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In triathlon, it all kicks off with the swim
so it's not a surprise that this can cause fear
in many beginner athletes.
- That's right, but learning a few simple skills
can give you a lot more confidence in the water
and they're not that hard to grasp.
So today, we're here at the Best Swim Centre in Mallorca
and we've picked out five essential skills
for you to master.
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First up, we've got breathing.
Now we do this 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
but suddenly it seems so hard once we get into the water.
A big mistake is to take a big breath
and then hold it until your next.
But what this does is it actually creates a lot of tension
in your upper body and changes your technique
and your body position in the water.
Oddly, holding a big breath will actually
make you more desperate for air.
This is due to the CO2 or carbon dioxide
build up in your lungs and muscles.
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So, once you've taken a breath
you should start exhaling underneath the water
this should be a constant stream of bubbles
and make sure you've fully exhaled underneath the water.
Otherwise, this leaves you a short window to exhale
and inhale when you rotate your head.
Sinking mushrooms or sink downs aren't just
for kids to have fun doing.
They're a great way of practising
this trickling of your breath and water confidence.
Take your breath and curl into a ball.
Now start to exhale.
You should start to sink.
Keep exhaling and aim to touch the bottom
then come up again.
Practise this a few times through.
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- Mastering the tumble turn can save
a lot of time and effort.
And it's not actually as tricky as you might think.
Essentially, it's just a somersault
with a push off the wall.
So a great place to start is by practising
pushing off the wall into a somersault.
And once you've mastered that, you can progress this
by taking a few strokes and then into your somersault,
making sure you keep your head tucked in
and your chin as close to your chest as possible.
And now, you're ready to start doing a somersault
towards the wall.
As you build your confidence,
start turning closer to the wall.
Using the T at the bottom of the pool is a great guide
for starting a somersault.
And when you're ready, you can introduce the push off,
just make sure you keep your head tucked in
throughout the whole tumble turn.
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Drafting is essentially free speed by using another swimmer
to help you swim faster.
So you can either draught off their hip
by swimming in their wake that they create,
or you can follow their feet in a way
very similar to drafting on a bike.
Drafting on the hip requires swimming
quite close to the other swimmer.
So before you start trying this on a random public swimmer,
perhaps ask a friend instead.
I suggest breathing towards the other swimmer
so that you know where they are.
Your head should be inline with their hip or just above
and you want to get as close as you can
without touching or hindering the other swimmer.
Drafting on the feet is quite straightforward,
but to get an effective draught,
you should be close enough that you're almost
touching their feet.
Even being just 30 centimetres off the feet
will reduce the amount of draught that you can get.
Sighting in the open water sounds like an easy skill,
but you'll be surprised how much energy you can waste
by doing it badly.
If you lift your head out too much,
your feet will sink acting a bit like a brake.
So every time you sight, you lose speed
and then have to work hard to get that speed
back up again.
Ideally, you want to sight by just lifting your eyes
out of the water.
This means you should still breath to side
as you normally would, but you fit the sighting
into your stroke just before you breath.
As you push down at the front of the stroke,
lift your eyes out and sight the buoys ahead.
Then, breath to the side.
With a little practise, you can make this smooth
and seamless.
So if you're a triathlete, they usually can't wait
for the swim to be over.
These five essential swimming tips will make
a significant difference.
Now to see more from GTN, don't forget you can subscribe
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- And to see an essential triathlon skills video,
just click below.
- And to see a video on swimming skills, click here.