(techno music)
- Welcome back to Triathlon Training Explained
powered by TrainingPeaks, and this week
we are up at team Bath for a spot of swimming,
and Fraser has asked whether I'll help him
with his technique.
- Yeah sure I have, I mean it's quite some time
since anybody's done that for me,
and I've definitely fallen into some bad habits.
- Yeah well this is actually something that we do
occasionally from time to time,
and we thought we'd bring you guys along for the ride,
and hopefully show you guys how you can also analyze
and improve your own technique.
- Yeah, I mean unless you're a member of a swimming club
or a triathlon club, it's highly unlikely
that you've got a coach on pool deck,
having a look at your swimming, giving you any pointers,
and it makes it really hard
to get any sort of improvement with your stroke.
But, if you do have a training partner, like I do today,
then they can help out.
- Yeah I mean granted it is never gonna be as good
as having a fully qualified swimming coach
overlooking your stroke and giving you technical pointers,
but we don't all have access to a coach like that
whereas a training partner will still be able
to highlight any issues in your strokes
and maybe any potential causes behind them.
- Yeah, so like we've said, this is something
that we do fairly often to help one another out,
so today we thought we would share some of our tricks
with you and tell you what it's all about.
(laughter)
(upbeat pop music)
(computer beeps)
- OK so probably the obvious and best option
for swimming analysis is filming.
That way you can actually personally
watch your own footage back, but we will get into that
a little bit later on.
After all, filming is not always possible.
We may not have the equipment for it,
or the facilities may not allow you to,
so we're going to start off by showing you
what Fraser and myself tend to do,
and the nice thing with this is it is
super quick and super easy.
- Yeah now the good thing is, you can turn up
to the swimming pool as you would
for your regular swim sessions together.
Jump in, do your warm-up like you would,
get out, do some analysis with each other,
but then just carry on with the rest
of your swim session as you'd planned.
- Yeah but for the purpose of today's video
I am actually gonna stay on dry land to start off with,
but Fraser, I'm afraid you've gotta jump in now and warm up.
- I do so off I go.
- Off he goes.
Right, well as Fraser is diving in,
it is important that you are warmed up
before doing any technical analysis of your swimming.
But equally don't overswim so much
that you're actually tired
and actually your technique starts to fall to pot.
And then once you are both warmed up
and you're ready to start taking a look
at one another's swimming technique,
one of you just needs to jump out onto poolside,
as I am demonstrating already,
and start taking a look at his stroke.
(techno music)
Nice one, are you all warmed up now?
- I am, Mark, ready to go.
- Alright cool.
Is there anything you're particularly struggling with
technique-wise at the moment
or you don't feel it's quite right?
- My rotation is really poor generally, Mark,
so if you could have a look at that
that would be brilliant.
- OK, good stuff.
Alright well if you want to head off now
and just swim at a steady aerobic pace for a few lengths.
Just swim as you normally would,
and I'll start to take a look.
- OK.
(techno music) (water rushing)
- OK so that was really important.
You need to understand if there's a particular area
of their stroke that they're struggling with
or that they feel unhappy about,
so in Fraser's case it's his rotation.
He feels quite flat in the water,
so I'm obviously going to be taking a look at that,
but it's also really important
that you're looking at other areas of the stroke.
So as Fraser's swimming up and down,
or as the swimmer that you're analyzing
is gonna be swimming up and down,
you wanna start by being head on to them,
so as they swim towards you and away from you
you're analyzing their stroke.
So already I can see as Fraser's swimming towards me here,
yeah, he is quite flat in the water.
He has got that limited rotation he's mentioned,
but there's probably a cause behind that
so I'm gonna carry on analyzing, I'm gonna stand up now
and see if there's a reason behind that limited rotation.
So now I'm at this higher angle
and I've been watching Fraser
go up and down for a few lengths now,
and what I'm starting to notice with his stroke
is that his shoulders are trying to rotate,
but his hips almost aren't moving in sync.
And another thing is also his head's quite high,
so I'm interested to look at that
in a little bit more detail,
so now I'm going to change my angle
and I'm gonna follow him alongside the pool,
up and down on the side path
and see it from that different angle.
OK so that's actually been really interesting
following Fraser side-on there.
I can see that head angle where he's got his head
almost that little bit too high,
and that's actually restricting and limiting his rotation.
Another thing I'm noticing is he almost doesn't get
that purchase as his hand first enters the water,
so I almost think as he's trying to rotate onto his side
he hasn't got that confidence
to put that pressure through that hand
and get a really good pull on his side
in that rotated motion.
So this has actually been really good
because what this is highlighting is actually
where you think you've probably got loads of things wrong
with your stroke, your rotation, your hand entry,
your catch, your pull, in actual fact
it's normally just one, maybe two things
that are the root cause of all your issues.
Now that has been very valuable,
but I still feel like we're just scratching the surface
with Fraser, so now I'm going to go into a bit more detail
and jump in the water.
(atmospheric pop music)
Now I'm in the water,
I'm just going to do the same kind of stuff,
just from beneath the water.
Dip down, push yourself down
under the lane rope if you need to,
and take a look from various different angles.
(atmospheric pop music)
Now everyone is going to have
different issues with their stroke,
they're going to have to swim
in a different way, and we're not saying
that you're all suddenly swimming experts,
and you're able to give technical advice,
but actually you're gonna be of huge use to that swimmer
by just being able to relay
some of the things that you've seen.
For instance, Fraser, did you know that
your head is a little bit too high
and you're not really getting that purchase
at the front of your stroke,
which I think is actually the root cause
behind this restricted rotation.
- No I didn't, Mark, so that's really interesting stuff
for me to go away with.
- Yeah exactly, so that kind of is point proven,
and swimming is probably the worst for this,
because what you think you're doing
is not necessarily what you are actually doing.
- No, so I've come away with loads of take aways
that Mark's kindly given me,
and I can work on those in the future.
So a really good analysis tool
is actually being able to film yourself
when you're in the pool.
Do be careful, check with the pool beforehand
because there is often restrictions
with camerawork in swimming pools.
- [Mark] Now probably the easiest and most basic option
is just to use something like your phone,
an iPhone, even getting someone else to film for you,
or in fact propping it up at the end of the pool.
If you've got a waterproof case for your phone
you can just prop that up, set record,
and off you go.
- Or the ultimate tool is perhaps using the GoPro.
These things are rather useful.
You can take them in the pool
and do all sorts with them, right?
- Yep, so there are numerous different cameras
out there similar to the GoPro.
I've used these loads in the past.
And if you can, prop them on a pole,
something like this where you can extend it out,
but I've even used a broom handle before,
and then you can actually analyze them
from all sorts of different angles.
Above, below, in front, side-on, it's fantastic.
- Yeah, and then you can take that footage away with you.
You can watch it back as many times as you want.
You can slow it down, look at it frame by frame,
try and see that catch that I don't have,
or you can speak to somebody who's a little more qualified
to hopefully give you swim tips and drills
to go forward with.
- Well as we made quite clear today,
we're not suggesting that any old person
can start giving technical advice on the swimming.
But many of you out there
are probably just swimming on your own.
You're not getting a specialist swim coach
analyzing your technique, so actually following a guide
as we've been doing today,
and analyzing each other's technique
and giving feedback on their stroke is invaluable.
- Yeah absolutely, but do be mindful
that every swimming pool is a little bit different.
Setups vary, and of course be mindful
of other pool users as well
if you're trying to do some filming.
But if you've got any further questions
that Mark and I can help with,
do drop them in the comments section below,
and we'll do our best to give you some help.
- Yeah, and if you did like today's video
then please hit that thumbs up button,
and if you'd like to see more from GTN
you can click on the globe and subscribe.
If you'd like to see our how to catch video
then just click here.
- And if you need to see another video about how to pull
you can get that here.
- Which Fraser's really good at.