Effortless Swimming

We are in Trinity Beach up at North Queensland on a training camp; hence the nice background. This week we are looking at a common mistake that slows swimmers down in freestyle. We are looking at which GPS is best to use if you are doing open water swimming and we also look at how to choose the right wetsuit 00:23 - Keep A Level Head 00:48 - My Hot Tip For Faster Freestyle 01:04 - The Garmin Forerunner 910 XT 01:25 - How Do You Choose A Wetsuit? 01:49 - Swimming For Parents 02:10 - Swim Camps Are Training On Steroids Our Most Popular Program For Improving Your Freestyle Keep A Level Head When I am doing private lessons with people one of the main mistakes I see made is that swimmers will dip their head under the water. They will have it above the water and then every couple of strokes they will dip down under which will slow them down. If you are doing long distance swimming you are best to keep you head nice and even in the water so you are not going up or down and keeping it straight. That will mean that you are swimming faster and be more consistent with your stroke. Shoulders Back and Chest Out One of the main things I tell swimmers to do I swim with their shoulders back and chest out so that will put you in the right position in your freestyle to swim with good technique. New swimmers usually tend to hunch forward but if you have your chest out, shoulders back you will be in the right position for good technique. The Garmin Forerunner 910 XT The Garmin Forerunner 910 XT seems to be the best GPS watch to use when you are going open water swimming. I have spoken to a couple of swimmers about which one they are using and that one seems to be the pick of the bunch. If you are doing open water swimming and looking for a good watch to track your times then the Garmin Forerunner 910 XT is the one to go for. How To Choose A Wetsuit This week I spoke to Craig from Aqua Shop in Melbourne and I got him to explain some of the differences between the wetsuits and how to choose the right wetsuit with sizing, should it be sleeveless or should it have sleeves. If you want to know which wetsuit to choose then check out that video. VIDEO COMING SOON. Swimming For Parents If you are a parent of a swimmer and have kids that are swimming then I recommend you get Gary Barclays books, Swimming for Parents. It is a comprehensive book that talk about everything you need to know about having a child growing up in swimming; from dealing with coaches, to training, to diet everything in-between. If you are a parent I strongly recommend getting that book which you can find at the bottom of this video. Swim Camps Are Training On Steroids Like I mentioned at the start of the video we are up here on a training camp. If you can organise a training camp with your squad; you can go away, forget work and eat, sleep and swim then it is a great way to improve your fitness and also really good fun. We are up here and training hard, it is nice and hot as you can see and we are having a really good time and getting fit in the process. If you are a coach or a swimmer and you can organise that type of thing with your squad then it is really beneficial for your training. That’s it for new this week, we will see you next week.

https://svpford.wistia.com/medias/gs61y7pahh?embedType=async&videoFoam=true&videoWidth=640 We are in Trinity Beach up at North Queensland on a training camp; hence the nice background. This week we are looking at a common mistake that slows swimmers down in freestyle. We are looking at which GPS is best to use if you are doing open water swimming and we also look at […]

We are in Trinity Beach up at North Queensland on a training camp; hence the nice background. This week we are looking at a common mistake that slows swimmers down in freestyle. We are looking at which GPS is best to use if you are doing open water swimming and we also look at how […]

Welcome Effortless Swimmers to another week of Swimming News. This week we look at what to do if you are getting gassed quickly in your races. How to have more energy for the second half of your race. We also give you some sprinting tips that will help bring down your 50m and your 100m […]

Welcome Effortless Swimmers to another week of Swimming News. This week we look at what to do if you are getting gassed quickly in your races. How to have more energy for the second half of your race. We also give you some sprinting tips that will help bring down your 50m and your 100m times, and we look at some ways to improve your kick without following the black line up and down.   00:30 - Getting "Gassed" Quickly? 00:58 - The Two Things All Good Sprinters Have Are... 01:18 - Three Ways To Improve Your Kick 02:21 - Is Scull Important? 03:23 - The Chopper Rescue Story 03:43 - 10,000 Fans Giveaway! You can join Swimprove here These are the workouts we do in training (for triathletes and pool swimmers) Getting "Gassed" Quickly? If you find in your races that you are getting gassed quickly and you haven’t got that much energy at the back end of your race...it might be because you are not breathing enough. When I do video analysis for swimmers in our Swimprove membership community, the swimmers that are having trouble backing up the second half of their race are usually breathing every 3-4 strokes. It is denying their body the oxygen that it needs to fuel itself for the second half of the race. If you try breathing every two strokes or a mixture of every three and two, then you might find you have more energy to finish off strong. The Two Things All Good Sprinters Have Are... If you want to improve your sprinting then let’s keep it really simple. If you have a strong kick and a high stroke rate (and you are able to maintain your stroke length) then you will improve your sprinting. Next time you are in training if you are thinking about having a strong kick and a higher stroke rate, they are two of the fundamentals of being a good sprint freestyler. Three Ways To Improve Your Kick There are a few ways to improve your kick without following the black line up and down. A few things that we like to do in training are: Vertical kick:  Where you are in the water, you are upright you either have your arms crossed against your chest, your hands out or your hands in streamline position if you really want to challenge yourself. If you do that for a couple of minutes at a time you will find that your kick develops and becomes much stronger very quickly because vertical quick if quite challenging. Kick against the wall:  You might go 60 seconds on, 30 seconds off. But for that 60 seconds if you do 40 seconds at a medium pace, 20 seconds hard that will tire you out pretty quickly and improve the strength of your kick. Partner kick: If you have a partner in the water grab a kickboard, someone goes on one side someone goes on the other side and you are kicking against each other trying to push the other person backwards. If you are doing that for 40-60 seconds at a time it is very challenging and very tiring but a good way to develop your kick. Is Scull Important? When I have new swimmers join the squad a lot of times they will ask why we do sculling, because we do quite a bit of sculling in our swimming training. There are two reasons why I like to do it. The first one is it works on good positioning for your catch. If you are doing a scull out the front then we are practicing the catch position for our freestyle, butterfly and breaststroke as well. Where you have a high elbow and your hand is lower than your elbow and you are just practicing that initial catch position. That is one of the reasons, the other reason is it is good for practicing your feel of the water. When you are pulling through, if you are slipping through the water then you haven’t got a feel for the water. If you are practicing scull then you will you get a feeling for what it’s like to hold that water and move yourself through it. A few keys with sculling if you look at the video is you want to keep your hand your forearm very straight so that you can hold water with that whole part of your arm,

Welcome Effortless Swimmers to another week of Swimming News. This week we look at what to do if you are getting gassed quickly in your races. How to have more energy for the second half of your race. We also give you some sprinting tips that will help bring down your 50m and your 100m […]

Welcome to the first triathlon news video. Today we’re going to cover a couple of things including what you can do to maintain the same pace in a triathlon, how you can best warm up for a triathlon so you don’t take a few hundred meters to get into it and we’re also going to […]

Welcome to the first triathlon news video. Today we’re going to cover a couple of things including what you can do to maintain the same pace in a triathlon, how you can best warm up for a triathlon so you don’t take a few hundred meters to get into it and we’re also going to […]

Welcome to the first triathlon news video. Today we're going to cover a couple of things including what you can do to maintain the same pace in a triathlon, how you can best warm up for a triathlon so you don't take a few hundred meters to get into it and we're also going to look at what are some things you can do in training to improve your open water skills. 0:19 - How to Maintain Your Pace 1:12 - Should You Warm Up Before a Race 2:03 - Finding Your Legs 3:02 - Fun Ways to Practice Open Water Skills Improve Your Swim Fitness With These Workouts How to Maintain Your Pace If you want to maintain your pace throughout a triathlon, then the best to do that is to have a constant speed with your technique and your stroke. What I mean by that is I see a lot of swimmers overgliding in their stroke.  So they'll extend a little too far out the front, which means that with their stroke they're going slow  and then fast as they glide and then slow and then fast. That's not maintaining a constant speed with their stroke. So if you want to maintain a constant speed, you keep a nice evenly balanced technique and stroke. That way you can maintain your pace throughout a triathlon much easier than if you're going fast and then slow with your stroke. We show a few good examples of these in the Open Water Mastery Program and in the Mastering Freestyle Technique Program where rather than over gliding with your stroke if you keep it nice and balanced with your rotation, then you'll probably find that your stroke feels a whole lot easy to do and maintain for a longer period of time. Should You Warm Up Before a Race? Have you ever found that when you get to a triathlon and you get into the swim, that it usually takes a couple hundred meters to warm up and get into it? And by that time you might have dropped off the pace? One of the best things that I've found to do is to do a land-based warm up if you can't get into the water but if you can get into the water then if you can do a couple hundred meters, between 6-8 hundred meters, just to get your stroke feeling good get your body warmed up get the blood flowing. You'll probably find that you've got a lot more energy at the start of the swim. You can get out there faster. If you're not doing any warm up before you get into a race then it takes a good couple hundred meters to get started. By that time that can already have lost you the race. So if you can't get into the water, do a land-based warm up with some running, a couple of push ups, squats, jumps, those sorts of things just to get the body ready to perform and to get out there and race. Finding Your Legs When you finish your swim and you're running out of the water, it can take a little bit of time to get your legs used to being back on land. The first couple of strides out of the water, just slow it down if you need to find your feet and then you can get into it. Cause there's nothing worse than running out as fast as you can, losing your feet and falling over and then needing to start again. So just bring it back a little bit, find your feet and then you can get into it. Keeping Warm In Cold Water Now if you like me, being in the colder part of the world where the water isn't very warm then there's a few things you can do to stay warm in the water. If you haven't got a wetsuit on then one of the best things you can do is to use Vaseline and to put it on your chest, under your arms, on the back of your neck, in the places where you lose heat the fastest and that will help insulate you and keep your body warm for when you're in the water. Another thing you can do is to do a land-based warm up before you get in so you get your heart rate up and you just get the blood flowing. That way the body's is ready to get going once you jump in the water and the blood is flowing and you can stay warmer for a longer period of time. Fun Ways to Practice Open Water Skills

This week we look at your head position when you breathe in freestyle and how you change it to make it make your stroke more efficient and faster. We also give you a diving tip which will help you get off the blocks quicker. And we also look at exercises that you can do in […]

This week we look at your head position when you breathe in freestyle and how you change it to make it make your stroke more efficient and faster. We also give you a diving tip which will help you get off the blocks quicker. And we also look at exercises that you can do in […]

This week we look at your head position when you breathe in freestyle and how you change it to make it make your stroke more efficient and faster. We also give you a diving tip which will help you get off the blocks quicker. And we also look at exercises that you can do in training if you have injured your shoulder and have to resort to kick. 00:32 - One Goggle In/ One Goggle Out Of The Water 01:04 - How To Be More Efficient 01:17 - Breaststroke Breathing Tip 01:45 - The 500m Trick 02:19 - Swim Down = Feel Good! 02:44 - Use This To Dive Quicker 03:27 - What To Do When You've Injured Your Shoulder 03:53 - Drills From The Intro Lesson of Mastering Freestyle Are Good For This Before I do private lessons with swimmers I have them to go through this program Want more technique tips? Watch these videos Breathing In Freestyle Now one of the biggest things I see done in freestyle which slows swimmers down is when they breathe with their head too far out of the water. So rather than keeping one goggle in the water, one goggle out of the water when they breathe which is ideal they are breathing with both goggles out of the water and lifting their forehead too far out. If you look at this video with Sam swimming here you will find that half of his head is in the water, half of it's out and his body stays in alignment when he takes that breath. Now a lot of swimmers will breathe too far around so they lift their forehead and eyes too far out of the water and that will throw your hips out of position and it will slow down your speed. So if you want to swim with a faster head position to keep your speed going, then breathe a little bit more towards your shoulder so you keep your body in alignment when you take that breath. Ever See This In Breaststroke? I see the same thing happen with breaststroke is that swimmers will lift their head up too high when they take that breath and their head and torso won’t be in alignment when they come up out of the water. If you look at this video of Jeremy swimming you will see that his torso and his head is in alignment when he comes out to take that breath. So if you want to maintain your speed in your breaststroke, a good way to do that is to keep those two things aligned. The 500m Trick A problem that we all have is motivation with training and getting to the pool when you don’t feel like training. A good solution for this I have found is to say to yourself that all you have to do once you get to the pool is 500m. You don’t have to finish off a whole session you have just got to do 500m. What you might find when you get there is that your mind wants to complete the task, so you might get there and do 500m, but you will feel like that is not enough and you want to complete the whole session that you intended to do. If you only do 500m and you want to call it quits that is fine as well, but more times than not you will probably find that you want to finish off the whole session. Increasing Performance In Training A good way to back up your training for the next session to make sure you are feeling good and you perform well for your next session is to have a good swim down, or a cool down as we like to call it. I find that 400m or more is ideal and if you can add some short sharp sprints into that cool down, then that is a good way to flush out the lactic acid from your system that you have built up throughout the session. So if you are doing 400m cool down then if you can do 4-6 15m sprints then you might find that helps get rid of the lactic acid from your system...so that you can perform better at the next session. Use This To Have A Fast Start If you look at elite swimmers when they start from the blocks you will find that their centre of gravity is just over the front of the block, so that when the starter says 'go', all they have to do is shift their weight forward and then they can go from the blocks.

We look at how to improve your kick, we've got a sprinting tip if you're a 50 or 100m swimmer, and we'll look at getting back to basics and what that can do for you. Now with kick, there's two main mistakes that I see made. 00:16 - The Two Biggest...

We look at how to improve your kick, we’ve got a sprinting tip if you’re a 50 or 100m swimmer, and we’ll look at getting back to basics and what that can do for you. Now with kick, there’s two main mistakes that I see made. 00:16 – The Two Biggest Kicking Mistakes 00:47 – […]

We look at how to improve your kick, we’ve got a sprinting tip if you’re a 50 or 100m swimmer, and we’ll look at getting back to basics and what that can do for you. Now with kick, there’s two main mistakes that I see made. 00:16 – The Two Biggest Kicking Mistakes 00:47 – […]