Mark Threlfall: Now, clearly, open water swimming has many different challenges to pool swimming.
[background music] Actually, many of you will just make adaptations
to your stroke and how you swim when you do get into the open water. It is worth just
taking a moment to think about these and see if there's any areas that we can improve on.
Today, I've got five tips to help you get faster and to excel in the open water, many
of which you can actually work on and improve in the pool.
Now, when swimming in the open water, it's actually really helpful to increase our stroke
rate. That's the number of strokes that we take per minute. Basically, how quickly our
arms move. There's a number of reasons for this, but mostly due to the fact that the
water is moving and it's more turbulent. That means that that glide phase that we might
normally do in the swimming pool, that nice long stroke, just doesn't happen quite as
easily, quite as well. We just don't move quite as freely through the water, also because
the water's moving during that catch-and-pull phase, we may just
lose purchase of the water and lose that power. You want that next arm to come around nice
and quickly, and also the nature of open water swimming and triathlons, you quite often have
other people around you, and they may knock your arms. Something just naturally happens
in these sort of events. Again, that may mean that you lose that power during the catch
in the pool face. Again, you want that arm to come around nice and quickly.
Now, this may be something that you adapt to quite naturally when you're in the open
water, particularly if you're wearing a wetsuit because you're more buoyant in the water,
and that just makes it easier to increase your stroke rate, but it is something that
you should practice also when you're in the swimming pool. Just try and play around with
increasing your stroke rate and finding that happy medium for you. Something that I personally
found quite useful for myself is actually the water polo drill. You swim with your head
up, a nice quick arm movements. The next part of the stroke to look at is
the recovery. That's where the hand exits the water at the back and then re-enters at
the front. Now, typically, in the pool, what you see people striving to do is swimming
with a nice high elbow recovery and the hand trailing quite close to the water surface.
In the open water, you may well have seen people swim with this slightly wider and straighter
arm recovery, myself included. Now, we'll point out. This isn't something
that i strive to do and change in my stroke. It's just something that happened naturally
with time. I'd say that's best bit of advice for you guys too. Don't strive to change your
stroke to this wider straight arm recovery. Just allow it to happen naturally with time,
but it's good to know why we may have this wider and straighter arm recovery.
Now, as I mentioned already, in the open water, we've got this choppier water, it's more turbulent
and moving. With this low arm recovery or low hand recovery, there is a tendency
to catch the water surface, the chop and then tumbling down into the water and disrupting
our stroke. Also, as I mentioned already, we've got a lot of people around us when we're
swimming in the open water, particularly in triathlons. Having that straight arm recovery
just means that we've got less chance of getting our arms caught up in one another.
Then also, it allows us to get closer to another swimmer so we can draft off them. Finally,
that straight arm recovery also can help to increase that stroke rate that I mentioned
just before. Now, as I've mentioned a few times, the open
water is more turbulent and you may feel that movement of the water head-on and side to
side whilst you're swimming, particularly when you've got other swimmers around you
and perhaps when you're going into a turn buoy, for example. As a result of that, you
may well feel that as your hand enters the water, you just don't have quite as much control
of it. You feel like you're off balance and perhaps just can't get that catch at the front
of the stroke and into the pool phase. Now, way to work around that is actually just
be more assertive with your hand entry. That means coming in with a faster hand entry,
almost like you're punching into the water. If you come in with a slower hand entry, you're
basically at the mercy of the waves, that movement of the water and other swimmers that
may knock you around, knock you off balance out position and basically waste your energy.
Now, you may have noticed with these last three skills I've touched on, they were pushing
you towards this choppier and splashier stroke. Yes, you're right. Look at my stroke, for
example, particularly above the water, but you just want to make sure that below the
water part is still performed well. You're getting that nice catch into a nice, strong
pool. We're now onto sighting which is a pretty
critical skill for open water swimming, given that we don't have that black line to follow
like we will never do in the swimming pool. We need to lift our head up out of the water
to sight buoys, land-markers, and even other swimmers that we're trying to follow.
How much we lift our head up out of the water can have a big impact on our swimming. If
we lift our head up really high out of the water, our legs are going to drop, creating
a breaking force almost like a seesaw effect. Ideally, looking to just lift the head up
out of the water a fraction minimizing how much our legs drop. I call it "crocodile eyes,"
just the eyes coming up above the water. If you're interested in finding out how to cipher
open water swim, we've got a video on that already. I'll throw you to that at the end
of this one. That being said, there are times when you
do need to lift your head up a little bit higher out of the water. Maybe when it's choppier,
you've got more swimmers in front you, you just can't simply see where you're going.
Being able to adapt to that is really important. What I'd say is just in your open water swim
sessions and even in the pool, just practice lifting your head to different degrees and
seeing how it impact affects your stroke and how you can adapt to minimize those effects.
What I tend to do is just pick the odd rep during a session. I'll just do a couple of
sights per length, finding that feel for the sighting, how it changes my stroke, and going
from there. Another way to improve your speed for the
same or less effort while swimming is drafting. I've alluded to this a few times in today's
video. If you're a cyclist or triathlete, then you may be well-versed in drafting on
the bike, but perhaps less aware of drafting in the water. Drafting in the water can also
help to save your energy and potentially make you faster. Now, I do understand that many
of you out there may just be slightly apprehensive about open water swimming, full stop, let
alone trying to swim in close proximity to another swimmer and trying to draft off them.
What I've found is actually by giving someone something to focus on, trying to get them
to swim closer to someone else and trying to draft off them can actually take their
mind off of all of it and take that stress out of the situation also by drafting off
of someone and relying on them for direction. You don't have to sight necessarily quite
as much. Don't fully rely on them because there is a chance they might be going off
course slightly. What I'd suggest is actually practice this
as a group or with a couple of friends either in the open water or in the pool. Take it
in turns to lead that group and trying out different positions in that line on the feet
and if you can on the hips. It's actually more effective to draft off the hips or they'll
just be aware the person at the front you're drafting off will feel the effect of that
drag a little bit more. I hope you have enjoyed today's video. If
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just down below. [00:07:42] [END OF AUDIO]