Tri swims are not a liesure activity

I think there is a myth, perhaps perpetuated by (misinterpretations of?) the 'total immersion' school of swim instruction, that a good swim should not feel like a lot of effort. Bologna! When I am swimming fast, I know it, I feel it. It isn't a leisurely paced recreational swim, but a race, baby! I'm pushing it. Of course I maintain good form, but good form and power/speed are complementary, not in opposition.

Thank goodness I took the powerstroke class with Marty Gaal where he spent a lot of time humorously criticizing those who like to act like the swim portion of a tri should be a leisurely thing. Do you think the people finishing in the top three are having a relaxing leisurely swim? No, they are redlining baby. They are pushing it.

Cool new swim drill

I call it the 'watch check.' I used to have a really bad habit, during recovery part of the stroke, of lifting my arm up with my whole back and holding my arm really flexed, with the bottom of my forearm facing my body. I ended up with bad posterior shoulder pain.

Then I found out this is really bad. Of course, you don't want your arm flexed you want it relaxed. But also, you should move your arm so the top of your forearm is facing you, like you are looking at your watch. So that's one of my drills now. On each recovery I "check my watch". Not literally with my eyes, but I bring my arm/forearm into the 'checking my watch' posture with the forearm top facing my body.

It is sort of like the motion of the windup in baseball, I have toyed with the 'throwing the ball' analogy, but the 'checking the watch' is more universal and works really well.

I start out with a few laps of checking the watch, and my shoulder pain has gone away as my recovery phase has become more natural and relaxed.

Another race this Sunday

It's the Triangle Triathlon, a sprint with 750 meter/18 mile/5k. This is a "workout" for me, not something I'm going to taper for or anything. I look at it as a good aerobic workout getting ready for the Roxboro NC sprint in August, which is one I want to "peak" for so I'll taper and everything.

My swimming technique issues are still there. I frankly still feel like I have no idea how to swim sometimes there are so many contradictory, yet equally confident, preachers about swim technique out there.

The thing is, there is no one-size-fits-all technique. Swimming is a choose your own adventure novel, not a fixed algorithm for everyone to mindlessly follow. If the 'Total Immersion' technique were best, we would see all Olympians using it. They do not. If there were one best technique, we would compare Phelps to Thorpe and their form would be identical. It isn't. Finding the best swim technique is is all about finding the set of techniques that work best for you for the particular types of events you train toward (if any), techniques that feel right while giving you good times.

So, here is how I come down on some of the "controversial" questions:


1. Roll shoulders or keep them square.
Some sprint swimmers say to keep them square, I guess. This goes against the whole 'elongate your body and fashion it into a spear' principle. I'm going for comfort, distance, and aerodynamics, so I'm rolling to my side, and not just my hips. I need to find the optimal roll, as I tend to roll so much I'm almost on my back!

2. Kicking
Some people say don't kick, save your legs for the bike/run. Some say kick twice per period of the stroke, some say four, some say six. I don't know how many times I kick, but I definitely kick. Not kicking seems silly unless you don't care about how well you do in the swim portion.

3. Head angle
Head down, eyes straight down toward pool bottom, or slightly up? I prefer head down looking at bottom of pool, as that seems to be the most aerodynamic, plus when I get my head angle at that sweet spot it just feels right.

4. S curve or not?
Some people say to pull your hands in an S-curve (out, then in toward chest for the pull, then back out a bit for the exit). Some say it doesn't matter as long as you get the early vertical forearm to maximize your propulsion.

Frankly, I don't know how I feel about this one. I am convinced that the S-shape is probably technically best, but was also shown footage of great swimmers that catch and pull straight back out to the exit. For me, it is ultimately which is more comfortable, and I think I am more comfortable with the S-shaped. This is new to me, as I was always coached not to do the S-curve. We'll see how it goes.

5. How far hands from body?
Should you pull with your hands/arms close to the body (e.g., 6-12 inches), or keep them far away more extended downward? I don't know if it matters, but I think my shoulders are less aggravated when I keep my limbs a bit closer to my body (without dropping my elbow, of course). I want the pull power to primarily come from my hips and my lats, not my shoulders which are prone to injury. While it is certainly possible to use mainly lats/hips while keeping the hand down away from the body, it is easier to pull with the big muscles when the hands are closer to the body (imagine pulling a weight attached to a rope--which is the best way to maximize force exerted by your big muscles?).

I need a good coach. Any suggestions for someone in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina?

For a near future post I will focus on what there is consensus about, rather than where there is disagreement. It will likely be a short post. :)

Four days to the opening gun

My first triathlon of the season is this coming Sunday! It's the White Lake sprint (750 m swim, 14 mile bike, 5k run). On paper it seems to be the perfect way to open the season: the bike and run are supposed to be quite flat.

My goal is to finish in 1' 45".

Last night I did my final real workout, a 40 minute run in a pretty hilly area. It was tough, but felt good.

From now until Sunday I must force myself to rest a lot. Tomorrow I will do a short swim, Saturday a short bike the day before the triathlon. By 'short' I mean 15 minutes, just enough to get my blood flowing.

New bike, new swim

New Bike
I got a Cervelo P2 bike (2008 model).

Holy freaking crap it is awesome. Averaging 2 MPH faster, and even more importantly, it is just super comfortable to be in the Aero position. I used to think the tri bike was sort of bullshit, but now I am a convert.

New swim
Reminder: it is ok to turn my head to breath. It's better to do that than to turn my shoulders out of the axis of the rest of my body! That's what I end up doing sometimes because I somehow got the idea that I should never turn my head. Wrong.

Better breathing by letting gravity do the work. Instead of holding my right arm straight forward when breathing to the left, I let it fall naturally as my body turns to breath. It is much more fluid and natural breathing motion.

Swim Drills I use

My shoulder feels good, so the lighter workout schedule worked. It is so hard to work out less when my mind wants to do more. But I have to listen to what my body is saying.

Here are the six core drills I use for my swim training, and in parentheses the skill set they are supposed to help. I use some others, but these are the core.

1. Vertical kicking (kick)
Upright, head out of water, arms at sides in the deep end, with or without flippers. Kick enough to keep your head out of water. Kick using the form you do while swimming: legs nearly straight, power from the hips, flexible ankles. The flippers are really good for getting the ankles to relax.

2. Swimming downhill (body balance)
Swim relaxed freestyle focusing on keeping my head down and pressing down on my chest so my feet and legs come up (i.e., so my legs are dragging down). This helps you get a feel for the correct balance your body should have while swimming--your butt cheeks should just poke out of the water--if they are underwater you are using your legs to create too much drag.

3. Spear (entry, extension, and body roll)
When entering the water to start the stroke, I poke my hand quickly into the water in front of me to get a good long extension that integrates into my body roll. It's like your hand is the spear of a spear gun and you are shooting it in front of you. Your body should be loooong at the end of your entry.

4. Fist swim (catch and pull)
Grab your thumbs with your fingers and swim. Forces you to get a better catch and pull, using your forearms. Then when you open your hands back up you get an amazing pull.

5. Power stroke drill (catch and pull)
This is from the seminar I took. Basically, after entry, keep your elbows high and your hands/forearms parallel to the wall behind you and give a powerful pull. The acceleration is amazing when you do it right. Video can be found here. That's Marty, the guy that taught the seminar I took.

6. Finger drag (recovery)
Keep your elbows high during the recovery, as it strains your shoulders less, and gets your hand where it's going faster. Gently drag your fingertips along the surface of the water after exit, until entry.

Swimming insights

I have recently learned a lot about swimming so thought I'd post some of it.

1. Swim speed = form + effort

Many people put in an amazing amount of effort but have crappy form: they flail like a crazy monkey in the water, their legs weighting them down like anchors. Others have beautiful form but want to use the swim portion of the race to ease into things, relax, and coast through so they are strong for the bike. They also won't come in first. To be competitive in swimming takes form plus effort.

I tend to be of the lazy "good" swimmer variety. I say that knowing I have a ton of things to work on in my form, so I'm not saying I have perfect form either :) But once I did learn reasonable form, swimming became almost effortless and easy, so it was easy to just coast.

When I took the Powerstroke seminar a few weeks ago, he told us that if you want to coast that is fine, but if you want to be at the front of the pack instead of the back, you will need to put in some exertion too.

Right on!

2. I can breath better finally!
At the Powerstroke seminar he took video of me swimming and gave comments. Before I went I warned him, "I tend to slow down, almost sink, when I breath to the left, so keep an eye on that." In the video it is just obvious: I have ridiculously exhaggerated body roll to the left, so I am almost on my back when I turn to my left! My head comes too far out of the water too.

Yesterday at the pool I worked on this over and over, and then realized the problem was the coordination of my stroke and breath on the left--I would wait until the recovery phase of the stroke before breathing, when I was pretty much slowing down and I had already powered through the body roll. So since I am already in the body rolle I would twist my body even more using my upper back muscles instead of my hips. So I was basically becoming a dead weight spinning around in the water.

When I fixed this and really started breathing earlier in the stroke as part of the body roll instead of at the end of the stroke, the breathing became quite natural and fluid just like with my right.

First time, so I may not have all the details right and will talk about this more. But it was awesome. It is amazing how the entry, the catch and pull, the body roll, and breathing all coordinate toether to create a beautiful stroke. Mine is far from perfect, but every now and then I get into the zone where I'm just swimming right.