Day 120: Exploring the Underwater Technique

Since we dedicated a couple of days to describe a little bit of biking technique, we would like to write down also a few of the main things to keep always in mind during swim training.

Of course it’s no surprise that we took the article from Active.com and we are presenting now 10 Steps to Improving Your Triathlon Technique.

1- Start with Hand Entry and make sure to use rotation to at the same time to male it more efficient.
2- The Head Position should always be the one that makes a straight line with your body while looking downwards.
3- The Pull should go all the way back, past your hips
4- Keep your kick at a minimum to save energy and learn to improve balance
5- Keep good track of your training intensity by using a HR monitor.
6- Technique should come before ALL else, so make time to be perfect!
7- Keep your arm from crossing over. That goes especially for me (Jose)
8- Train the swimming as much as you need to, especially when this is toughest sport.
9- Practice your breathing every 3-5-7-9 strokes to strengthen your lungs
10- Work hard on your form weaknesses

We finally would like to add number 11, which would be: While swimming: HAVE FUN! Make sure you follow this one all the time!

“As long as I’m having fun, I’m not quitting.” – Sue Johanson

Day 116: It’s all about the Core

How many times do we use the core muscles to do any of the three tri sports? All of the time! Of course when you have to dedicate your time to swim, bike and run, you don’t have enough days during the week to go from one sport to the other and on top of that, hit the gym for a strength workout. Trust us on this one. We are trying but it is just too much work! Especially when you have a full 8 hour work shift to fulfill every day.

However, when we cannot find an extra hour during the day, there’s always 10 minutes that we can get from one activity to the other to do a quick and short workout. These workouts might not be as tough as a regular one, but actually you can make it as hard as you want while including the right exercises.

When talking about TOUGH exercises to pick there a whole variety of CORE exercises that we can guarantee to make you sweat and “suffer” for as little as ten minutes. We found this great article at Training Peaks, with all the exercises you need to have a great Core Training.

Training the core gives you balance and helps you with the form of any of the three tri sports. If you only have 10, 20, 30 0r more hours a week to do some strength training, make sure to not only include these exercises but to base your workout around them. Once you find better balance with swimming, and better form with biking or running, you will celebrate this very smart decision.

Oh… and if you have more time and you are strong enough… you should definitely try the second set of exercises shown in the second video of the article… Best of luck!!

“Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.” – Gail Devers

Day 115: The Art of Open Water Swimming

While reading the latest issue of Triathlete Magazine we have been “discovering” a few places to get great information about swimming, biking and running. We started exploring this great site called Swim Smooth with a lot of information for beginners, intermediate and advance swimmers and of course also information related to triathlon swimming.

In this section we found an article with 5 tips for triathlon and open water swimming. We agree on the importance and also the great content of this article. Basically they cover 5 aspects that might look simple and even may be obvious to some people, but they explain each of them in a great way. The first thing to remember is to get used to wearing your wet suit. Great advice since using new cloths, or any gear on race day, always ends up being the worst idea! We actually are waiting for our wet suits to get to Costa Rica to start jumping in the pool with them. The second tip is to Overcome anxiety. We think that for newbies like us it might be even better to start at the end of the mass so that we don’t have to deal with the crowd kicking and stroking around. After that you can try to regain a few seconds on the bike or run leg of the race.

The third and fourth tips are to swim straight and master the art of sighting. Basic? Maybe. But not easy to do at all. Try swimming in water where you cannot see the straight line below yourself or even 20 cm below as you would in a pool. Add to that, waves that might not let you see far ahead. It is definitely more complicated than it sounds.

Finally: Draft Better! Meaning, swim behind or next to another swimmer to save some energy… Want some more details? Visit the website and check out the whole article. It’s totally worth your time!

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” – Benjamin Franklin

Day 113: The High Elbow Catch

Technique, technique and more technique is the best way to improve your performance on any given sport. Once you start doing the things the right way you are more than halfway on the road to success. Every sport has its technique and definitely swimming has to be one of the more challenging sports to dominate because of all the technique related to its practice.

Today we want to focus on one of the things that is necessary to practice a lot in order to be able to be more efficient on the water: The High Elbow catch. We found two great sources on how to master this process. First of all a great article by Active.com on How to Train the High Elbow Catch in Swimming, and then a little bit of visual help for those like us who need that extra useful video.

The article goes through a series of tips to remind you about arm and body position, while the video shows frame by frame how it needs to look once it is applied. Check these two sources out and continue improving your swimming form to be as good as you train to be.

“And there is a time where you can be beyond yourself.
You can be better than your technique. You can be better than most of
your usual ideas. And this is a whole other category that you can get
into.”- Dave Brubeck

Day 108: Reach for it!

Calli-
Another alarm rang and I was not ready to get out of bed. Thankfully, I was
pressured by the fact that this morning would have been my only opportunity to
swim. That’s motivation enough. Today in the water, I focused more on the 3
beat kick per pull, and I perfected my flip turns. My shoulders are sorer
because these work outs are really focused on pulling and freestyle. Next week
I will time myself in a 500 to see where I am at. Have a great day!

Jose- I have to be honest: I just made half of my swim workout today. I’m not proud but at the same time I feel like I did the right thing. My arms have been more sore than usual. There are two possible reasons that I can think of, 1- I’m not having enough rest or 2- (as Calli suggested) for the first time I’m working the right muscles. I actually have no idea what’s better, but I’d rather think it is the second. I’m trying to make my body get used to a sport I’ve never done before I started the TRI training and on top of that it is a hard workout for my level. I write all of these just to explain what’s going on, but as always the only thing I can conclude is: Work Harder! And that’s what I’ll do.

“Some people dream of success… while others wake up and work hard at it.” Author Unknown (attributed to Winston Churchill)