Good Triathlon Swimming Article
Florida Sports Online has an excellent article on swimming that fits well with the Total Immersion philosophy that I adhere to in my swimming. As the article adeptly points out, the key to triathlon swimming is efficiency, not just raw speed. Raw speed and effort just makes you tired. Efficiency gets you there quickly and with plenty of energy for the bike and run. I especially like the point about what happens when one becomes efficient in the water as related to kicking:
“A slight, slow kick is usually all that’s necessary… Kicking will not help you move faster, it uses an incredible amount of energy for very little propulsion” I can vouch for this first hand. I do the 2 beat kick that Terri Laughlin promotes and it really works. I move easily and quickly and I feel like I could swim forever without taking a toll on my legs at all. Once you grasp this, you will stop with all the stupid kicking drills and just focus on how your body feels as it moves together through the water. You must have an understanding of your WHOLE body moving through the water. Your arms and legs MUST work together to be efficient. There is very little point in my mind of working them separately when it comes to triathlon. Maybe doing so will help you do sprints faster for your Masters team, but it isn’t going to help you be ready to go as you transition to the bike.
To illustrate the efficiency point, consider a friend of mine who was a collegiate swimmer and is always in the top ten in the swim of every race he does. In fact, he is always quite thrilled at his ranking in the swim leg of the race, as if it is the only part of the race that matters. I think he was in shock the day I suggested to him that maybe he should expend less energy on the swim and finish in the top 20 or 30 instead of the top 10 and still have energy left for the bike and run. I almost always pass him within the first 10 minutes of the bike, despite the fact that I am usually 1-3 minutes behind him during the swim stage of the sprints we do and he always looks like he is going to die at that point. I have watched him swim and I can attest to the amount of effort he expends in the pool, always thinking that if he just works harder he will somehow be so far ahead out of the water that no one will catch him.
My approach was to spend 2-3 months learning form using the excellent Total Immersion books and DVDs and then build up endurance with form still at the front of my mind. After building the base, I have now added doing sprint/tempo work to my pool workouts. Even these workouts are still mindful of form. There is no sense in thrashing violently in the water just for the sake of going fast. I always try and be mindful of my head, body and leg position and how much drag I am creating. One good way of knowing how efficient you are is to count the number of strokes you take when doing a length and then try to match that count throughout your workout (even at the end of the workout.)
Good luck with your swim workouts and remember swimming is all about form not effort.
