- Good morning, Trainiacs.
We have just sent away the first draft of the
how to swim foundations booklet for editing.
It's exciting stuff.
Now this is for beginner triathletes
this is for like, this is pre joining a master swim group,
or pre joining a triathlon swim club,
or pre tower26, or pre Team Trainiac.
And what it's forcing you to do,
is think to back before I was able to join a masters group
or any of those kinds of clubs, how did I swim
and what are the common issues that new triathletes face.
One of the things that came to mind
that I realized holy smokes
I have never done a video on this, is sinky legs.
I'm captain sinky legs.
I've got muscular legs, yet
I've been able to get my heels at the water
and not feel like I'm sinking.
How do we do that?
That's what we're talking about today.
(upbeat music)
(slower upbeat music)
Forget orange kickboards being
the fastest kickboard around
Camouflage kickboards.
Gotta hide this.
That was 2300 floaty pants meters
with some non sinky legs,
Let's chat about fixing that.
It's a huge change.
It's gonna change your whole swimming.
It's gonna change your whole triathlon life.
I say a lot of very sensationalized things like that
but this might be true.
Might be true.
So Trainiacs, this is really getting to me
the fact I have let this whole channel go
for four years and I have yet to do a
video about how to fix sinking legs in swimming.
I'm ashamed of myself.
Nearly every triathlete encounters this.
I encountered it.
It's one of the most common things
that new triathletes experience, Pete.
It's one of the most common things
that new triathletes experience
and it's one of the first things
that new triathletes need to fix
before they start joining a master swim group.
Or a triathlon swim group or Team Trainiac.
Because if you are pushing through the water like this,
there is no work out in the world that's going to help you,
you're just going to be reinforcing
that sense of panic, that inability to breathe calmly.
And you're gonna be wasting a ton of energy
just getting all this drag through the water.
Now, you might be saying something like I said
when I was first starting swimming.
You might be saying well look, I'm super muscular.
I've got really thick legs.
I'm a sinker.
Well, look at say Kam Worth.
Kam Worth has really thick, muscular legs
from a lifetime of professional cycling and rowing.
Very thick guy.
And he's coming out front pack and cona.
Not convinced yet, and saying well, he's an anomaly?
Jim Lubinski is one of the coaches
of tower26, he was a hockey player.
And still if you look at him right now,
you would say oh my goodness.
He is a huge dude.
He swims quite well under 30 minutes for a half ironman.
Andrew Talansky, former pro cyclist.
You look at his hips and it's like,
tiny little guy, and then boom!
He's got these big quads.
Me, I got my heels kickin'
comin' out of the water regularly.
It's not about the muscle density in your legs
dragging you down.
It's about the inability to have your body awareness
such that your feet come up close to the water,
and your heels can kick past the surface.
Now, if you're not sure what this looks like
and you are wondering if you've got sinky legs,
do you feel slightly out of breath?
Do you feel like you need to push really hard
but you don't move nearly as fast as people in the water?
Or if you're really sophisticated,
take some pictures or a video of yourself
from under the water,
and if it looks like these pictures here,
where if there's any point whatsoever
where your knee is significantly lower than your hips.
Where your feet are lower than your knees.
These are indications that you have sinky legs
and you've got work to do to overcome it.
I'm gonna go over here and show you how to fix this.
So before you start doing workouts
you need to build the comfort and the capability
to just be in the water and actually be calm
and function, instead of thrash.
And how we do this, is by developing
our breathing pattern properly.
And you do that by, I will link to a video
at the end of the video showing the
three step process to do that.
And then once you've done that and you don't feel
like you have a lack of breath,
you need to develop the ability to get your butt up
close to the surface of the water
and get your heels at the surface of the water.
And why I'm here, is how you do that,
is instead of swimming, you go to the edge of the pool,
place your hands at the edge of the pool,
stick your face in the water,
get your legs in behind you,
and just start kicking as gently as you can
to keep your heels at the surface of the water.
You're gonna find that you don't have to thrash very much.
Now there's a series of progressive drills
that we've got in a foundation swim book
that I am creating right now.
And we'll show a few of them here.
So you progress from hands on the edge of the pool deck,
sticking your face in the water, kicking gently.
To doing that with just one hand
on the edge of the pool deck
and breathing out to side.
Then you gradually push off of the side of the pool,
and then you do that same drill
without doing any arm strokes.
And you gradually progress from doing little bits
of drills where you are able to focus on
getting your heels out of the surface of the water,
your butt cheeks just out of the surface of the water.
And what you're gonna find
is that essentially it's just like floating.
You have to train yourself, however,
how to float because it doesn't come naturally to us.
So what I recommend you do, is if you are,
or you can lie down there, this guy.
So what I recommend you do is
if you can't yet swim 400 meters or yards continuously
without feeling out of breath,
or feeling like you need to take a
more than just like a tiny little push off on the wall.
If you need a fair bit of rest
at each turn on the wall,
you need to develop the comfort and the capability
to swim before you start working out.
For that I'd recommend going to
triathlonteran.com/swimdrillprogram.
It's a free swim drill program
that'll teach you how to be comfortable,
catch your breath in the water,
and float across the surface of the water.
Also, you hear about the new
foundations of swimming book that I'm coming out with.
Might be maybe a month or two away.
Only people who are subscribed
to that triathlonteran.com swim drill program
will hear about that.
And it's gonna be pretty inexpensive.
Like 20 or 30 bucks.
So then if you are one of those athletes
who can't yet swim that 400,
before you ever do another workout
start breaking it down and just focus
on the comfort and capability
of floating and breathing properly.
You can swim that 400,
but you feel like you need to work on your sinky legs,
instead of taking a full step back from swimming,
instead just do some drills during your warm-up
doing, say 25 drill, 25 swim,
or 50 drill, 50 swim.
Where you're going back to back
from the drill to the swim
so that you can feel that sensation
that you want to with the drill
and then gradually pull it in to your swim.
And over the course of many months,
this is really going to help you.
So, like I said, go
triathlontaren.com/swimdrillprogram
to learn how to breathe easier,
how not to have sinky legs,
and if you want just the three step process
for how to breathe easier,
go check out the video right here.
And, if you aren't already subscribed
hit the subscribe button below.
I promise I won't take another four years
to come up with videos that everyone has issues with.
All right, later Trainiacs.