10 WAYS TO GAIN THE EDGE
You’ve mastered front crawl and overcome your fear of open-water. So what’s next? Smashing it, of course! Here are our 10 ways to get a competitive edge in the water…
Once you’ve got your first few triathlons under your belt, you might want to start thinking about being competitive. What do we mean by this? Well, just like you might have a plan on the bike or run to be as fast and as efficient as possible – bearing in mind the course layout and conditions – here you’d do a similar thing in the swim.
Marginal gains can be found in the water by choosing the best kit for your stroke and buoyancy, by positioning yourself in the best spot within the swim pack and by having clear tactics around how you approach the course. Knowing the best way to turn around a course marker buoy for example, or being able to draft a faster swimmer, will allow you to shave minutes off your finish time. So, over to three UK swim coaches for the tips…
1 START STRONG
Getting a good start is one way to be really competitive. Think about where you want to be in the pack if you’re a strong swimmer. Right in the lead and you risk losing any drafting opportunities, but too far back and you’ll have to fight through slower swimmers. Ideally you’ll place yourself close enough to stronger swimmers to draft, but with enough clear water that you’re not getting knocked or swum over too much!
If your swim start is in deep water (as most age-group races tend to be) find yourself a bit of space before the klaxon even goes. Tip yourself forward in the water so you’re horizontal and use your hands to scull in front of you with your head out of the water – so you’re treading water but in a horizontal not vertical position. This gives you a great position to start swimming from and also makes you bigger in the water, so other swimmers are less likely to get close to you! Helen Webster
2 LEARN BREATHING VERSATILITY
Effective and efficient breathing is the foundation of all swimming technique. As well as oxygen delivery, it helps provide rhythm, facilitates swimming in a straight line and is integral to open water.
Many coaches talk about bilateral breathing as breathing every three strokes. For open-water swimming think about bilateral breathing as having the ability to breathe effectively on either side and being comfortable changing sides or pattern. Three-or even five-stroke breathing will balance one’s stroke and thus improves straight-line swimming. However, breathing every two or four strokes to one side may help avoid swell/chop and mouthfuls of salty water in a sea swim by breathing away from it. It’s also useful to breathe directly to the side of a swimmer that you’re drafting off, in order to maintain the draft.
A simple practice is to complete 100m repeats as 25m breathing every two strokes to the left, 25m breathing every two strokes to the right, 25m breathing every three strokes and 25m breathing a twostroke, three-stroke, two-stroke pattern. Open-water sighting can then be added in to these breathing patterns. Richard Smith
3 WEAR A SWIMSKIN
Those of you heading to sunnier countries for a race may end up doing a nonwetsuit swim (and we do sometimes get these in the UK if they’re warm enough). So how do you get the advantage of wearing a wetsuit but without wearing one? The swimskin is the answer.
“I’ve been using the latest and greatest in swimsuit technology since my early days (the late ’90s) on the triathlon World Class Performance Programme at the University of Bath,” says Swim Smooth co-founder Paul Newsome. “I’ve always been amazed at what both the hydrophobic nature of the suits and their compression benefits offer a swimmer. It’s a little like putting your race wheels on on race day! They don’t come cheap, but a non-wetsuited swim will still save you a good 2-8secs per 100m depending on the suit.” Paul Newsome, Swim Smooth Co Founder
4 TURN QUICKLY
Losing time and getting swum over at turn buoys in an open-water race is both frustrating and can really knock confidence. Invest time in training, specifically practising your turns. Practise the skills and then, if you can, put them under pressure by swimming the turn in a small group.
As you approach the buoy sight on where you’re going next, not just the buoy you’re swimming towards. This allows you to adjust your approach angle, select the most appropriate technique, sight effectively on the next buoy coming out of the turn. Accelerate into the turn, taking both speed and momentum into the turn – kicking hard will stop people swimming over you! Choose a ‘Swim’, ‘Sweep’ or ‘Corkscrew’ turn depending on the approach and exit angle, always using the arm furthest away from the buoy to turn and maintaining momentum swimming with the inside arm. Kick hard and accelerate out of the turn, sighting early, before settling back into your race paced swim. Richard Smith
5 PRACTISE IN THE POOL
Don’t leave these important open-water skills to the week before your first open-water race, have fun practising them in the pool! Learning and practising a range of breathing patterns is a great way to improve your swimming technique, address imbalances and become more efficient. Incorporating some hypoxic (reduced oxygen) breathing pattern work is also brilliant conditioning – for example, breathing every 3,5,7,3,5,7 strokes over a 200m aerobic swim will increase your capacity and lactate acid clearance.
You can easily practise tight turns in a swim lane by doing ‘no wall’ turns at the t-mark – in other words you do a dead turn in the lane rather than a turn at the wall. This requires good technique and a powerful leg kick to maintain momentum.
If training in a club session, take the lane ropes out to practise swimming around buoys. If you don’t have buoys, use a swimmer as a buoy in a relay swim, swapping the ‘swimmer buoy’ regularly. Making the ‘swimmer buoy’ tread water with arms raised adds an additional conditioning element. Richard Smith
6 GET SOME VIDEO ANALYSIS
It can be hard to know where you’re going wrong in your swimming until you watch yourself – which isn’t too easy when underwater! Video analysis (usually done in an endless pool) is a good solution.
“SEEING YOURSELF ON VIDEO IS A GAMECHANGER FOR HELPING YOU IMPROVE YOUR SWIM”
“Seeing yourself on video is a gamechanger for helping you improve your swim,” says Paul Newsome. “Our Swim Smooth coaches can not only show you what’s going wrong (and/or where your strengths lie), but also how to simply and systematically work to improve your efficiency. During Covid I’ve taken to filming the stroke correction process as well, which adds further learning and encouragement for my swimmers as they can see the changes they’re making in real-time.”
7 UPGRADE YOUR KIT
Most beginners will start with an entry-level wetsuit, but if you want to get quicker it can be worth upgrading. Mid or top-end wetsuits will have more choice of technology and allow you to tailor your choice of suit to your swim ability, so those with sinky legs can use a suit with extra buoyancy to improve position in the water, while stronger swimmers can choose a suit with more flexibility. You’ll also find as you move up the product range you get thinner panels on the wrists to improve feel for the water and extra features such as quick-release cuffs and ankles to improve speed in transition. Look out for our 2022 wetsuit group tests starting next issue. Helen Webster
Some well-chosen goggles can help with race-day speed, too. Obviously a good fit will help with visibility (and nothing slows you down like irritating leaky goggles), plus choose a tint that is suitable for the weather and water conditions to improve clarity of vision. Helen Webster
8 SWIM STRAIGHT!
I’m a big believer in bilateral breathing to help with not only the symmetry and balance of someone’s stroke, but also to aid the versatility of the stroke to help deal with a range of different environmental scenarios.
An obvious benefit to feeling comfortable breathing to either side is that if waves/chop/other swimmers dictate the need to switch to single-sided breathing, you can do it with confidence.
However, what it also does as well is improve your tactical advantage on a course’s direction, i.e. breathing to the left on an anti-clockwise course (the most common) makes sighting and the ability to stay straight a lot easier. This is why a you’ll see the vast majority of pro triathletes (including both Brownlee brothers) breathing primarily to their left. Paul Newsome
9 LEARN TO DRAFT
Drafting, in other words swimming closely behind or on the hip or shoulder of another swimmer, is a technique that all open-water swimmers should develop. Effective drafting can save between 5-20% effort or increase swimming speed significantly for the same effort.
In the pool, practise swimming half a metre behind another swimmer’s feet while building pace over 100m and you’ll soon realise the drafting effect. Equally, practise swimming hard close to and just behind another swimmer’s shoulder, after 50m accelerate past the shoulder and you’ll be giving them a tow so you can alternate effort. In a group open-water practice, you can do 20 or 30 strokes on the front hard and then move behind to recover on the draft. This is high-quality interval/fartlek training as well as honing your drafting skills. Aim to breathe into the draft so you can maintain ‘contact’ – and make sure you sight for yourself or you could be led off course! Richard Smith
10 MASTER ALL CONDITIONS
There’s no point being an amazing swimmer if you’re only an amazing swimmer in calm conditions. Ideally come race day you’ll gain the edge in any conditions. The only way to do this? Put yourself in all possible conditions in training and make sure you’re confident handling them. One note on this – always put safety first, so if you are heading to a new swim spot and are unsure of the water, ask a local swim group first or ask a local coach to accompany you.
It’s also good to practise in the type of water you’ll be racing in. Seawater for example is more buoyant because of the salt content, but you also have more waves to deal with. Lakes can also be surprisingly choppy. Meanwhile rivers can have strong currents so knowing the ‘racing line’ in a river swim can be a huge help. Helen Webster
THE PRO TIPS
Lucy Buckingham (née Hall), one of triathlon’s best swimmers, shares the ways she gains the swim edge…
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THINK BODY POSITION
I always think body position is a big thing in the water. If an athlete’s quite high in the water, it tends to bode well. It’s hard to really come up with a drill for that but I always think about my hips and try to keep them up.
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GET SOME RHYTHM
When you watch some of the really great swimmers like Michael Phelps, they have that ‘ba dum, ba dum’ rhythm. It’s smooth. And when the rhythm is there, that’s when the strength’s in the right places; they propel themselves forward. A good drill for rhythm is the 6-3-6 drill where you kick for six, do three arm pulls, kick for six, then you do three arm pulls on the other side.
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DON’T FORGET TO KICK
My third tip for triathletes is not to ignore kicking. I always used to get told that you shouldn’t kick too much, but I think that kick is really key for a stroke because it gives you balance and it’s part of the rhythm. So don’t overthink your kick, but just know it’s there as a balance system for your body.
