for experienced triathletes or triathletes with a swimming background
1. Film yourself swimming
If you have been taking swimming lessons for some time but want to improve even further, look for a club/or a coach that provides this service. A kinematic analysis of the different phases of the stroke, kick, breathing and body position allows an experienced coach to diagnose the main technical errors and define an action plan aimed at detected faults. If you are interested in improving your swimming technique, contact us to schedule a day and time to carry out this assessment in an in-person training session and start improving your swimming now
2. do resisted swimming to eliminate dead spots in your stroke
One of the best ways to improve your stroke, eliminating dead spots and excessive gliding, is to do resisted swimming with a parachute, elastic band or paddles and pull-buoy. Start with reduced distances for this type of work and gradually increase the meters swum in this regime. Look for feedback from an experienced open water or triathlon coach. If you are interested in trying this work in a guided way, contact us to schedule a day and time for in-person training and start improving your swimming now.
3. do intensity sessions in open water
One of the fundamental steps in preparing for a triathlon is open water swimming sessions. Although 99% of the work is usually carried out in the pool (wrongly) with the group/class and the teacher/coach, going to open water is essential to experience the real competition situation: sighting during the swim, swim in close contact to others swimmers, swimming without seeing the bottom, going around buoys, getting in and out the sea, etc.; In addition to all this, it is essential to do intensity work at race pace in open water and not just swim in a prolonged and continuous manner, which tends to aggravate technical failures in swimmers/triathletes. If you are interested in trying this work in a guided way, contact us to schedule a day and time for in-person training and start improving your open water swimming now.
4. Set your ideal stroke rate
Science defines swimming speed (S) as the result of propulsive force (F) multiplied by stroke rate (SR) minus the amount of drag (D). As a simple mathematical equation, it looks like this (S = FxSR – D). For S to be as high as possible, the swimmer must increase propulsive force (F) and stroke rate while decreasing drag. If F and D remain constant this implies that a higher stroke rate (SR) would result in greater speed but the fact is that accelerating the stroke can cause a reduction in force and an increase in drag. Therefore, it is important to determine the ideal Stroke Rate that allows you to maintain the best form (body alignment) and force production. For any given distance (50m), the smaller the number of strokes, the greater the distance covered in each stroke, however, a smaller number of strokes is not always synonymous with stroke efficiency, contrary to what many athletes and coaches still think! Stroke efficiency should be quantified by evaluating the energetic cost of swimming using quantification of oxygen consumption. When we measure oxygen consumption and/or lactatemia we can see that the energetic/metabolic cost for the same speed increases with the reduction in the number of strokes. This happens because water is approximately 800x denser than air, so when we glide excessively, 2 things can happen: i) the swimmer will reduce his speed because there is no propulsion from the upper limbs or ii) to compensate for this fact, he will normally start kicking the legs to have additional propulsion to compensate for the lack of propulsion coming from the upper limbs. Thus, it is clear that when we swim, as we increase the gliding phase and decrease the stroke rate, we are forced to increase the leg kick, which increases the muscle mass recruited, thus increasing heart rate and oxygen consumption, as well as muscle fatigue in the legs that we take into the cycling and running segment. Optimizing SR is especially relevant for triathletes because the cycling and running segments depend on the strength and endurance capacity of the lower limb muscles. This is why it is important to test and control of SR in the training of swimmers and triathletes.
With a simple test you can determine your ideal SR with and without Wetsuit and use it for race pace work, whether in the pool or in open water. If you are interested in assessing your ideal stroke rate, contact us to schedule a day and time for in-person training and start improving your swimming now.
5. Set intensity zones for your swimming workouts
When it comes to defining intensity zones, the swimming segment has been wrongly neglected compared to cycling and running by many triathletes, despite the intensity of the swimming segment and some of its biomechanical variables (stroke and leg rate). can positively or negatively affect cycling and running. Most athletes and coaches still use fixed distance or duration tests such as the 1000m, 2000m or 30 minute tests that allow us to estimate, not measure the anaerobic threshold and the speed and pace at it, but do not tell us where the aerobic threshold occurs, the most important in training and race pace for IRONMAN races and therefore are not sufficient to define the 5 or 6 intensity zones. Lactate tests to define intensity zones have become popular in cycling and running, but the same does not occur for swimming. Training in a “smart” and optimized way, especially for athletes with limited training time, such as most age groupers, involves seeking maximum adaptation with the lowest necessary load therefore it is essential to individualize training based on knowledge of the individual metabolic profile of each athlete through which we can better define these intensity zones for each segment in the particular case of triathletes. With a simple lactate test, lasting approximately 40 minutes, we were able to determine your individual aerobic threshold and anaerobic threshold and thus accurately define your intensity zones for swimming training in, pace/100m, heart rate, perceived effort and lactate (mmol.l). Do you want to raise the level of your swimming? At TRIENDURE we already have a 1 on 1 swim training session service in pool or open water. Contact us to schedule a day and time for a swim session or an assessment of your Metabolic Profile.
Stronger Together,
Rodolfo Lourenço, 08/10/2024
