So, swimming…

There are lots of similarities between SS and TI in terms of core concepts. I like them both! But SS is more flexible than TI – there use to be brilliant debates (!) on TriTalk between Paul and the sadly late Ian who ran TI in the UK.

They both had great things to say but sadly the lack of flexibility from TI led to slanging matches that would make STW big hitters proud.

One of the most heated exchanges was on whether TI was suitable to open water swimming!!

I still mix techniques from both. FWIW I think TI is great but can lead to a plateau or what SS calls over-gliding. That’s me in spades.

Ha yes TriTalk swim threads were epic. Never tried swim smooth as I said but never had a problem with open water swimming.

I thought I could swim so I entered a triathlon. Turns out sculling across the hotel pool to retrieve another mohito wasn’t adequate preparation. Took 8 weeks of going 3 times a week but got through it ok taken Years to get to alternate side breathing and any semblance of form but am an intermittent trainer. Its REALLY hard for what seems like forever but 8-12 weeks and you’ll really start to click

Once you can comfortably crawl for a good few lengths start doing some ‘intervals/sprints’ that brings you on a bit and makes it a bit less boring

Thanks. I look at the folk gliding effortlessly up and down and feel very envious. But like I say, I couldn’t do it at all 3 months ago. I’m sure I’ll get there.

Swim some back crawl too if the pool isn’t too busy. You don’t have to think about breathing, windmilling is fine and you can think about what your legs are doing.

Every time I see someone doing backstroke it reminds me of Mr Bean at the nightclub.

Look at the Swim Smooth stuff. Look at the Total Immersion stuff. Each are at slightly different ends of a philosophical swimming spectrum.

Try to find something in between the two ‘camps’. Embrace the glide – but not too much, or you’ll get dead spots. Remember that the only thing pushing you forwards is your limbs – when they are perpendicular to you. Don’t windmill downwards, push backwards. And try to make rest of you into a torpedo. Everything else is drag.

Water is 1000 times more dense than air.

Keep your feet and legs high in the water on this basis. If you are a cyclist with heavy legs then (like me) your tail will probably have a tendency to sink – and act like a parachute in the water.

Don’t get hung up on obtaining the ‘perfect’ stroke, or rotating ‘enough’. I find my stroke varies throughout each session. Sometimes it’s short and grabby when I haven’t warmed up enough, other times it’s long and glidey, with more rotation, when I’m tired. Neither are ‘wrong’ they’re just appropriate to my general levels of warmed upness or fatigue at that time.

I swim best when relaxed and I’m not actually concentrating too hard on stroke perfection. Then it feels like flying, of sorts. Sometimes I’m not even sure how or why, when I hit these effortless sweetspots.

Practice. Lots. I’ve been at this for 10 years – and I’m still not there! However, I know that if someone chucked me off a boat 3km out to sea, I could happily swim back to shore though, which is pretty cool to know in itself…

Once you are confident in your abilities, then take to the open water, man. It’s a wonderful use of a talent that is largely wasted doing laps in the pool.

STW LOVES a swimming thread… 🙂

IME as someone who swims a lot, both for fitness and for Lifesaving, SS is too fussy about technique. Arms and hands in S shapes, alternate breathing. It’s all too much for someone struggling with the breathing.

I was, and still am, crap at racing front crawl. Too many years focusing on other Lifesaving strokes. Especially head up out of the water sprint crawl. The revelation for me was TI. Slow everything down, 15-17 strokes for a 25m pool. Breathing out steadily over 4 strokes, I’ve got big cyclist / swimmers lungs, breathing on one side only, whichever side feels natural. Look at the bottom of the pool, then on the breath stroke, roll towards the ceiling, intake of breath, pull with your leading arm, whilst your trailing arm is coming over the top. Slow, steady windmill on the breath stroke. Then rotate back to facing the bottom.

It’s not fast, it’s no good for triathlon, but it teaches you to be calm and comfortable in the water.

Take a look at the Navy SEAL combat side stroke video, it shows the roll to breathe technique, although it’s on a modified side stroke, it’s very close.

Thanks for all the tips, lots of things to try. One at a time of course.

Everyone knows Butterfly is the metro sexual expression of manhood.

Sooty to disagree but

SS and TI are not at ever end of any spectrum. Naraly every school of swimming has the same basic principles at their core. Paul (SS) and Ian (TI) agreed on that point

SS DOES NOT TEACH THE S-SHAPED PULL far from it they are anti it

SS adapts its training for different types of swimmers and is the more flexible of the two IMO but you can easily incorporate both – I have done for years

“Triahtlon Swimming made Easy” was an early buy for me – TI works very well for triathlon and for OW swimming – Terry L’s own record proves that

I return to TI to get coordination back, to reduce SPL and to improve my timing – the risks are that I end up over gliding and peaking in terms of speed. Having said that there is something great about overtaking someone in the next lane when taking 25% less strokes. There is a golden moment with TI when arms and bodies are coordinated and there is a turbo-like surge which is effortless

SS has more all round advice, tips that are specific to my style (an over glider trying to be mr smooth!!) and sensible advice re the balance between stroke rate, effort and efficiency. Paul and Adam are also top guys who are generous with their time and advice.

Build your swim endurance .. consciously think about streamlining.. forehead on the water line (ish)… toes pointed (toes pointing at the pool floor can increase drag by 25%) high elbows (that means elbows higher than your wrists).. pull straight back, not down (physically touch your leg with your thumb at the end of each stroke) once you can comfortably swim 400m non stop, front crawl, then you have a base to start looking at stroke efficiency, breathing, head/body position..

Don’t get hung up on bilateral breathing (breathe on 3 or 5).. just breathe every stroke to the same side (have a look at countless you tube videos of olympic endurance swimmers breathing every stroke, to the same side) and when you breathe, make sure only one eye tilts out of the water.. breathe as soon as your arm is fully extended out in front of you..

Stick at it! Swimming efficiently is hard.. not something you will just ‘pick up’ .. good luck!

Cheers

There’s lots of swim coaching videos on the internet…once you’ve mastered it (and I think you should master breathing on both sides and not just one side), and all it takes is practice, you’ll find it easy. Once you have the technique you won’t find it particularly tiring….well worth learning…a mile of front crawl is excellent exercise and body toning…

http://tower26.com/t26-blog/

Listen to some of the podcasts too, very informative.

Try a pull buoy, stick it between your legs and swim. Not need to think about legs then. You can concentrate on breathing and arm position.

Don’t glide.

I started swimming 2 years ago and only now do I feel comfortable swimming without running out of breathe.

Edit. Bi lateral breathing isn’t all that.

Biggest tip that helped me sort out my breathing was to look at my hand as it goes behind me and out of the water – as you do this your head turns naturally allowing you time to breath in (after you’ve just breathed out under water).

Also try and swim more than once a week, for me twice a week is a enough to see an improvement rather than once a week which just about keeps things ticking over

You don’t need to bilateral breath but it does mean you can then swim safely in open water. Personally I’d make the effort to learn a swimming technique that is the most transferrable to all water environments.

Biggest tip that helped me sort out my breathing was to look at my hand as it goes behind me and out of the water – as you do this your head turns naturally allowing you time to breath in (after you’ve just breathed out under water).

That’s easy to remember, so I’ll give that a try.

Is there a downside to bilateral breathing or is it more just a case of not getting too hung about doing it?

Watch any good distance swimmer and they have a short glide with their lead arm extended before their hand dips (catch) and they pull. That corresponds to the start of the recovery of the other arm. Miss this glide, however short it may be, and you’ll find yourself “windmilling” in the words of the OP and your legs sinking.

Watch the girl nearest camera at 5:53

The problem with advice (mine included) is that you can fill you mind with too much.

Keep it v simple at this point otherwise you will not enjoy swimming

To quieten the mind I would

Do some simple stroke counting. Try to swim in <20 lengths for 25 metres and keep the same rate (I use 16/17). Forget anything else. Its relaxing but also very informative when you realise how quickly your efficiency slips.

Plus some bubble, bubble breathe – if bi-lateral breathing is hard just adapt to every stroke or every four etc. It doesnt matter – just BREATHE OUT!!

I like simple 🙂

The thing is, I’m not finding the bilateral breathing particularly hard – not saying my breathing technique is great, I’m sure it’s not hence the questions on that, but I’ve reached a point where I don’t really mind which side I go for. I could perhaps work on breathing out more continuously between breaths rather than saving it for the second half of the face-in-the-water time.

p.s. dont worry about head down, head forward. Horses for courses.

I think that is a great idea – have I mentioned BREATHE OUT 😉

The SS boys videoed our breathing, I thought I breathed out all the time. But the bubbles (or lack of them) showed otherwise. I was holding my breath like you at the start and then a more aggressive but still incomplete exhale later. Hence BBB technique!!

When I need to quieten the mind – ie, at the moment – i slip back into stroke counting. Its very relaxing and almost zen like!!

You’re not finding bilateral hard but it’s depriving you of air. The girl in the vid I linked breathes once on the left then three times of the right.

Watch the girl in the vid as she comes into the turn at 6:06, breathing out the whole time her face is under water.

Bilateral breathing is a good idea to avoid any kind of muscular imbalance / repetitive stress injury etc. Probably not an issue if you’re only going swimming twice a week, but still worth doing. The pros only breathe on one side when racing, but I’d be very surprised if most of them didn’t breathe bilaterally while training.

Don’t try to fix everything at once. There’s a lot of things happening when you swim.

Breathing is key. You can’t do much if you aren’t breathing! So focus on that, and steady smooth stroke, not tryiing to go fast or hard. Pull buoy is good as you can forget about your legs and it helps you feel what it should feel like.

I try to be smooth and not make lots of splash, work with the water and not fight it. The old ladies breast stroking in the pool don’t tut at you either if you don’t splash them

Its likely that your legs are creating a lot of drag either sinking or possibly scissoring depending on what is happening at the front of the stroke. they will provide very little propulsion but use a lot of effort. As has been mentioned try swimming with a pull bouy, and focus on the arms going in and pushing forward towards the end of the pool as they enter the water. The reduced effort from not kicking will make breathing and swimming further easier and more relaxed. Also when you get outside swimming If you use a wetsuit the buoyancy of the wetsuit will make a huge difference to your swimming.

If I’m honest, my legs pretty much do their own thing – sometimes not doing much, sometimes going at it like the clappers. I suspect this is not ideal and it’s no surprise that this may be using a lot of energy. Is a pull bouy the figure of eight shaped thing?

Yes a pull buoy is the figure of eight shaped float! Get yourself down to Decathlon for a cheap one and pick up a kickboard whilst you are there.
I can swim much faster with a pull buoy it gives you an idea of where your legs should be and lets you straighten out your feet so they are parallel with the water surface.

[after the lovely effect of the pull bouy ^ try the opposite – tie an old inner tube loosely round your ankles and swim – watch your legs sink if you are overgliding. Its horrible!! – for a few months time that one!!]

Just shows why it’s worth asking – I thought they were to make it harder on your arms by removing any propulsion your legs might give, not to help because you can forget about your legs!

Oh my, what a perfect day for swimming in the sea! Sorry, doesn’t help with the thread, but just thought I’d tell ya 😀
Yeah, that buoyancy of the wetsuit thing took me by surprise the first time – my legs were lift higher than I was used to and combined with not having a hat , so trying to keep my head up, it was jolly uncomfortable. Probably could have got away without the wetsuit today. It’s lovely down here.

The problem with swimming in a 25m pool is that by the time you start to feel the effects of poor technique you’re nearly at the end of the pool so you can fake it to get to the wall. Then you recover and you swim another ropey 25m length. Swimming in a 50m pool you get both to feel when you’re losing form and to correct it on the hoof. That’s when I started to make progress.

Look at the floor directly below you not where you are going.
This is a ‘core’ mantra to the total immersion concept. The Paul Newsome swimsmooth camp think very differently (see also the gliding philosophy). It’s not great to mix the two. TI is now pretty out of favour in the triathlon world as it doesn’t transfer to open water swimming particularly well.

thats odd – my wife was trained on a open water swim course. and the ironman people i know also recommend this approach. it differs a bit in open water as you dont have a big black line to follow and generally you have more boyancy due to a wetsuit so getting legs a bit lower is a benefit.

anyway each to their own. i found it helps lift teh legs and keep you more streamlined while i flail aimlessly with my arms. I dont have a problem breathing. you rotate your upper body and you face is pretty much at surface.

i imagine everyones physiology and flexibility has an impact on what works for them.

Swimming in a 50m pool

Yes.. you get to 25m and start gasping, then you realise you have quite a long way left to go!

Well I got one of those pull bouys and had a go with it today. Didn’t feel like my legs were that high really, but it’s hard to tell. I do have Hoy style legs so maybe the float was overpowered a bit? Anyway, it was definitely useful, although at times I did feel like my hips and/or legs were waggling about a bit rather than staying in a straightish line.

although at times I did feel like my hips and/or legs were waggling about a bit rather than staying in a straightish line.

Need to work on core stability then

That sounds a bit sit-uppy 🙁

I have the largest pull buoy I could find (most are rather small) and hold it between my ankles. That gets me reasonably flat.

The straight body thing comes with practice, you might not realise how much your leg movements have been correcting for a poor arm stroke (that’s what I found, anyway).

Only skimmed the thread but would agree re pull buoy, when I was learning using one gave me more ‘brain space’ to concentrate on technique and breathing.

I’d also split up swimming into 50’s and 100’s (metres) with 15-30 sec rest between to allow you to recover and focus on your form/technique.

Good luck, it takes years bit it’s worth it. I didn’t learn ‘properly’ till I was 20 and it took me 3-4 years to get good-ish. 18 yrs later I love open long water swimming sessions.

Perseverance then 🙂