Effortless Swimming

Gary Barclay of TheSwimmingExpert.com is the author of Swimming for Parents – a book about how to best support your child in swimming. In this episode of The Effortless Swimming podcast Gary will talk about how to raise a champion swimmer. Brenton Ford:    Welcome to another episode of the Effortless Swimming podcast. Today’s guest is […]

Do you need to wear a wetsuit? I have been doing a number of triathlons lately and what I have noticed is that in the shorter events, the sprint triathlons where you are doing 400m - 500m swim the majority of swimmers are wearing wetsuits when the water is not to cold. I believe based on what I have seen those swimmers are probably slowed down from wearing a wetsuit. Join me in Swimprove It depends on where your  ability is and where your swim speed is at. If you are only doing a very short race, like a 400m or 500m swim then you are probably better off not wearing a wetsuit. The time that it takes to get the wetsuit off and the extra time it takes to get to transition is greater than the benefit than you will get from wearing a wetsuit. It obviously depends on the water temperature and your swim ability but personally I wouldn’t wear a wetsuit for anything less than 1500m. If it was an 800m swim I would still do it without a wetsuit. It is all up to your own personal preference; but something to consider do you really need to wear a wetsuit? If the water is warm enough to swim in is the extra time that it take to get the wetsuit off and run to transition going to slow you down more than the benefit that you get from wearing the wetsuit? That’s it for triathlon news this week, see you next week.

Do you need to wear a wetsuit? I have been doing a number of triathlons lately and what I have noticed is that in the shorter events, the sprint triathlons where you are doing 400m – 500m swim the majority of swimmers are wearing wetsuits when the water is not to cold. I believe based […]

Do you need to wear a wetsuit? I have been doing a number of triathlons lately and what I have noticed is that in the shorter events, the sprint triathlons where you are doing 400m – 500m swim the majority of swimmers are wearing wetsuits when the water is not to cold. I believe based […]

In Swimprove one of the things that we talk about a lot is getting your stroke rate up in open water swimming. A lot of our athletes are triathletes and open water swimmers and in order to go faster in open water swims you might need to get your stroke rate up. I find that one of the biggest things that stops swimmers from getting their stroke rate up is either they are kicking to big or kicking to hard. If your feet are coming to far apart in your kicks then it is not possible to get your stroke rate up. In order to take your next stroke then you need your feet to come back in the other direction. If you are kicking too big then you can’t physically get that other arm over without your legs coming back in the other direction. The other thing is if you are kicking to hard then you are just going to gas yourself out very quickly. If you are kicking very hard then it is hard to get that stroke rate up unless you are doing a 50m sprint for example. If you want to get your stroke rate up, you will either need to not kick quite so hard or kick a little bit smaller in order to get those arms going over at a faster rate. If you are interested in learning more about open water skills and improving your swimming in the open water then join us at Swimprove.com That’s it for swimming news this week; I will see you next week.

In Effortless Swimming’s Membership Program, one of the things that we talk about a lot is getting your stroke rate up in open water swimming. A lot of our athletes are triathletes and open water swimmers and in order to go faster in open water swims you might need to get your stroke rate up. I […]

In Effortless Swimming’s Membership Program, one of the things that we talk about a lot is getting your stroke rate up in open water swimming. A lot of our athletes are triathletes and open water swimmers and in order to go faster in open water swims you might need to get your stroke rate up. I […]

A few changes that we made lately with my squad’s sprint freestyle is making sure that we get the energy transfer from our recovery into the water. Quite often you will see swimmers in their recovery they will extend and then enter; then they have lost their momentum they have got from the recovery coming […]

A few changes that we made lately with my squad’s sprint freestyle is making sure that we get the energy transfer from our recovery into the water. Quite often you will see swimmers in their recovery they will extend and then enter; then they have lost their momentum they have got from the recovery coming forward. To make sure that you get that energy transfer coming forward in your sprint freestyle you want to make sure that your elbows are out a little bit wider and have a high elbow recovery. You can actually come from here into the water with some speed and power. You don’t want to lose it by extending all the way and then entering. You can see in this video here of Jeremy swimming; he has got quite wide elbows and then he is making sure that enters cleanly and is driving himself forward with each stroke that he takes. He is not going at 100% speed here but he but you can still see the same effects; he has a nice wide elbow. Whereas if you are swimming distance you might come a little bit closer to your body with your recovery but that just makes it a little bit harder to get the momentum transfer into the water if you are doing your sprint freestyle. You might need to adjust your stroke when you are going from a 200m down to a 50m freestyle. The other thing that we have been reminding ourselves of is stroke rate. If you stroke rate is too slow in your sprint freestyle then there is no way you will get it down to sub 30 or sub 35 whatever you are aiming for. We have been looking at our swimmers stroke rate to see if it is too low; if it is too low we make sure that we get their stroke rate going faster getting the arms over quicker. Typically it has been getting their times down by a second to a second and a half when we have been doing some timed 50m’s. It can make a big difference. Each time that you are doing a sprint 50m just think about how high your stroke rate is. Are you going over too slow and if you do increase it is it going to bring your times down? That is just something to think about in sprint freestyle.

A few changes that we made lately with my squad’s sprint freestyle is making sure that we get the energy transfer from our recovery into the water. Quite often you will see swimmers in their recovery they will extend and then enter; then they have lost their momentum they have got from the recovery coming […]

One of the things that I am constantly asked is do you need a coach or can you go about this thing on your own? My answer is always the same whether you are a triathlete or a swimmer. My answer is you don’t necessarily need a coach; if you know enough about training plans, […]

One of the things that I am constantly asked is do you need a coach or can you go about this thing on your own? My answer is always the same whether you are a triathlete or a swimmer. My answer is you don’t necessarily need a coach; if you know enough about training plans, […]

One of the things that I am constantly asked is do you need a coach or can you go about this thing on your own? My answer is always the same whether you are a triathlete or a swimmer. My answer is you don’t necessarily need a coach; if you know enough about training plans, technique, race strategies and race pacing then you can get some pretty good results on your own. Typically coaches who have looked at other athletes and coached for a number of years can do well competing on their own and training on their own without having a coach or squad. It doesn’t hurt to have a coach because someone looking from the outside in at your training program and looking at your technique then they can make some suggestions as to what you might need to adjust in order to get better results. That’s why I put together Swimprove which is our online swim coaching community for triathletes and swimmers. In there we have all of our video programs, all of our workouts. You can submit a video of yourself for some technique analysis. The swimmers in there are getting really good results because they are getting advice that they might not have got before and they’re able to access this big data base of information and videos that is helping them improve their technique and their swim speed. One of our members joined last week and he went through 20 minutes of some open water videos where we talk about different strategies and open water skills. Just from that he has dropped his swim time down 6 minutes in a 2km open water swim as a result of going through 20 minutes of video. That is just one example of what having a coach can do for you; by all means you can go about training and your swimming and triathlons on your own but there is a huge advantage of having a community and a coach who can suggest different things in order to improve your swimming. When you are stuck in the middle of it and doing all the hard work sometimes you can miss things; I have been through that myself. If you have a coach looking from the outside in then they can make some good suggestions as to what you might need to adjust in order to improve your swimming and triathlons. That’s it for swim news this week, if you would like to join us at Swimprove go to Swimprove.com and I will see you inside.

In Effortless Swimming’s Membership Program, one of the things that we offer is video analysis. You can upload a video to YouTube and post it in the forum and I will take a look at your stroke and give you some personal suggestions as to what changes you should make with your stroke, if you want […]

In Effortless Swimming’s Membership Program, one of the things that we offer is video analysis. You can upload a video to YouTube and post it in the forum and I will take a look at your stroke and give you some personal suggestions as to what changes you should make with your stroke, if you want […]