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Swim Like a Swimmer....

Saturday, 03 October 2015 00:10

ED. Sure, a story like this should have been posted back in June. Still, it's very interesting and will give triathletes something to think about and work on in the off-season.

By Gary Hall Sr. (triathlon.competitor.com)

Olympian and professional triathlete Andy Potts recently visited The Race Club camp to help coach alongside Gary Hall Sr. Here’s what Gary learned from the experience and training triathletes vs. swimmers in general.

They don’t think of themselves as swimmers.
In teaching triathletes to become better swimmers, I have found one of the greatest obstacles is in their minds. They don’t think of themselves as swimmers, but rather as runners or cyclists, trying to get better at swimming. In order to swim like a swimmer, one has to think and act like a swimmer....

During a recent triathlon swim camp, one of our campers complained rather openly that he didn’t see the value in learning to streamline or do flip turns. “What is the point?” he asked. “I am never going to do a flip turn or streamline in a triathlon.

The point is that in order to swim fast, whether in a pool or in open water, one must learn the ways of a good swimmer, and those include streamlining off every wall and doing flip turns. Doing both of these well in practice will shave seconds off each 100 repeat you swim and that will give you more confidence in your swimming ability. Streamlining helps teach you the importance of reducing frontal drag, whether during the push off the wall or during the swim itself. As long as you are moving, frontal drag is slowing you down. We spend a great deal of time teaching you how to swim with less frontal drag. Doing flip turns are not only much faster, but an important part of hypoxic and core training.