What's up, motivators taren here.
If you're a beginner triathlete and you're struggling with the swim,
there are five main keys to the triathlon swim technique that you need to execute
in order to swim well and build a good foundation for triathlon swimming.
These are all very easy for anyone
to execute quickly, and if you do them all very well, you will be ahead of probably
80% to 90% of most triathlon swimmers out there.
Let's get into it.
When regular people want to do something
personally amazing in an endurance event, they use motive training plans.
Whether you're just getting started or
you've done several events and want a little more structure to step up your
game, we know what it takes to get amateurs to their goals.
No matter how big or small, you can accomplish anything you want.
You just need a plan designed
for the unique needs of people with families, jobs and a busy life.
The motive training method is that plan to get you to the start line feeling
confident and across the finish line feeling strong.
What we're going to build with these five
tips is the basis for all good swimming as triathletes.
We don't need to be elite swimmers with gumby like mobility.
We really just need to have the basics done well.
And if we can do the basics well,
stay calm in the water and then get comfortable out in open water,
we'll be ahead of most other triathletes that were at the start line.
The first thing that you need to do is learn how to float.
And the cues that we're going to look
at to make sure that you're floating is make sure that the back of your head,
your butt and your heels are all staying at the surface of the water.
To do this, you're going to do float drills.
They might seem very basic to do, but they are a huge return on investment.
All you need to do is place your hands
on the edge of the pool and learn how to kick your feet up off the bottom
of the pool and get them close to the surface of the water without
straining or stressing or having to kick very hard.
Doing this over and over and over, starting with a snorkel and fins and then
taking away the fins and then taking away the snorkel and having to introduce
breathing and kicking very, very gently throughout it is going
to teach you to use the buoyancy of your chest and activate your core to keep
yourself nicely at the surface of the water.
Once you can do that, start translating that into kicking across
and floating across the surface of the pool while you're in the shallow end.
And this is going to build the ability to float nicely at the surface of the water.
Reducing drag.
The second thing that you need to do is building upon that reduction of drag,
and this is keeping your legs in a very nice narrow channel.
When your legs splay out really wide, they'll want to sink down and this is
going to create a lot of drag and it's probably going to create a lot of tension.
So it's going to increase that panic response and reduce your ability to move
across the surface of the water efficiently.
So the cue for this is to keep your legs actually very relaxed.
Stiff legs tend to sink.
You'll also want to feel like the inside
of your thighs are kissing against each other.
You want to have your toes very gently pointed, but without strain.
And this is going to reduce the drag of the top of your foot.
And then you want to feel like you're
kicking in a nice narrow twelve inch bucket and not kicking very widely.
Do all of this and your legs are going to follow right in behind the channel
created by your torso and not out to the side, creating a lot of drag.
The third cube making sure that your hand is pointed downward once it enters
the water and the hand stays within a swim channel.
What this means is that your hand enters the water straight out in front of your
shoulder and it travels within a channel from the edge of your ear to the outside
edge of your shoulder throughout the entire swim stroke.
It doesn't cross over the center line of your body, it doesn't swing out wide.
You don't do this big scoop that a lot of coaches talk about and you always want
the fingertips on a downward trajectory, not pointing up, putting the brakes on.
If you enter into that hand channel,
have your palm facing down and keep your fingertips pointing down throughout
the entire swim stroke, you're going to make sure that you're not
pushing a lot of force out to the side, creating a lot of wiggling movements.
All of your efforts are going to be
in pushing yourself forward, creating a really nice efficient stroke.
From that you can build on the nuances
of a swim stroke and making sure that your elbow is pointed and that you have a nice
vertical forearm catch but the fingertips pointed downward and your hand being
within that swim channel are the basics of getting started with a good swim stroke.
The fourth thing that you need to do is
make sure that your torso isn't contributing more to thinking.
And what we do with this is focus a lot on breathing.
And not just breathing, breathing out, breathing all the air out.
The more air that we have in our lungs, the more buoyant our upper body is,
forcing our legs down, creating a lot more drag with our legs.
Also, the more air and CO2 that we build up in our chest, the more tightness we're
going to have, creating a lot of tension, creating the likelihood to sink.
It also creates that panic response with the tightness.
So instead of focusing on making sure that you're getting enough air in.
Spend the main focus of your breathing
on breathing out, breathing out very, very forcefully, breathing out consistently.
The entire time that your face is
in the water, you should be breathing out and pushing to breathe out.
And even right before you take a breath, you should have a whoosh of air pushing
out even more to really empty out your lungs.
This is going to create a vacuum inside
your lungs so that when you turn your head to breathe, instead of having to take
a big gulp of air, all you have to do is open your mouth and you'll take a nice sip
of air created by that vacuum in your lungs.
And taking that little sip of air is going to mean that you have less air built up
in your lungs so that your torso is less buoyant, making you less likely to sink.
The fifth and final thing that we need
to do is tie it all together by focusing on having a nice firm line from the very
front of your fingertips all the way down to your toes.
The next time you go to the pool, take a look at elite swimmers.
They look long, they look like a kayak, they're stretched out.
And then look at some beginner swimmers or slower swimmers.
They look short, they look wiggly, they look scrunched up.
The way movement through the water or hydrodynamics works is,
the longer a vessel is, the faster it's going to move through the water.
So how we do this is with kick drills
where your hands are extended way out over top of your head.
Start with snorkel and fins.
Focus on being really, really long,
really, really taut and firm, connecting everything together and being
aware of the core, not tensing the core, but being aware of it.
Then take away the snorkel and force
yourself to learn to turn to breathe while staying nice and taut in the water.
Then keep the snorkel on and take away the fence.
Then take away both and have to be really tight in the water.
And then a big portion of your swimming
should be with a snorkel, an ankle band around your ankles, and a pole boy.
This is going to tie your entire body structure together and you're naturally
going to feel that nice long, vessel like feeling.
If you forgot about all of the endless minutiae that you could possibly think
about with your triathlon swim technique and just accomplish these five things,
you would be ahead of so many of the triathletes out there who don't
even have the basic foundation for their swim technique.
Now you might be saying, oh heck, I don't even know how to breathe
in the water, let alone work on my technique for that.
Click the video that's on the screen right
now and go look at our three simple steps to triathlon swim breathing.
That is going to allow you to start working on these technique pieces.
Hopefully, you found this helpful later. Motivators.