the
[6:41] corner of your home gym or the corner of your spare bedroom.
[6:44] But I don't think you have to push yourself to spend a couple
[6:49] of 1000 lbs or dollars on that dedicated indoor bike when for a
[6:53] few £100 or dollars you can get a Wahoo Kicker or similar from
[6:57] other manufacturers and have your actual bike set up on that.
[7:01] The trade off is if you're going to be going outside to ride
[7:04] sometimes during the week, there can be that natural tendency to
[7:08] think. So basically whatever gets you
[7:10] to do more training I think is better.
[7:13] Sometimes I think there's a natural inertia.
[7:15] If you're, if your outdoor bike is set up indoors on the
[7:17] trainer, you have to take it off and put the wheel and carry it
[7:21] downstairs. That can get in the way of some
[7:23] people's training. So whatever you can do to get
[7:26] yourself out of the door more often or get your training done
[7:30] more often, you don't even need to get out of the door.
[7:32] That's going to be the thing that gets you to race day in the
[7:36] best possible shape. Next question, would you advise
[7:40] adding one or two extra Zone 2 rides each week and will it
[7:44] improve my overall training? So I'll talk you through a
[7:48] little bit about how I structure winter training here.
[7:50] What I'll typically start our athletes with is 2 indoor
[7:56] interval sessions a week really focused on on working at
[8:00] specific intensities of your functional threshold power on
[8:04] one longer ride each week. Those three rides, I want to say
[8:08] for most athletes who are working age group is with
[8:11] families and jobs. If you're trying to balance
[8:13] triathlon training, you have to balance the training of the
[8:16] three sports plus flexibility and strength and conditioning.
[8:20] So it's not just about what's right for bike training.
[8:24] So it might be tempting to go, OK, 3 bike sessions is good,
[8:27] surely 5 is better. You have to look at your
[8:31] training as a big picture. How do the runs interact with
[8:35] the bike sessions? How do the swims fit in with the
[8:37] others? How do you strength the
[8:38] conditioning sessions set in? So what I'm going to say here is
[8:43] I would advise you trying to balance a good training week
[8:46] that's either got 2 swims, 2 bikes, two runs, 3 swims, 3
[8:50] bikes, three runs, and your specific strength and
[8:53] conditioning sessions before you think about adding any extra
[8:57] training in. Because often thinking about
[9:00] doing more gets in the way of doing the basics.
[9:03] And honestly, I think you're working into the realms of small
[9:06] percentages of changes by doing, I don't know, an extra 2 zone, 2
[9:11] rides every week of an hour each.
[9:13] It's going to make a very small change to your fitness relative
[9:17] to you dedicating yourself to getting say, 3 swims, 3 bikes,
[9:21] three runs, three strength conditioning sessions done every
[9:25] week, week in, week out for a 16 to 18 week winter block.
[9:30] Focus on that first before you start trying to add extras in,
[9:34] because it's often the extras that don't make a big difference
[9:37] to your fitness, but can make a big difference to fatigue levels
[9:42] and whether you would cover well enough across week to week,
[9:45] month to month. And that makes the difference as
[9:47] to whether you can actually get those two key interval sessions
[9:51] done that ultimately are going to be the things that make you
[9:54] fast to come race day. Now, again, caveat here.
[9:57] I'm talking to the working age grouper, the person who's got a
[10:01] family and a full time job. If you're in a more fortunate
[10:04] position and you have more time and you perhaps don't work full
[10:07] time or you perhaps don't work at all, then sure, there are
[10:10] other ways to go about this. As long as you stick to the
[10:13] guiding principle, which is that you've got to recover from the
[10:16] training that you do or you may as well not do the training at
[10:19] all. So you have to schedule in your
[10:21] recovery first into each training day and each training
[10:24] week so that you recover from that in time for the next
[10:28] session. Next question, what's the
[10:30] longest indoor ride that I realistically need to do to be
[10:34] ready for a summer Iron Man? OK, so again, I'm going to zoom
[10:38] out and look at the big picture. If we are, I'm currently
[10:41] recording here in October. If we're looking at a 16 weeks
[10:45] worth of winter block and then we're racing sometime in say
[10:49] July, we're still looking at another 20 weeks of training
[10:52] after we get to the end of the winter block.
[10:54] So we're 36 weeks away from race day.
[10:57] So think of this in terms of what is the purpose of your
[11:01] training right now? The purpose of our winter block,
[11:04] certainly with our athletes, it's really clearly defined.
[11:07] You're going to be trying to raise your functional threshold
[11:09] power on the bike, essentially making your bike engine bigger
[11:13] and more powerful. You're not looking to improve or
[11:16] extend your endurance right now. That's not the focus of this
[11:20] block. That's going to be the focus of
[11:22] the block leading up to race day, the 16 to 20 weeks leading
[11:26] up to race day, and that's when it's going to be most specific
[11:30] for you to be doing longer and more endurance focus rides
[11:34] because you're getting closer to race day.
[11:36] Right now is the time to be focusing on increasing the
[11:40] engine size. So as you get into spring,
[11:43] you're going to be going faster outdoors for the same kind of
[11:46] effort. We can make your bike engine
[11:48] bigger. So the longest ride I get our
[11:51] athletes to do during the winter block is about 3 hours and I
[11:56] won't have them do that every week.
[11:58] I will say if you get the opportunity to go outside and do
[12:02] an outdoor ride and you get the break in the weather and it's
[12:04] realistic, then fine, get yourself outdoors and ride up to
[12:07] three hours. But you don't need to be doing
[12:09] longer than that this time of year.
[12:11] Anywhere from 90 minutes to three hours as a weekend ride is
[12:14] fantastic. And honestly, if you get a 90
[12:17] minute ride done every weekend across the winter block in
[12:20] addition to your two key bike sessions, you're going to be in
[12:24] a fantastic place come next springtime in the UK.
[12:28] You might get a weather window, it might be dry and bright and
[12:31] not freezing cold, and you might get a chance to go out for a
[12:34] longer ride, who knows? Once once every two weeks, once
[12:38] every month, something like that.
[12:40] If you're living in Minnesota, it might be that you barely get
[12:44] a chance to ride your bike outside at all through all of
[12:46] the 16 to 18 weeks of winter. So it might be worth you setting
[12:51] the time aside to say, right, once a month I'm going to put a
[12:54] movie on and I'm going to try and bang out three hours at the
[12:57] right correct intensity indoors. So hopefully that answers that
[13:01] question. Somewhere between 90 minutes to
[13:03] three hours. Try and get a longer ride done
[13:05] in every month block. But if you're getting 90 minutes
[13:08] done, again, for most working age groupers, that's going to be
[13:11] a good balance of training and fatigue and recovery and also
[13:15] time available in your week, right?
[13:18] OK, next question. Should I use ERG mode or free
[13:22] ride mode on my trainer for my best training results?
[13:26] So ERG mode has its benefits. For those of you who don't know
[13:29] what this is, if you're riding in something like Swift or Ruvi,
[13:32] ERG mode is the ability to essentially the trainer controls
[13:37] you. No matter how hard you push on
[13:39] the pedals, it will lock you in at the target wattage.
[13:43] So I've given you an interval session and it says do 5 minutes
[13:46] at 200 watts. No matter how hard you push on
[13:49] the pedals or not, it will change the resistance to hold
[13:53] your power output at those 200 watts.
[13:56] So it's tempting to look at that and think, well that's really
[13:58] useful. I can close my eyes and just
[14:01] pedal and the result will be correct.
[14:04] However, I'm a much, much bigger fan of you learning the skill of
[14:08] putting out the power that you're aiming for rather than
[14:11] the machine deciding it for you. Because on race day, you're
[14:15] going to have to be in charge of putting out the correct level of
[14:18] power. And there's a certain skill to
[14:20] reading your garment that the different numbers that you've
[14:23] got on the screen in front of you to hold the power at about
[14:26] the level that you want it at. So if you've spent 16 weeks
[14:30] simply with your eyes closed and pushing whatever the trainer
[14:33] asks of you, you haven't developed those skills.
[14:36] Obviously you can't do that outdoors.
[14:39] And the more specific we can make your training to what race
[14:42] day is going to be like, the better for your overall race
[14:44] day. So I'd advise you to not use ERG
[14:47] mode if you possibly can avoid using it and to use free ride
[14:51] mode and to get practised at controlling the wattage so
[14:55] you're getting somewhere around the percentage of FTP that you
[14:58] want to be aiming for on the bike.
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[16:25] OK, let's jump into these questions then about swimming
[16:29] mistakes and how you can avoid them.
[16:31] First question, should I focus more on technique or fitness in
[16:36] the winter months? So it's a really common thought
[16:40] that the winter is a great time to sort of knuckle down, spend a
[16:43] huge amount of time in the pool, do lots of endurance swimming,
[16:47] do lots of endurance lengths, and that that way you'll
[16:52] essentially build volume and become a better swimmer because
[16:55] you've built volume across the winter.
[16:58] And I don't think that that's the best use of triathletes
[17:01] time. And there's a couple of reasons
[17:03] for that. The first thing is, again, the
[17:05] limiting factor for most working age group triathletes, it's not
[17:10] their desire to get into the pool, It's not their desire to
[17:13] get the work done. It's actually how much time they
[17:16] have available to them. And with a limited amount of
[17:19] time to get to a pool, with the challenge of how long it
[17:22] typically takes to get up early before work or go after work,
[17:27] drive to the pool, get changed, shower afterwards, get off to
[17:30] work, take the kids to school. The limiting time is really how
[17:34] many times a week you can get there.
[17:36] And so the just throw volume approach at swimming isn't going
[17:40] to work for the majority of athletes in the real world.
[17:44] I think a bigger return on your investment is really focusing in
[17:47] in the winter months in the time that you do have on getting the
[17:51] technique work done so that you can then translate that later on
[17:56] in the season into more endurance focused swimming.
[17:59] What do I mean by technique focused work?
[18:01] But what I mean by this is your ability to move through the
[18:05] water is usually not limited by your aerobic fitness.
[18:09] And this is true for over 90% of the athletes I've worked with.
[18:12] And honestly, over the last 15 years, that's been thousands of
[18:16] athletes on pool deck. It's almost never their aerobic
[18:20] fitness that's stopping them from swimming faster.
[18:24] It's usually their ability to apply that fitness to the water
[18:28] and to apply force to the water. And usually that means learning
[18:33] to move your body through the water in a more efficient way
[18:37] rather than trying harder and getting out of breath.
[18:41] And the analogy here to think of is that swimming is a skill
[18:44] based sport, not a fitness based sport.
[18:47] It's much more like tennis. So it's much more like golf.
[18:50] And it stands to reason if you you see a tennis player training
[18:53] or a golfer training, they're not trying to make themselves
[18:56] out of breath. They're not hitting a ball as
[18:59] hard as they can as fast as they can to get out of breath because
[19:03] that's not going to improve their game.
[19:05] Now what they're doing is they are replicating and breaking
[19:09] down a very complex series of movements into smaller movements
[19:13] they can practise and repeat and then build back up into the hole
[19:17] again. And swimming is much more like
[19:20] that. Hope you can see where I'm going
[19:21] with this, that the thought of a golfer trying to make themselves
[19:24] out of breath on a driving range is absurd, isn't it?
[19:27] Because that's not going to affect ultimately how far
[19:30] they're going to hit a ball. In all but the very smallest
[19:33] number of cases of our top, very top pro golfers, they're not
[19:37] trying to make themselves really strong so they can hit the ball
[19:41] really hard. Because it's not a lack of
[19:43] strength that's the problem here.
[19:46] It's putting all of these complex movements together in a
[19:49] repeatable way. And it's exactly the same for
[19:51] swimming. There are multiple dozens of
[19:55] muscle groups that have to work together to get you to move
[19:57] effectively through the water. And so focusing on technique is
[20:01] the thing that's going to improve your swim stroke.
[20:03] Much more than anything else. So the question becomes how do
[20:07] we focus on technique? What we typically do here is we
[20:10] work through a series of drills. There are a series of really
[20:14] well established drills. Over years, really great swim
[20:17] coaches have whittled down and we've taken about 6 or 8 of them
[20:21] for our Team OA athletes. We work through them in order.
[20:25] We get athletes to try different ones.
[20:27] Sometimes I can watch an athlete swim and immediately see the
[20:31] drill. That's going to be the thing
[20:33] that they need to move them to the next level because it's
[20:36] usually one of a few things that's holding an athlete back.
[20:39] It's either the body position in the water isn't flat, they've
[20:42] got sinky legs, or it's that their elbows are sliding back
[20:46] through the water as they go to pull and they're not applying
[20:48] force to the water. Or it's that their breathing
[20:51] isn't In Sync with their stroke and they're either breathing too
[20:55] much and too frequently, or they're not breathing out
[20:57] enough. So there's some really simple
[21:00] drills that you can do that will allow you to correct these
[21:03] things in a way that will then directly affect your swimming.
[21:07] If you just get in and swim endless lengths, all you're
[21:10] going to be doing is you're going to be reinforcing that
[21:14] poor technique that you've already got and it won't be
[21:17] making you a better swimmer. Practise makes permanent.
[21:20] You're going to be embedding an incorrect stroke.
[21:22] So the thing to do, you can go and have a look on YouTube at
[21:25] the Swim Smooth channel. They've got a whole bunch of
[21:27] drills on there. On the Oxygen Edit website,
[21:29] we've got a bunch of drills there for free that you can go
[21:32] and have a look at. Just practise them in your
[21:34] swimming and typically 25 metres of a drill, 25 metres swimming
[21:39] back, trying to embed the changes that drill has made in
[21:42] your stroke. They're the things that are
[21:45] going to make a big difference in your swimming.
[21:47] But headline figure here is use the winter to try and improve
[21:52] your stroke rather than trying to build endurance with the
[21:56] stroke that you've currently got.
[21:58] Next question, how many swim sessions per week should I
[22:02] realistically aim for over the winter?
[22:05] So my answer here is it's going to depend.
[22:07] If you're a swimmer who can't swim at all and you've entered
[22:10] an Ironman for next year and you're wondering how on earth
[22:12] you're going to get through it, let's be really clear.
[22:15] You need to spend as much time in the water this winter to get
[22:18] to the point where you can comfortably and confidently swim
[22:21] face in front crawl and you can then start to build fitness.
[22:26] If you're an athlete at the other end of the spectrum, who's
[22:29] got multiple years of Iron Man's and 70 point threes under the
[22:32] belt and they're comfortable with where their swim is AT and
[22:35] they they really want to focus on their biking and their
[22:38] running over winter, that's fine.
[22:40] Maybe swimming once every other week is enough for you during
[22:43] the winter. But for most of our athletes in
[22:46] that middle curve, what I'm going to advise is you need to
[22:48] be looking at swimming once a week ideally to maintain the
[22:52] kind of pace that you're at. And twice a week if you want to
[22:55] be improving your swim as a minimum, because you're going to
[22:59] have to spend time doing those drills and embedding the
[23:02] changes. OK?
[23:04] What's the best way to structure a pool session if I only have
[23:08] say 45 minutes to swim? OK, So in the particular
[23:12] instance here of the the winter swimming that we're going to be
[23:15] talking about, what I want you to do is get yourself warmed up.
[23:18] So we're looking at 200 to 400 metres of swimming just to get
[23:21] yourself to the point where you know you're comfortable in the
[23:24] water again and you're ready to do some work.
[23:26] And then the structure I'd advise for this main swim of the
[23:29] week is going to be about half of it focused on drills, about
[23:34] 1/4 of it focused on doing some harder swimming at about your
[23:38] CSS pace and then a cool down and finish.
[23:41] So again, the way to structure your drill sessions here is 25
[23:45] metres of drill, 25 metres of swim and then take a break at
[23:50] the end. And we're looking to embed the
[23:52] change in your stroke that you can feel happen.
[23:55] So if we take an example of, I don't know, swimming with a pull
[23:58] boy in as a drill, 25 metres swim with a pull boy, feel how
[24:03] that changes your body position. Feel how it lifts your bum and
[24:07] your legs up and it makes your body position straight and
[24:10] level. Take the pool boy out and put it
[24:12] on the end of the pool and then swim back and try and find a way
[24:17] that you can now affect your body position so that you bring
[24:21] the legs up behind you. You might find, for example, you
[24:24] have to push down more on your chest or the feeling as you're
[24:27] pushing down into something in your armpit, something that's
[24:30] going to leave her the back end of your stroke up as an example,
[24:34] and then do that again. And you're going to have to be
[24:36] looking at probably 8 to 12 reps of that drill in order to get to
[24:41] the point where you start to feel it make a meaningful
[24:43] change. And then hopefully you'll feel
[24:47] that something's starting to change here.
[24:49] And then you can go into the hard work quarter or third of
[24:53] your workout, which is swimming repeated 50s or swimming
[24:57] repeated hundreds at or about your C pace with a 10 to 15
[25:02] second recovery trying to swim with good form.
[25:06] That's the key here O that one main swim becomes about half
[25:10] focused on technique improvement and about 1/4 or third focused
[25:15] on some swim fitness work and then a cool down and out you
[25:18] get. And for most athletes who are
[25:21] not rock star swimmers, who swam when they were kid, who are not
[25:25] the front of the pack and again, who are not athletes who are
[25:28] just learning to swim, that's going to be the the key swim of
[25:33] the week for you. Obviously, if you're in one of
[25:34] those other two groups, then some other different kind of
[25:37] rules are going to apply. And I'm going to say
[25:39] specifically for those of you who are who are taking on the
[25:42] challenge of doing an Iron Man or 70.3 next year and have
[25:45] entered without being able to swim yet.
[25:47] The key for you is going to be to get into an environment where
[25:50] somebody who's qualified and experienced can look at your
[25:53] stroke, give you feedback and tell you what you need to do
[25:56] next in order to improve. Next question, do I need to be
[26:01] in long endurance swims all the way through the winter or should
[26:05] I save those for closer to race day?
[26:07] The answer here is this depends. For athletes who are only
[26:11] swimming once a week, I would save that long endurance swim
[26:14] for when you're in the race specific block leading up to
[26:17] your race day and focus on the kind of session I've just talked
[26:20] about. If you've got a second swimmer
[26:22] week available to you, that's the perfect time where you can
[26:25] do an endurance swim. So you're not necessarily going
[26:27] to be looking at extending your endurance, but I'm a really big
[26:31] believer that using that swim as I would typically structure,
[26:35] which has repeated hundreds on a relatively short turn around,
[26:38] but swim relatively easily. That's a great way to embed your
[26:43] stroke, to practise the changes that you've been making.
[26:46] And you know, anywhere from 10 by a hundreds to 20 by a
[26:51] hundreds during the winter phase is a great endurance focused
[26:55] swim that you can look at doing. But for the majority of
[26:57] athletes, again, let's focus on improving our stroke during the
[27:01] winter time and leave the focus on endurance until next winter.
[27:07] And lastly, I've been training in buoyancy shorts.
[27:11] Should I keep using them or should I ditch them to focus on
[27:14] proper swim technique? OK, so buoyancy shorts can be
[27:17] great as a tool, similarly to A to a pull boy.
[27:20] I think of them as the same category.
[27:23] They're greater correcting a body position that's got sinky
[27:26] legs and making it a little bit more easy to swim with a better
[27:29] technique. But interestingly, the swimmers
[27:32] that I've coached who wear buoyancy shorts, typically it
[27:36] doesn't correct their stroke as much as they would like.
[27:39] So you have to question whether they're very effective.
[27:42] It might make it feel a little bit easier to swim, but is it
[27:45] making a correction or does your body just adjust for them?
[27:49] And again, the thing I'm a much bigger fan of is if you need to
[27:53] correct your body position, do it in a way where you swim 25
[27:57] metres with a pull boy, feel how it's corrected.
[28:00] You then put the pull boy down, swim 25 metres back without it
[28:05] and feel the difference. The challenge with buoyancy
[28:08] shorts is they tend to just be there all the time and I think
[28:12] your body just adapts to the sense that there's a little bit
[28:15] more flotation there and you keep on swimming with that kind
[28:18] of sinky legged feeling. I think you have to go back and
[28:21] forth between more buoyancy and less buoyancy for it to have any
[28:25] major effect. Now that being said, they have
[28:28] the place. If you're doing your endurance
[28:30] swim later in the season and you're a bit fatigued, there can
[28:33] be a great way to help, you know, make the session that
[28:36] little bit easier on your body and help correct your body
[28:39] position. If you know that your race is
[28:41] going to be in a wet suit later in the season, they have a great
[28:44] way to add a bit of buoyancy and help you get that sensation of
[28:47] swimming in a wet suit. But for the vast majority of
[28:50] athletes, I would say I'd rather have you intermittently use the
[28:53] pool boy in the way I've described rather than buoyancy
[28:56] shorts. OK, I hope the answers to these
[28:59] questions have been useful to you.
[29:01] I hope they've given you some ideas as to how you can
[29:03] structure winter training both on the bike and in the pool in a
[29:06] way that's going to help you get the most out of your training.
[29:10] To wrap up this week's show, here are some discount codes and
[29:13] deals for you over at Precision Fuel and hydration.com.
[29:16] Use the code Oxygen Fuel 25 for 15% off your first electrolyte
[29:20] order. And over at
[29:21] teamoxygenaddict.com, I think we've got the most comprehensive
[29:24] triathlon coaching programme that's specifically designed for
[29:27] busy age groupers with families and with busy work lives.
[29:31] If you're looking for coaching for Imano 70.3 Triathlon this
[29:34] year, right now is the perfect time to get yourself involved in
[29:38] a year's worth of coaching so you're in peak shape for next
[29:41] summer. We've got the entire winter
[29:43] block ahead of us that we can make a massive change to both
[29:46] your bike power and your swim technique, and you'll be in a
[29:49] really great shape come next spring that frankly, you won't
[29:53] be in if you don't get the work done during the winter block.
[29:56] So there's a link in the show notes to book a membership call
[29:58] with us and see if you'd be a good fit for joining the team.
[30:01] And remember, there's links in the show notes so you don't have
[30:03] to remember them. Until next week, have a great
[30:06] safe training and racing week. I'm coach Rob Wilby and you'll
[30:09] be listening to the Oxygen Edict Triathlon Podcast.

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