- Morning trainiacs.
Had to make that a quick one.
34-hundred meters in 1:12,
with a heck of a lot of tempo trainer.
I gotta get back, fix the computer.
When we get back, I'm gonna talk about all the benefits
of using a tempo trainer.
Is it loud in here?
It seems loud in here.
(energetic music)
Alright trainiacs.
So let's do the first video here on the deck.
I'll give you a tour of the whole thing in a second.
It looks good.
Decks by Dad, highly recommend.
If they were on Yelp, I'd be into it.
So this is a tempo trainer.
You may have seen my tempo trainer video.
Basically, what this is, is it's a metronome.
And you turn it on, and you get a little beep.
(beeping at even intervals)
And the regularity of that beep allows you
a training tool that you can use to help
make your swim stroke a lot better.
And there's a huge number of benefits to this.
Now, amateurs, we tend to have a stroke rate
of around 50 to 65 stokes a minute, on average.
Pros are closer to 80 to 90.
That slow stroke rate is actually
a really big detriment to us,
and this is natural because water is really really heavy.
It's a dense medium.
So to end up getting a really big grip on the water
and ripping it back really quickly is very hard.
So instead, what amateurs do is we get in the habit
of just being really slow.
But, the harder and faster you move,
the faster you're going to be.
Now I'm gonna put a big caveat to all this.
Everything that I'm going to teach you here
about how to use a tempo trainer
assumes that you are putting technique first and foremost.
And the nice thing about the tempo trainer
is that you can increase your stroke rate
while keeping good attention on your technique.
That's the big benefit to this.
Because what a tempo trainer is going to allow you to do
is something that you can't really do on your own.
What I find, that this happens to me
and it happens to just about everyone else,
is that when you start focusing on increasing your cadence
two things happen.
Number one, it's hard to maintain.
As soon as you get tired, you start going back
into your old stroke pattern.
And it's hard to maintain that nice high cadence
when you get tired.
Number two, when you start focusing
on turning over your arms really quickly,
you stop focusing on technique.
What this allows you to do is set a pace
where the beep comes slightly faster than you're used to,
so you're working on faster cadence.
But because all you need to do is hit that beep,
you can get into that nice stroke pattern.
Only think about the beep.
Not think about okay I've gotta move really fast
and I've got to kick fast
and I gotta move my hips really fast.
I gotta do everything really fast.
Throwing your technique out the window.
So let's talk about my case,
and I think this is very similar
to a lot of age-group triathletes.
What I'm starting to do, is I'm gonna use this.
And I need to focus on going and pushing all the way back
instead of just pushing to my hip and then lifting out.
I need to focus on pushing all of the way back.
I think, one of the best ways that you can use this,
for an amateur, is set the tempo nice and comfortably.
Maybe just slightly a little bit fast.
And then, instead of doing what most people do
and focusing on beep, beep, beep,
you actually focus on beep, beep, beep.
So you use the tempo trainer to think about
when your hand is exiting,
and you focus on that exit being well past your waist.
So it's accomplishing getting faster
and working on technique.
And that's what I would recommend to just about
all amateur triathletes.
Because if there's anything that we
have a really big downfall in,
it's being way too pausy out at the front.
And what that beep at the end allows you to do
is because you've got to get your hand back
really quickly for the beep,
it's like an incentive to say
all right I'm gonna enter and then I've got to get
all the way back to that beep really nice and quickly.
And that is gonna result in huge benefits in open water.
Because it's so dynamic out there with the waves
and then churn of the people around you,
if you aren't pausing and allowing yourself
to decelerate with both of your arms,
just pausing there out front,
but instead you're constantly moving yourself forward,
you are going to go faster.
Likely with around the same swim stroke.
Just by getting rid of that pause at the front.
Now if you missed the video where I talked about
how to actually use this, very quick training session here.
Turn it on by pressing and holding the bottom right button.
And you want it on setting number three.
(beeping at regular intervals)
Setting number three is going to allow you
to select the exact amount of strokes per minute
that you want.
Start around 60.
And do lengths of a hundred,
so that you can feel, basically,
you're getting yourselves to the point
where you can do a hundred,
and you're slightly taxed,
but with about a 15 second rest
you can go again.
And then a 15 second rest, and you can go again.
It's not so much that it's going to kill you,
but it's enough that it's a little bit challenging,
however doable.
We're gonna call that your comfortable stroke rate.
Then, what you do, is you go back
and to slightly increase that stroke rate.
Increase by about three to five percent
every third week or so.
So stay at that, let's say 60,
if that's your comfortable stroke rate,
for three weeks.
And just the fact that you're gonna hafta hold that
for the entire duration of the swim
is gonna be challenging enough.
And then next week, 5% is three.
So all of the sudden you're gonna go up to 63.
(beeping at even intervals)
Three weeks later, you might go up to 66 or 67.
(beeping at even intervals)
And hopefully, you can get yourself to the point
that you can comfortably, for quite a period of time,
be high 70s.
This is 78.
(beeping at regular intervals)
And to turn it off, you just hold both bottom buttons.
Alright, quick tour of the deck.
So it is about 300 square feet.
We had very ugly siding around here,
so my dad built this privacy wall.
What we're going to do over top of the privacy wall here
is we're going to go up about two feet
and we're just gonna get it to the same height
as the underside of the eavestrough
because all the way across here we're going to get
those vintagey Christmas lights,
those incandescent bulbs,
and that's going to be our lighting out here.
How nice is that?
Right here, we're gonna change that into a fire table,
because I like staring into a fire longingly.
And just today, my dad and I, we took down the fence
all along here.
An old chain-link fence.
We're going to take this fence down,
and I took down the back landing here
so if you come over to our house,
don't fall out of the house.
We're gonna make that fence and that fence over there
match this nice horizontal wall here.
The privacy wall.
So the fence is actually gonna be horizontal
and then this here, this back landing,
is going to have steps coming one way,
and then steps coming the other.
So there you go trainiacs.
That is a tempo trainer.
This is my deck.
If you aren't already subscribed,
hit the subscribe button below.
And if you are subscribed,
you are like a stroke rate of 68, for me.
Just, just right.