- Okay, we're here with three-time
Ironman World Championship swim course leader
and arguably one of the fastest,
if not the fastest swimmer in this sport, Josh Amberger.
Thanks for joining us today Josh.
- Cheers.
- So we've got a number of tips
that we're going to run through, from Josh.
(chilled music)
Okay so, first tip Josh.
- Ah yes, so first tip.
Everyone's got, always a load of technical aspects
to their stroke they have to work on.
I've personally been working a lot on my breath timing.
So I try and swim bilateral as much as possible,
because I've found, I was always breathing to my left
since as long as I can remember.
- And it's creating balance or something that's going--
- Yeah, I was getting wicked pain on my back,
throughout my QL's and yeah,
once I started to breathe bilaterally in training,
that pain kind of like almost disappeared.
- Now does that mean you race bilaterally?
Or does it just mean, do you just go back
to whatever you're comfortable with on race day?
And then just train bilaterally?
- Going to the races, I'd still always breathe to one side
and I'd feel that back pain come on, in the race.
And just so this year, I had a coach pick apart my swimming
and he saw me breathing to the left in the warm up,
and told me how (beep) it was.
I was kind of like stroking and then breathing,
whereas it's more about a fluid movement.
- Yes. - As your hand
goes past your ear.
- So is there anything you kind of worked on?
Like a specific sessions or drills that helped that?
- There was, yeah, there was a drill.
I couldn't tell you what it's called,
but it was basically like a half stroke,
down, and then a full stroke
and you just whip the head to the left.
- Okay.
- And so then this hand stays out here, half stroke, down.
So that's just to slow you down and get ready for the bang!
- So you say-- - that was all the movement.
- You said this hasn't got a name yet,
do you want to name it here?
- What can we name it?
- Cool.
- Berg's bash.
- (laughs) Bergs.
- Berg's bash,
- Nice. - let's call it Berg's bash.
- There you got Berg's bash
- So tip two.
I'm going to say, always be conscious of your stroke rate.
So my stroke rate can be,
can feel very different and be very different,
depending on, how tired I am coming into swimming that day.
But definitely in a race like yesterday,
I'm basically attempting to swim as fast as possible,
go for the course record if I can
and my stroke rate was very, very consistent.
Like just a really fast tempo
and that's definitely something you need to train for.
Probably more so in the open water,
because if you're swimming in the pool
and you're tumble turning every 25 to 50 meters,
it's very easy I feel, to lose track of your stroke rate.
You're always getting a little bit of recovery
and you're always able to really fold back
into a rhythm very easily, whereas if you train
for a high stroke rate in open water
you get a true representation of what stroke rate
you're able to hold with for a period of time,
without any little bits of incremental rest every time
you hit the tumble turn so,
one good thing to do is get an aquapacer.
Something that you can put in your cap
and it's beeping at you every time you stroke.
But given that, everyone strokes very differently.
Straight arm swimmers might stroke a bit higher.
I'm kind of like a, I've got, I feel like a,
it's an open water style,
but you can tell that it comes from the pool.
And it's a very fluid stroke
and I'm probably sitting somewhere in between
in terms of stroke rate.
- Do you know your stroke rate?
Out of interest or like, at in race, in race.
- Oh you know, I'm (beep) trying to come up with tips,
now you're making this up!
(laughs)
(upbeat music)
Yeah, so third tip.
Get used to equipment aids, let's call it.
So for me, everyone hates them,
or loves to hate them, but floaty shorts.
I really love 'em.
I find that they're a fantastic training tool.
Training for an Ironman,
you pretty much always under very heavy bike
and run load and generally as a tri-athlete
you're always tired so every time you jump into the pool,
you're not going to feel 100%.
And I feel, that having a lot of buoyancy through the hips
and it's obviously helping you lift your legs up
and improve your body positions so sometimes that,
it can feel lot easier but it's also avoiding
getting into bad habits if you're going to the pool,
always tired but expecting to try
and improve your swim at the same time.
So for me, little aids like that can really help you
feeling in the swim and avoid you getting into bad
technical habits.
- I guess it's important not to rely on it at the same time,
so I guess you mix it up, right?
- Yeah, so you don't want to go do some dive 100's
with your float shorts on and go, ah dam!
I'm swimming fast and doing like 105's 100,
but then take them, you're not getting the times
when you take them off so,
which is probably about five seconds slower to be honest.
So yeah, don't let it build your confidence,
but just use it as a complimentary tool.
(chill music)
- Okay Josh, on to the fourth tip now.
- So the fourth tip, is relevant again to the open water,
and I feel that it is very important as a triathlete,
to get used to people being around you in the water.
So, it happens to pro's, it happens to amateurs,
but you jump in the water with a bunch pf other people.
You can't control their movements
and all of a sudden you feel really anxious
about getting pulled over, pulled under
and just generally getting hassled.
And it's always going to affect you
if you're not comfortable being around people,
so, I've been working with helping my partner,
Ashleigh Gentle try and develop some drafting techniques
for her IT races.
And it's going to be something as simple,
you can start with something as simple as
doing say one, or two hundred repeats,
and it's just stay on the feet for as long as possible.
I've found that sometimes, people who have anxiety
around being very close to someone in the water
and drafting and touching them is,
you got to to give them little tasks to do, during the swim,
to take their mind off what they're actually doing.
So, earlier in the year, I found this worked really well,
where Ash, has the ability to stay on my feet,
but she's nervous around, about being around someone.
So I tell her that every lap of the pool,
she had to touch my feet three times
and that meant that she had to, at speed,
be swimming as hard as she could,
but she's thinking more about touching my feet three times,
than about what's around her
and what's making her feel uncomfortable
in that environment.
So, I found yeah, just developing
some little techniques like that,
can really help you be comfortable
around people in the open water
and it's working on your drafting skills at the same time,
which is, in this game, critical to be able to sit in a pack
and not get spat out all the time.
(upbeat music)
- All right, great stuff.
I believe you've got one final tip for us.
- Yeah mate, tip five.
That's five tips with Josh so,
I'm going to tell you about race day specific equipment.
So I've got two pairs of goggles here.
I swim in the Zone3 Attack and there's the mirrored,
polarized version and then there's the clear version.
So I find that depending on the conditions,
it's important to have experience
and have on hand, a different shade of goggle.
So this race, we're starting, the sun's just rising
and I needed a definitely, a mirrored goggle
to attack the swim course yesterday
and I didn't want to be blinded by the sun at all,
and so I went with the mirrored goggle,
but definitely, equally as much, choose the clear goggle.
If the low light conditions, if it's cloudy
and so forth, you really need to be able to spot those buoys
and just changing the goggles can help that.
- You need the clear set a lot in the UK.
- (laughs) Yeah, I could imagine, yeah.
So the other thing, race day equipment is,
I've chosen this year to run a sleeved swim skin.
I always try and train in that bit of equipment quite often,
because I feel, it can elevate and change your body position
in the water, it more or less enhances your body position
in the water and you, more or less need to be able to train
and feel that change between training and race day.
- Right, that was brilliant to hear.
Thanks ever so much for joining us today Josh.
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- And if you want to watch Lucy Charles swim tips, click here.
- Yeah, and if you'd like to see this year's
Ironman World Championships Kona recap video,
which Josh features in, you can see that
by clicking just down here.