Swim Philosophy
Background
I grew up swimming recreationally and competitively in the summers until I entered high school, where I joined the swim team for four years (if you're experience is like my wife's who swam 4 years at a Division 1 University, you're allowed a pronounced "eye roll"). I've also swam in 16 IRONMAN long course races, dozens & dozens of triathlons, multiple 5K open water swims and XTERRA triathlon events.
Fast forward to the forming of Team MPI in January of 2010 where my business partner was a life-long competitive swimmer and professional swim coach. For the next eight years until he retired, I absorbed all I could. During my entire time running Team MPI, I've had the pleasure of being on deck with some great swim coaches, from Division 1 coaches, to Glenn Mills (Go Swim) to Patrick McCloskey (Team USA Para Swimming) to most recently Gerry Rodriguez (Tower 26). And , of course, I'm an avid reader of blogs and articles by full time swim coaches for the past two decades following the likes of Paul Newson and Gary Hall Sr.
Finally, I conduct dozens and dozens of 1v1 sessions with adult swimmers yearly on the deck and in the open water along with multiple indoor and outdoor open water swim clinics which pushes me to stay current and hone my teaching skills. ​Needless to say, I'm a student of the sport of swimming and still try and swim myself weekly.
So, naturally, I've developed my own philosophy on swimming which I'll explain below. The caveat is none of this was created solely by me - it's a lifetime of study, experience and mentorship. Additionally, my "kick-off" to any discussion that involves coaching is the following:
There are no absolutes in training, and there are no secrets in training. Additionally, everyone is different. What I talk about below is “in general”, “rule of thumb" or “bell curve”. Obviously there are outliers, and you may be one of them. What I write here is how I currently view teaching swimming, and I reserve the right to change my mind in the future. :)
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I've tailored this discussion to adult swimmers who haven't swam competitively before and who want to swim open water (Triathlon, Swim/Run or Open Water events). For competitive pool swimming, ~95% of all events are under 400 meters/yards and ~85% are under 200 m/y. Consequently, coaches who teach competitive pool swimming may have very different priorities and focus points verses coaches who teach open water athletes. And in the world of swimming, "long course" is loosely defined as anything over 200 meters/yards. So it's safe to say that all open water swimmers are long course swimmers!
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​​I'm going to break down my discussion into two chapters: Fundamentals of Swimming and Open Water Swimming.
Fundamentals of Swimming
I'd like to start with a brilliant, yet simple concept coined by the great Australian swim coach, Bill Sweetenham:
The Three Zones of Swimming
1 - Slow and Perfect
2 - Threshold
3 - Race Scenario
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​I love this concept because it truly highlights the complexity of swimming: mastering a very specific movement, learning how to pace and understanding that conditions often dictate both of those. Even though I use a definable 5 - zone effort/pace chart, understanding the differences of the three zones above sets the foundation of swimming knowledge as a competitor.
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I like to think of swimming as three layers of a pyramid with the bottom layer being the most important as we work our way up.
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Balance. This can be easier said than done! In the simplest terms, we want to be on the top of the water, horizontal, with the top/back of our head, butt and heals connected to the surface of the water. We achieve this by tightening our body through our core and creating a level of tautness (taut is defined as 'stretched or pulled tight'). This tautness allows us to then create the best posture while swimming in the water.
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An example might be comparing a javelin (thrown at track & field events) and a pool noodle (used by kids and adults rehabbing in the pool). The javelin is one long, straight and stiff "pole"...it's "taut". The noodle is soft and malleable. If we were to throw these into the water, which would go farthest? The javelin, of course.
As swimmers, we strive to be taut with good posture and be balanced on the surface of the water. ​​
Rotation. This is the first fundamental of movement. If we rotate correctly, we maximize our propulsion and minimize our effort to breath. When I say rotation, I'm referring to our body, from head to feet, rotating longitudinally. Imagine that javelin I referenced above running through our body from the top of our head through our crotch, and our body "rotates" left and right around that axis.
The first principle of rotation is alignment. Since water is approximately 800 times more dense than air, we can imagine how important reduction of drag (resistance) is as we keep our body in the smallest shape as we push through the water. We should strive to never have the path of our hands cross the center of our body nor the outside of our shoulders. Additionally, our feet should strive to stay behind our hips - kind of "tucked" in. We can imagine trying to fit our entire body into the smallest tube possible - we want to be that javelin.
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The second principle of rotation is connection. If we're rotating our shoulders, our hips need to be locked in with that same motion. Although we may see ~45 degrees of rotation with the shoulders (even up to 60 degrees while breathing on that side) and our hips may only see ~30 degrees, the timing of them moving together is this connection. This is our power!
Propulsion. Reminder: this is the THIRD priority - very much behind the foundational principals of Balance and Rotation. Efficient swim propulsion is accomplished with purposeful and timely movement of our upper and lower body while minimizing drag.
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Upper body propulsion. I break down the freestyle swim stroke into four phases:
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4 Phases of Freestyle Stoke
-Entry
-Catch/Press
-Finish
-Recovery
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This might be best explained with a short video:
Lower body propulsion: freestyle kicking. For the best swimmers in the world, freestyle kicking may only supply ~15% max of overall propulsive force in the water. That's important to understand, because kicking with a lot of effort costs a lot of energy - those are big muscles in our legs that require a lot of oxygen. Does that mean we shouldn't kick? No, we must kick and become good at it. Why? To assist in Balance and Rotation, and maybe get a small bit of propulsion too. :)
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What defines good kicking? First, letting our own feet become "fins" by relaxing our ankles. Then focusing on "kicking from the hips" - the longer motion of the entire leg moving in sync with the rest of our body. Finally incorporating the timing of each kick with the respective side of the upper body stroke.
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There's a lot here and much of it may seem nuanced, but it's an essential part of propulsion. Newer swimmers are going to do everything they can to "not drown", so often times they kick furiously with overly bent knees like their riding a bicycle. And often times new swimmers lock their ankles as if they're still running. All of this causes excessive drag and energy consumption.
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We're looking to have relaxed ankles that allow our toes to be pointed aft and timed kick that helps with balance and rotation. A two-beat or lighter six-beat kick (highlighting the two-beat) are preferred for most long distance swimmers.
Breathing. Finally, let's talk about breathing. It's often a new swimmer's instinctual movement to breathe that impedes development of our swim pyramid - Balance, Rotation and Propulsion. But really, it's a chicken before the egg discussion: IF we improve our Balance, Rotation and Propulsion, THEN our breathing actually becomes much more efficient and even effortless. It's a tough nut to crack and why I'm such a big proponent of swim tools such as the snorkel and fins.
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The position of our head when it's in the water should be slightly looking ahead underwater (maybe a few meters ahead of right below us) with the water line hitting the middle of the top of our head. During swimming, we should never have to lift (accept sighting), tilt or tuck our head as any of these motions will slow us down and cause us to use more energy.
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Breathing Steps:
1- Breathe Early. For fundamentals, we're striving to incorporate breathing at the start of one side's catch/press phase. I call this "Breath Early". With our gaze slightly forward underwater with the correct head position, we should simply rotate to the side - not up and not back.
2 - Exhale Completely. Make sure you exhale ALL the air from your lungs by the time your mouth is above the water. Inhaling is a natural occurrence, but exhaling actually requires us to focus and build the habit of getting all our air out of our lungs. Why? So we can get as much new air in!
3 - Inhale Efficiently. Intentionally inhale a full breath as efficiently as possible.
4 - Return to Center. Now it's time to get that head back in the swim position as quickly as possible. With the exception of all-out sprinting, you should see your opposite hand out in front of you, somewhere (completely depends on stroke rate and swimmer).
Here's an exercise to understand how simple this movement can be. Stand up, straight and tall, looking straight ahead. Then rotate your head and eyes about 15-20 degrees to the side. That's it - THAT'S the amount of movement to breathe we should be doing when our pyramid is built.
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Here's a video of that exercise and then of the 4 steps of breathing during freestyle:
Breathing position and 4 steps
The two most common questions concerning breathing I get are,
#1 - "How often should I breathe?"
#2 - "Should I breathe to both sides?"
#1. In general, I believe most open water, long course swimmers should be breathing "every stroke" - that is, if we breathe to our right, then every time our right arm starts the catch/press phase, we should begin the breathing process. Why? I want us to always get the maximum amount of air per stroke.
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#2. The answer to the second question regarding breathing both sides? Yes. But maybe not why an athlete may think so. We should learn how to breathe on both sides (left and right) so that we develop a symmetrical freestyle stroke. That is, we develop our propulsive phase equally on both sides, which helps us become more balanced and improves our timing and rotation. This symmetrical stroke is what helps us swim straight!
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What about "bi-lateral" breathing? That's when we breathe every third stroke: right arm stroke (breathe), left arm stroke #1, right arm stroke #2, left arm stroke #3 (breathe). This is great for honing our skill to breathe on both sides, but again, in open water, see #1.
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It's a great time to practice bi-lateral breathing or breathing to our less-comfortable side in the pool during warmups, cooldowns, recovery, etc. But when we're hitting intervals, practicing race pace and sighting or in a race, breathe to your most comfortable side.
Open Water Swimming
Open Water. It's important that we separate Open Water swimming from the above Fundamentals of Swimming. Unlike the pool, open water can have currents, waves, swells, weather, poor visibility, with no walls to grab or lines to follow. Oh, and there's other swimmers bumping into us. Sighting alone becomes a fifth skill to master. Needless to say, when swimming in open water, we must be able to swim straight and swim strong.
That said, the pyramid of swimming still prevails: Balance, Rotation and Propulsion must be adhered to for successful execution of open water swimming. However, there are key changes:
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1 - Sighting. This is the number one skills that should be incorporated into weekly swims (even in the pool) for open water swimmers. Including it creates a different stroke, so it needs to be learned, memorized and repeated for fitness adaptation. It doesn't matter how fast you are if you're adding 10-20% distance every open water race because you're unable to sight consistently and well.
The most successful technique is to "Lift, Look, Breathe". That is, with your opposite hand moving in the "entry phase" of the stroke, we should "lift" our head up and out of the water. How high? As high as the water conditions require from us. Then we immediately "look" forward, above the water, to sight to our navigation point (buoy, land mark, etc.). Finally, we swing our head to the side we normally breathe on in a natural way while simultaneously moving that opposite arm into the "catch/press" phase. I write "natural" here - it wont feel that way at first, but that is the end goal.
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Here's a short video demonstration.
2 - Grip and Rip. I'll first say the universal number one goal for most open water swimmers should be comfort in the water followed by swimming straight, so don't be fooled by the aggressive sounding, "grip and rip" title. However, remember the differences between the pool and open water? Well because of that, we want to focus less on the perfect upper body propulsion and more on grabbing that water in each and every stroke and accelerating that catch/press through the finish phases. We can think of it as gears in a car. Gear one starts as soon as we "grip" that water in the catch phase. We then move through gears 2, 3 and finally 4 during the finish phase, accelerating the entire time.
When in the open water, we want to think of ourselves as a "durable" swimmer. We're "taut", "rotating" rhythmically through each stroke and able to handle any unexpected "turbulence" thrown our way. What can help us achieve this stronger swim stroke is a higher stroke rate. With a higher stroke rate (there's no magic number for everyone), we can power through unexpected swells, bodies and currents.
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So coach Sweetenham's three swim zones of swimming really do make sense when we're training for open water. Yes, we want to develop a "slow and perfect" stroke. It's the best way for us to get max distance per stroke while also adjusting our stroke rate. But when we move to open water, we must move into the "race scenario" zone, adjusting our stroke based on the conditions of what Mother Nature and competitors give us.
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3 - Drafting. This is the tactic of getting behind or next to another swimmer and swimming in their "wake", or their movement of water. This will actually reduce the effort required to go that same pace (can be > 30%) if we were on our own. This "drafting" tactic can be a huge advantage in conserving energy during an open water swim race.
The two main drafting position are Feet position - directly behind a swimmer (within a foot or so of their "feet") and Hip position - swimming right next to them (with our head next to their hips/belly). Both have pros and cons, but the hip drafting position is actually the greatest energy saver.
Hip Position:
- Pros: less energy used than in the "Feet" position, we can still sight and may have "cleaner" water to swim in.
- Cons: must be able to breathe on opposite side of athlete, must be comfortable "bumping" into another athlete occasionally, must constantly make minor corrections based on the athlete your drafting off of.
Feet Position:
- Pros: less focus on lateral adjustments, just distance behind, don't have to think much
- Cons: Hard to sight for yourself, disturbed water depending on force of kick of athlete your drafting
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Obviously, or maybe not obviously, drafting will only benefit us if the targeted athlete is going as fast or faster than us AND if they are swimming straight!