Effortless Swimming

This week I'm in Fiji and topic of today's video is "What do you like to do in holidays to stay fit?". Here in Fiji most of the islands are surrounded by coral, you can't swim around a lot of them.  So, I have do some different things to stay fit because when you stop swimming the first thing that goes is your shoulder, your arm and back strength and also your core strength. Some good exercises that you can do are some exercises from SwimGymPro.com, a strength training program that we've got. You can also go for runs, walk uphills, you can do team exercises like that to stay fit so I want to hear from you in the comments below "What do you like to do on holiday to stay fit?". This is another EffortlessSwimming.com update,  I’ll see you next week. Things to do in Fiji: Snorkeling; Surfing or nothing at all.

If you’re like me and you’re a swimmer and an athlete. If you eat a lot of food and you go to cupboard more than once to see what is there to eat then what I found to work really well to not only help me eat less but to make sure that I eat […]

If you're like me and you're a swimmer and an athlete. If you eat a lot of food and you go to cupboard more than once to see what is there to eat then what I found to work really well to not only help me eat less but to make sure that I eat better food is to cook up a big meal on Sunday so it last the rest of week until Friday. So what I'll do on a Sunday night is I'll decide on a meal that I want to cook whether it's a curry or a salad or something that is healthy and I'll cook it up on Sunday and that will last me for all of my lunches or all of my dinners for that week. Now if you do get bored with the same meal every week then it might not work well for you but If you don't mind eating the same thing every lunch or every dinner then it's a good way to not only to save time but to make sure that you eat less and you're not looking in the cupboard every 10 minutes for something to eat. If you're looking for recipes on what to cook then I recommend going to TheNaturalNutritionist.com.au, a friend of mine, Steph, she runs that website and she puts up recipes quite regularly so she got really good healthy meals there and she can help you with some things to cook. So if you're looking to save some time, go make your meal a big meal on a Sunday night. And that will help you throughout the week. This is another EffortlessSwimming.com update, I’ll see you next week.

When you are looking to breath to your other side in freestyle, sometimes it can be challenging because most of the time you’re used to breathing in to one side and the other side, you haven’t got that practiced and sometimes isn’t as comfortable as it is breathing to the opposite side. So if you […]

When you are looking to breath to your other side in freestyle, sometimes it can be challenging because most of the time you’re used to breathing in to one side and the other side, you haven’t got that practiced and sometimes isn’t as comfortable as it is breathing to the opposite side. So if you want to develop your other side in freestyle when you’re breathing, then a good drill to do is kicking on your side with one arm by your side, one arm at your front and you have your head down when you’re not breathing. But when you need to breath, you bring your head to the side. And that’s going to get you used to what your body needs to do when you take that breath. It's going to get you comfortable breathing to the opposite side. And another tip with that is, rather than breathing every 3 or 5 strokes to help develop your bilateral breathing then you can try breathing every 2 strokes to your opposite side. So you might do 50 meters breathing to your left side, 50 meters breathing to your right side and that’s a good way if you don’t like doing the bilateral breathing, that’s a good way to help develop your other side. You can get more of these drills to help you develop your stroke and your body position and your kick and your pull in The Mastering Freestyle Program which is at Effortless-Swimming.com. So if you want to develop  more than just your breathing, then go and check out our mastering freestyle program there which is a program I recommend for most swimmers and triathletes to go to if they wanna improve their technique and their speed in freestyle. This is another EffortlessSwimming.com update, I’ll see you next week.

This week I drove from Melbourne to Sydney on our way to the Master’s National Championships. And on our way there, I listened to a really good book called Born to Run. And I listened to it through Audible which is a really cool service if you haven’t used it before. But the premise behind Born to Run is that as humans, we were designed to run. So back thousand of years ago, when we have to chase down our food, running was something that we’ve come up and did everyday. And it didn’t matter how far we went or how hard we ran but we just enjoyed the experience of running. And I found about a correlation between this and swimming because sometimes when we get caught up in a day to day training, when we’re looking at times, when we’re looking at distance, sometimes we forget about how good it feels to just swim through the water. Now, if you’re not on that stage where swimming is enjoyable, if it feels like a bit of a struggle, then I highly recommend that you go through the Mastering Freestyle Program and go through the drills. It’s so easy and you can enjoy it. So sometimes when I find I’m caught up in the hard training, sometimes I’m gonna do sessions by myself and just enjoy swimming and enjoy the experience of swimming up and down feeling the water move past you as you glide through the water and you’re getting a good feel for it. And sometimes that’s the best way to get your mojo back for training, get your motivation back through racing is to just enjoy swimming. Because if you’re caught up in it, sometimes you can forget how good it feels just to swim through the water. If you'd like to read the book 'Born To Run' to can get from Amazon as either a kindle, book or audio. It's a really good read even if you're not a runner. It pushed my belief about what's possible for the human body to endure. Any hardcore athletes out there? ;-)  

This week I drove from Melbourne to Sydney on our way to the Master’s National Championships. And on our way there, I listened to a really good book called Born to Run. And I listened to it through Audible which is a really cool service if you haven’t used it before. But the premise behind […]

I know that when I haven’t set a goal for the next couple of months to train towards it is very difficult to get myself off to the pool to get training. If there is nothing to look forward to then there is really no reason to get yourself out of bed early in the morning or to get yourself to the pool after a hard day’s work. A friend of mine emailed me about an event coming up in October which looked like a good event. I have booked in for it and now I have something to train for and it is much easier to get out of bed and motivate myself to go to training. I want to hear from you about what is the thing that you are training for at the moment? What is the event you are targeting and what is getting you out of bed early in the morning? So write it in the comments below and I would love to hear from you and hear what you are training towards.

I know that when I haven’t set a goal for the next couple of months to train towards it is very difficult to get myself off to the pool to get training. If there is nothing to look forward to then there is really no reason to get yourself out of bed early in the […]

This week you will notice the video is a little bit different to what we normally do. The reason is I am going to show you a video that I have just posted in Swimprove which is our online coaching program. We are looking at increasing stroke rate; a lot of swimmers can struggle with because they are not quite sure how to get their stroke rate up and if they should be doing it. What we will do is look at a video that one of our swimmers sent in and asked how he can go about getting his stroke rate up. We will look at that video and show you how to get your stroke rate up by avoiding the gentle entry. One of the things we quite often forget about when increasing our speed is our stroke rate. We always look at technique, drills, workouts and training but one of the things that is a low hanging fruit is stroke rate. If you can increase your stroke rate but travel the same distance per stroke then you will be swimming at a faster rate. Your distance per stroke will be affected by increasing your stroke rate but we are looking for that sweet spot where your distance per stroke maintains a good distance per stroke while having a faster stroke rate. This isn’t for everyone it depends on the type of freestyle technique you swim with. If you feel that a faster stroke rate will benefit you then this might be of use to you. One of the main reasons I see swimmers struggling to get their stroke rate up is the gentle entry. When they come in from their recovery they will stop or slow down just before they enter the water. What that means is they don’t get the drive forward and the momentum from the recovery; they lose it as they slow down or pause just before they come in. If you look at the 1500m freestyle at the Olympics for example you will see all of the swimmers in their recovery and will enter at the same speed with their hands as they have in their recovery. So they won’t slow down just before they lay into the water. Another question that comes up is “What about bubbles on my hands when I pull through?” “If I enter to fast then I will have too many bubbles on my hand” If you enter at the right angle and you are entering in front of your shoulder and you extend forward in front of your shoulder rather than entering across your head and going across then you will find the bubbles will leave your hand as you extend forward. That is one of the ways to get your stroke rate up by changing your technique slightly; make sure that you enter the water with a little bit of force rather than the gentle entry. Another thing that will help increase your stroke rate is to avoid gliding out the front for too long. You always want to be moving through with your freestyle, you want to enter, extend and always be going into that catch. If you are increasing your stroke rate you may have to go into your catch a little bit earlier so you are not wading out the front to get glide from your strokes. When you have been through the Mastering Freestyle, your stoke has improved and you’re swimming better one of the things you need to make sure you do is still maintain your stroke rate and practice swimming at different stroke rates to see where your sweet spot is.

This week you will notice the video is a little bit different to what we normally do. The reason is I am going to show you a video that I have just posted in our online coaching program. We are looking at increasing stroke rate; a lot of swimmers can struggle with because they are not […]

I went down to watch the Ironman Melbourne this weekend which was absolutely awesome. There were over 2000 competitors starting at once in the age group category. It was pretty choppy conditions and it was really rough particularly out the back. Quite a few swimmers I saw started the race and then said no I can’t get through this. I felt quite sorry for these guys because they have obviously trained for at least 12 months towards this Ironman. To not be able to complete the swim because of the conditions is quite heartbreaking; I really felt for those guys. I thought I would talk a little bit today about how you can increase your confidence in the open water and increase your skills. The first thing is obviously your proficiency in the water; how well you can swim and good you can swim. It comes down to being comfortable relaxed in the water. I spoke a little bit about this in last week’s video on how to become comfortable in the water and I provided a couple of drills. The second thing and one of the most important things is also your confidence and attitude. That comes with the training; knowing that you have done the training and the work in order to complete the swim and come out feeling pretty strong at the end that comes down to confidence and knowing you have done the work to get there. I also think this is really important for open water swimming; it’s your attitude. If you are in there with over 2000 other swimmers and competitors then you really have to have to the attitude of ‘stuff it, I don’t care what they are doing this is my race and I am going to get through it;. I have found just with this kind of attitude in my open water races this year my results have improved. That is because it gives me the confidence to go out there and really attack it and be aggressive and aggressive with your swimming. If your swimming ability isn’t quite as strong as some other swimmers you can make up a little bit with the right attitude out there by being aggressive and attacking the swim. I am not talking about being aggressive in there by throwing punches or throwing your arms around to hit other swimmers. It is about the attitude of going out there and attacking it and having the sort of punch and flow stroke that I have spoken about a few weeks ago. There are a couple of my tips for improving your open water swimming. Here is some footage from the weekend, hope you enjoy it. That is triathlon swimming news for the week. I will see you next week.

I went down to watch the Ironman Melbourne this weekend which was absolutely awesome. There were over 2000 competitors starting at once in the age group category. It was pretty choppy conditions and it was really rough particularly out the back. Quite a few swimmers I saw started the race and then said no I […]

What could I mean by the fake catch? I have spoken a little bit about this in Swimprove this week as well. Quite a few swimmers enter at an angle like that rather than keeping their hand flat there. The reason why some swimmers do it is because entering like that means that they enter and then push out. It will feel like they are catching the water. It is true they are sort of catching the water but not in the right way; not in a way that is going to make them faster. This video for the next few minutes is about the fake catch and how you can go about changing it to get it into a real catch. If you are entering at that kind of angle and you’re entering and then pushing out you will feel like you are holding the water there and you will be holding it because your hand is slowing down before it goes into that catch. What you need to do in order to swim faster is to enter the water at that sort of angle and then extend forward and feel the water as you are extending forward rather than pushing out to the side. Something else we have been talking about in Swimprove this week is injuries. This is one of the ways that you can get an injury in freestyle is by entering with that sort of angle. It puts pressure on your shoulder where you can get injured whereas this sort of technique reduces your chances of injury. There are a lot of advantages for entering correctly; one of the drills that I recommend is finger tip drag drill. It is quite a common drill you have probably done it before where you are dragging your finger tips on the surface of the water as you recover. We are working on a nice high elbow recovery and that is going to make sure that you do enter correctly; doing a fingertip drag drill it is very hard to enter like that if you are dragging your fingers through the water in your recovery. If you want to start catching the water properly rather than just entering and pushing the water out then start doing some catch up freestyle in your warm up and that will help you improve your catch. That is swimming news for the week I will see you next week.

What could I mean by the fake catch? I have spoken a little bit about this in our online coahing program this week as well. Quite a few swimmers enter at an angle like that rather than keeping their hand flat there. The reason why some swimmers do it is because entering like that means that […]