Swimming

Embrace the Suck

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We’ve all seen the recent Michael Phelps “Rule Yourself” video, right? If not, here it is. Check it out, it’s pretty amazing!

It’s also clear that Mr. Phelps is a genetic masterpiece who was made for swimming. Most of the rest of us… not so much. So I decided to make a little parody video just for fun. This is dedicated to the triathletes, adult onset swimmers, and other people who challenge themselves every day to better themselves. Enjoy!

Yes, I know, the video quality is not great, and the audio is pretty horrible. My apologies for that, but time and patience led way to a few sacrifices in quality. Regardless, it was fun to make, and I hope you enjoy it.

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Adult Onset Swimmer

The Adult Onset Swimmer’s Dilemma, or How I Had a Swimming Breakthrough and Jumped into the Fast Lane

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If you know anything about my history, you know that swimming is my weakness (to say the least). You would also know, by reading other posts in this blog, that I spent a lot of time obsessing about this and how I could improve.
During the first year of learning to swim, it was exceptionally frustrating. With the exception of my first Ironman (which was a current assisted, salt water, wetsuit swim), I was logging slow times in all my races. In the pool I wasn’t faring much better. Starting out, I swimming well over 2:00 per hundred yards for sustained efforts, and struggling to stay afloat. With heavy volume, I was able to get this down to just over 1:50/100, but I still didn’t have confidence or speed I wanted to really be competitive.
The result, of course, was that I exerted much more energy than I should have in my race swims. Then on the bike, I would have to play catch up, which killed a lot more of my energy. Needless to say my run suffered. All because I couldn’t hang on the swim.
I spent hours combing the swimming message boards, watching videos on YouTube, trying to discover “the secret” to faster swimming.
There was no shortage of information, of course, but most of it was conflicted. Some would say to focus on the “glide”, and become smooth and graceful in the water. Others would say to increase turnover and power through short intervals to get faster. Both pieces of advice had their merit, but each also had their downsides.
For the “focus on glide” group, skeptics would point out that gliding creates a “dead zone”, where you actually slow down before you can propel yourself forward. In practice too, it’s difficult to maintain a “glide” when you feel like you’re sinking, thus poor form may develop. This, combined with the slow rate of turnover, would result in diminishing returns, and one wouldn’t be able to become truly “fast” in the water.
The “focus on turnover and fast intervals” crowd was typically the “fish”, who have been swimming since a young age. They have been conditioned to handle heavy volume, and already have good swim form, so this approach may not work for the new swimmer.
After trying both methods and not seeing much of any results, I began to realize that perhaps both of these approaches were neglecting what I referred to in the title as the adult onset swimmer’s dilemma: that adults who are learning to swim have not had the basic fundamentals of swimming developed in them from an early age which would make them feel comfortable in the water. Regardless of the swimming technique they employ above, they will not reach their true potential.
At least this was the case for me.
The solution for me became to take a hundred steps back and start from the beginning. The very first step would be to learn how to become comfortable in the water, without even taking a single stroke. Once comfortable, I would begin to take slow and deliberate steps to incorporate swim strokes and increase turnover while staying comfortable in the water. The result a pretty dramatic improvement in speed over the course of an offseason. Even more dramatic results have been made over the course of a couple years.
Below is a list of the steps I took to improve my swimming. By no means am I a fish, but I would say that I’m as good as I want to be at swimming, as long as I can translate this speed to the open water (which is another challenge in and of itself). Before I took these steps, volume alone had taken me from a 2:00+ per hundred swimmer to a 1:50/100 swimmer, although not comfortable. Taking these steps led me to comfortably swimming sub 1:30/100 paces, and even sprinting 100’s in under 1:20 (my fastest 100 so far is a 1:17).
Again, this is just what worked for me, but may not work for everyone. But this is some advice that I hope can help someone who may be struggling with swimming (note: I don’t go into “proper form” here, since more experienced people can weigh in on that topic, and do in multiple areas around the internet. This simply lists ways in which on can more easily apply and put into practice that form for optimal improvement over time).
  1. Start from scratch. What worked best for me to get comfortable in the water was to order the Total Immersion DVD set. Total Immersion helps people to get comfortable in the water before tackling harder concepts like breathing, taking strokes, etc. Their method falls within the “glider” category listed above, but it’s important to note that learning these skills is simply a starting point. Speed and turnover come later, once we can swim comfortably. I simply followed the 10 lessons and got comfortable in the pool. A small, but very worthwhile investment in your swimming success. After a few weeks, I found I was comfortable enough to taper down my use of these drills and increase my swimming volume.
  2. As I began to incorporate swimming into my workouts, I would start my warm up focusing on balance using things like the pencil drill, making sure the top of my head, my shoulders, and my butt were all out of the water. This would help me find my alignment from head to foot in the water, making sure I wasn’t dragging my legs, or digging my head.
  3. I would also use my warmup as an opportunity to focus on my balance and rotation. To do this, I used a swim snorkel (so that I did not have to focus on breathing to the side), and took slow strokes concentrating on my form, keeping my body balanced and aligned, and focusing on rotating during each stroke. This worked very well to test out what worked and what didn’t as far as rotating, catching, and pulling. Granted, you will go slower when you’re wearing a swim snorkel, but you also pick up valuable new techniques. I continue to use the snorkel during the warm up set of every swim I do.
  4. I watched a lot of YouTube videos of distance swimmers, and try to mimic their techniques.
  5. I filmed myself every few weeks to analyze my form, both above water and under water. I was also fortunate to get some good feedback on these videos from my coach at Smart Triathlon Training. The first time I filmed myself, I was shocked. While I felt like I was swimming smoothly in the water, watching myself as I swam was very revealing. The small changes I was able to make after viewing my swimming form made a pretty dramatic difference in my swim times. Make sure that you film yourself when you’re fresh and when you’re tired, that way you get a good perspective of how your swim deteriorates with fatigue. That will really tell you what you need to work on.
  6. The pull buoy became a very good friend. There is much debate as to whether or not the pull buoy is a crutch or something to use frequently, but I tend to side with the latter, especially after reading this post by triathlon coach, Brett Sutton. For those of us who are adult onset swimmers who are not interested in leading the packs in the water, and are content with finishing close enough to the front of the swim to be competitive on the bike and run, the pull buoy can be a very useful tool. I found a number of benefits to using a pull buoy with great frequency. a) I was able to swim more volume without fatiguing, b) I was able to maintain my form for longer sets, c) I was able to focus on technique during my swims, and d) I was able to increase my turnover over time (while maintaining the same number of strokes per length), and thus increase my speed. I tend to only use the pull buoy for longer sets over 300 yards. If you’re looking for races with a wetsuit swim, the pull buoy may not be as much of a crutch as you think. Even if your A race is a non-wetsuit swim, you can still benefit from early season endurance builds using the pull buoy, and then get more race specific closer to the race.
  7. After all of the above were in place, I then worked on increasing my speed with short, hard intervals. Typically, this consisted of 25s, 50s, and 100s (mostly 50s) on longer rest intervals so that I could make full recovery. In a typical week of swimming 4-5 times per week, I would do at least 2 speed sessions of 1,000 to 2,000 yards total. My go to speed set has been 250 warm up (with snorkel), 250 pull, 10×50 hard, 5×100 hard (add 10×25 hard with 250 warm down to make an even 2,000).
Happy swimming!
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Terrors of the Deep

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When I was in high school, our marine ecology class took a field trip halfway down the Baja peninsula on the Sea of Cortez to an isolated bay called Bahia de las Animas. During the trip, a number of the students from the swim team, showing much more backbone than I, dared to swim around the two small islets located about a half mile from our shore camp. Surely, I thought, the population of hungry beasts would be dense between the shore and the two islands, waiting for some dumb gringo to flail aimlessly into their element. Whether it be a stingray hitting them on their first step into the sea, a school of hammerheads, or perhaps they would meet their demise from the wayward fluke of a fin whale. Regardless, the outcome was the same, and it wasn’t pretty. So I didn’t want any part of it.

“You only see what you know.”

Wise words from a wise biology teacher, Marv Sherrill. Of course, what I knew at that time was what I learned from TV and movies, such as Jaws; that blood thirsty man eaters were hunting humans and attacking at every opportunity. So naturally that’s what I saw as reality. That’s also part of my self centered nature, that somehow all sea creatures would be interested in ME, when in reality they can probably take me or leave me, as long as I don’t harsh their mellow. What I learned from our Baja trip is that a little knowledge about our environment goes a long way in shaping our reality.

I have still hung onto some of those fears of swimming in the open water since that time. However, it is less about the creatures, and more about the nature of the ocean and my own self confidence that straddles the line between respect and fear. Most of that fear stems from the fact that I’ve never actually swam in the open water. Sure, I’ve surfed since I was very young, I’ve braved shore break for hours on end, and I even scuba dive on occasion with no problem. But there at least I have the safety of a surfboard, the shore, or a buoyancy control device close by should something go wrong. But a half mile off shore with nothing but my swim trunks? That’s where the fear of panic sets in. “What if I can’t swim back? What if I get too tired? What if I’m in over my head?” 

Being that I would have to get over these concerns in very short order, I decided to meet up with a group of open water swimmers this past weekend at Corona Del Mar beach for an open water swim around a number of buoys. I was quite intimidated at first. The fears listed above came to mind, not so much that I would drown, but that I would make a fool out of myself eventually having to be dragged back to shore defeated and humiliated. But these fears are rooted in unknowns. While we only see what we know, we also tend to fear what we don’t know. One of the main purposes of this experience is to overcome my fears and experience more out of life, lest I miss out on something that could have been.

Contrary to my fears, the group was very welcoming, and I was able to keep up with them, logging about a mile and a half. The wetsuit I wore easily kept me buoyant, and nary a man eater in sight. This was huge in building my self confidence, and I feel like one of my last hurdles has been crossed. I also feel that many fears are exaggerated, and they can be overcome by taking the next logical step to building respect and understanding for what is feared. In this case it was getting in the water with others who had the experience.

I find it fitting that I am conquering my fear of open water swimming while preparing for a 2.4 mile swim in the Sea of Cortez, the same sea I once looked upon with trepidation back in high school. Now I look upon it with respect, eagerness, and excitement.

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