Discover your life aquatic

by Peter Scott, Sea Hiker coach www.seahiker.com

Thanks to everyone who attending the information seminar at UBC on February 25th. If you missed it, please check out the Video Clinic being offered on March 4th at UBC and don't forget to visit us at the UBC Tri Expo in the Student Union Building on March 11th. Drop by and enter the draw for free Sea Hiker open water swim coaching ($250 value). 

Self-Diagnosis: What are your biggest obstacles in the pool?  What can I do this week to reduce their effect on my swim so I save energy? What two things (perhaps from the list below) can I improve in only 5 days that will have the biggest impact on my swim? 

1. Water Confidence: You don't have to swim fast to do well overall, so slow things down enough to stay clear and focused.

• How to slow down: relax and lengthen the time it takes for your arm recovery. This will give you more time to breathe and focus on balance.

2. Reducing Effort: Find out if your hips are at the surface or dragging behind you.

• How to reduce hip/leg drag: Experiment with your head and spine alignment and better posture in the water with push-offs from the wall, no kicking. Discover how variations in your head position and posture change the distance you travel and flotation in the water.
  

3. Reducing Effort: If you can't swim more than 25-100m without stopping, you are likely kicking too hard.

• How to minimize your kick: Let your head float in the water more and rebalance after each push-off. Can you turn off your kick completely for 25m? If not, you're probably still off balance.

4. Breath control: If your breathing is rushed and explosive you will have a hard time relaxing and may cause you to sink due to low air volume in your lungs.

• How to control the breath: practice long exhales in the water (standing and swimming) or dry land against your hand. Aim to keep at least half the air in your lungs before you turn to breathe.

5. Breath position: If you rotate too little you simply cannot reach air with ease and you will most likely lift your head, sink and/or kick harder. This will slow you down and require more effort to swim.

• How to get to air: Rotate around your spine to BOTH sides (this also reduces drag and makes you more stable). Practice adding varying degrees of rotation to your stroke. Experiment.

6. Breath timing: If your breath is out of synch with your stroke, you will fight to find air long enough to get a breath.

• How to breathe with your stroke: Turn your head a little early so that it goes with your body rotation. If you're really stuck, breathe on one side only every two strokes to make it easier to focus on breath timing.

7. Breath frequency: If you breathe after more than 4-5 strokes, you may quickly build up C02 and feel out of breath.

• How to stay aerobic: Go out slowly and breathe more often than you feel you need to (2-3 strokes per breath) until you feel you have warmed up.

8. Transitions: If your turns are costing you 2-5 seconds of time, the pick one of the following and practice it in the pool before your race:

• Bounce off the wall: Unless you are doing a flip turn, avoid drag by approaching and leaving the wall on your side with minimal time on the wall with an open turn. Do not turn your body square to push off either on the approach or push off.

• Push off underwater: Pushing off on the surface may feel easier at first, but it will slow you down and put more strain on your lower body. Repeated surface push offs can really tire out your legs and give you cramps. Save your legs for the rest of the race!
• Catching your breath: Get a quick breath at the wall and keep going! If you need to stop at the walls often, slow your stroke down so that you don't need to stop and rest.
• Traffic Control: Angle in towards the centre of the wall and then angle out to the other side of the lane to avoid traffic.

9. Transitions: If you are nervous about swimming with other swimmers, follow these tips:

• Passing: If you need to speed up to pass someone, don't. It's usually not worth the extra effort. Swim at your own pace. To pass someone much slower than you, tap their feet lightly and stay close enough to draft in their wake. Keep your eyes slightly forward to look for any oncoming traffic coming the other way.

• Foot taps: Expect to have people touch your feet with your hands. If this happens near the wall, keep on your course (stay on your side of the lane) so that you don't get in their way when they turn and push off.

• Being passed: When you see someone passing you, relax and avoid the temptation to speed up. You'll just waste your energy needlessly. Wait until they pull ahead of you and see if you can save energy by drafting behind them.

10. Race Strategy: Go Out Relaxed, Finish Happy

Pacing: The biggest mistake is to swim hard in first few minutes of your swim race if you do not have a good handle on what a sustainable swim pace feels like for your race distance.

You will quickly push past your lactate threshold and most likely this will lead to a feeling of being out of breath and heavy limbs. Not only will this tire you out for the bike and run legs, but a tired body usually means your posture will be less than optimal in the water, meaning slower and more tiring swimming.

Have a great swim and drop by the Sea Hiker expo booth or drop us a line to tell us how it went.