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Three days ago I was on deck while a group of
triathletes were going through the meters I’d
laid out for them. One of the swimmers hit the
wall, looked up at me and after a moment said,
“I want to swim faster.” This young woman is
serious about the sport and wants very much to
see how far she can go. She’s twenty two now
and has been swimming for about three years.
I told her to lower her voice. Everyone knows
that if you don’t start swimming within a week
or two of leaving the womb you’ll never be
really fast. It’s the same with learning to
play the piano. To suggest otherwise is
sacrilege.
But she refused to believe that she couldn’t do
whatever it took to take her swimming to the
next level.
It got me to thinking, what would happen if you
truly believed you could overcome the disability
of starting a swim career late? I mean truly
believed!
The way I saw it, you’d have the first
ingredient necessary to do just that.
With that key element already in place what else
could you do?
I’ve thought about it over the last three days
and I came up with a list.
Everybody loves lists. I’ve already listed the
first thing:
1) Believe that you can swim faster.
Where the mind goes, the body follows. This may
actually be the toughest one for many.
2)Swim more.
Back in the late 80s when I was running
competitively I had reached a ceiling in my
results I desperately wanted to break through.
I asked my coach the simple question, how can I
run faster? He answered, “Run a little more or
run a little less. “
I’ve been coaching triathletes for a few years
now and I’ve never met one who needed to swim
less to get faster. I’m sure they’re out there.
I just haven’t met them yet.
So increase your mileage. Start small. It can
be as simple as getting to the workout early and
leaving late to get in an extra 400.
I found that just by arriving on time, staying
on track during and leaving when the next group
was ready to get in, I was able to add 400 to my
own numbers.
Or maybe add a fourth day to your current three
days a week schedule. Whatever you do, start
small - with increases of no more than 10% a
week.
3) Use new and existing technology.
Two basic things here I’m going to talk about –
video assistance and the clock.
The clock is your friend. It never lies to
you. I think too often we don’t use the clock
enough to improve our swimming. You can’t be a
slave to it but why not treat swimming with the
same obsessive zeal we treat our running? How
many of us have routes we are constantly trying
to go faster on? We’re jazzed if we knock a few
seconds off our 10K time. Why not treat
swimming the same way. To that end, have pace
times etched in your mind – and not just PBs.
Everyone uses the clock when they’re doing a 100
or a 400 for time but what about when we’re just
swimming moderate or easy? That’s a key time to
use the clock as well. My personal goal is to
swim 3800 in 59:59 – that’s a 100m pace time of
1:33.5 (or there abouts).
1:33 - the time is burned in my consciousness.
If I want to swim 38 in a row I’ll start with
one and work my way up.
Fight for every second and the seconds will
fall.
Secondly let’s talk about video assist.
Obviously this isn’t available to everyone but
if it is at all, possible jump on it.
Pat Kelly and Neil Harvey at the Canadian
National Training Centre pull out the monitors
once a week. They’ve set up a system where the
camera is placed under water and fed to a
monitor on the side of the deck with a 7 second
delay. The swimmer comes to the wall, looks up
and sees themselves arrive. With the help of a
good coach they’re able to find problems and
deal with them instantly.
There are few swimmers who won’t benefit from
that kind of work.
4) Coaching
This one, obviously, is huge. Nothing beats a
good coach designing your workouts and watching
your progress. If you don’t have a coach, get
one.
Maybe you’ve already got a coach you’ve been
working with for a few years and the gains have
stopped coming. It could be time to consider a
change or at the least get some fresh eyes to
have a look. Here in Victoria the
triathlon/Masters community is pretty good about
jumping in for a session even if you’re not a
member of the team. Steve Chater, an excellent
technical coach from Team X, allows athletes to
test the program for a week before committing.
Most programs allow that kind of attendance.
It’s worth a try.
When you have a coach, don’t be passive. I was
swimming with the Navy team here in town for
months before I finally, in frustration, asked
Keith, one of the extremely competent coaches
with the club, if he wouldn’t mind bestowing a
tip or two on me. Up to the that point I don’t
think he’d said more than a few words to me in
regards to my stroke. His response was “Sure.”
After that I couldn’t get him away from my
lane. Keith’s policy was to spend his time with
the swimmers who wanted his time. Works for me.
There is one important thing to remember about
coaching though – and changes in general, things
usually get worse before they get better. When
we alter our stroke we bring under used muscle
groups into uncharted patterns. Those kind of
alterations take time to adapt to. Accept the
fact that like golfing, you’re going to knock a
few balls into the pond before you start
clearing it
6) Get in with faster swimmers
Find the fastest swimmers who will have you and
swim with them.
When I started with my first club(at the age of
23) , a university triathlon group, the coaches
were a pair of brothers with an Olympic
background. The lanes were assigned and you
swam in your lane. It was a big day when the
coach would look down from above and say the
magic words – “Move up a lane.”
I always found it interesting that there were
some who did not want to move up. They were
comfortable where they were. They wanted to
lead the slower lane rather than hurt to stay
with the faster lane. Don’t be that person.
I believe there is a place for swimming on your
own, but most of your swims should be with
others and preferably others who are faster than
you
7) Swim faster
If you want to swim fast then you’ll have to
swim fast.
Push your limits. Know your PBs and try to
improve on them. Be prepared to go to the dark
place. When the workout calls for a distance to
be done “for time” then put yourself in the
necessary mental state and go for it. If you’re
swimming a lot of 400s, 800s or even 100s you’re
doing the right thing, but maybe it’s time to
throw in a few short sets. Roch Frey told me
once one of his favourite workouts was 50 50s on
50. If I dreamed of doing this workout I’d wake
up injured, but with some common sense
modifications (ie: add 5 seconds, drop 5
repeats) I can get through it.
Add short hard stuff with some regularity.
8) Consistency
Consistency makes a champion.
This was the mantra of my first coach and I’ve
never found any evidence to suggest this wasn’t
the case. He would tell us that having good
genetics is great, having a good work ethic was
better but being consistent was the most
important characteristic of all.
Anyone who knocks long enough at the door to
their desires will in some way find success.
9) Make the most of your hours
Every time you get in the pool you have the
opportunity to make yourself better. Use it.
When I first started swimming there were a few
things I did not like doing – kick sets, drills
and alternative strokes. Whenever any of these
were called for I would just shut off. I’d go
through the motions – hating every minute of the
drills, floating along on the kick sets and
subbing in freestyle for most of the IM sets.
That mindset didn’t help me one bit. By
embracing every aspect of your time in the pool
you can only improve. One of the most important
aspects of swimming better is modifying your
stoke when corrections are in order – and
they’re always in order. If all you do is go
through endless meters of freestyle without
thought or purpose then your ability to alter
your stroke becomes nearly impossible. By
breaking things apart with drills and
alternative strokes you learn better control in
the water and with control comes the ability to
alter.
Not only do you have to be willing to go outside
your comfort zones but you must stay present
when you’re within your comfort zone.
Rick Seay, one of Canada’s strongest free
stylers told a mutual friend that when he swims
he thinks about every stroke. And the boy does
a lot of strokes.
Now I’m sure his mind wonders from time to time
but the point is well made. He’s not making To
Do lists while he’s putting in his meters. He
getting the most out of every minute he spends
in the pool.
Now when I get in the pool I embrace whatever
the coach throws at me. It’s all an opportunity
to improve.
10) Flexibility
This is almost free time.
A swimmer can improve his flexibility easily and
a more flexible swimmer is a better swimmer.
A ten minute daily routine will create the
desired affect and you can do it while watching
the latest episode of American Idol.
I’m not going to lay out a routine in this
article but needless to say, any coach worth his
salt can give you three or four stretches that
will increase your range of motion.
I like door-jam stretches, overhead reaching and
towel stretches.
11) Visualize
More free time.
This ties in with “swim with faster swimmers.”
Don’t just swim with them – watch what they do.
Observe their strokes and imagine yourself doing
the same. If you live in Dry Gulch, Indiana and
are the fastest swimmer down at the community
pool, with your 1:45s, you can still regularly
watch better swimmers by simply going to Youtube
and searching for the likes of Thorpe, Phelps,
Hacket, Popov etc.
Make visualizing a part of your daily routine.
Sit down for 5-10 minutes, close your eyes and
swim 1:20s!!
It’ll help the next time you get in the pool.
12) Feeling badly in the water isn’t so bad.
There’s an interesting phenomena that occurs
when a triathlete has a bad swim – they seem to
actually believe that somehow, between then and
the last time they felt good in the water, their
swim skills deteriorated. They can have a lousy
ride or feel like ass running and they’ll be
completely logical about the affair. They’ll
recognize nutritional short comings, big mileage
weeks or foul weather conditions. They won’t
feel like they’ve lost skills and beat
themselves up. Yet time and time again I’ll
look at an athlete’s log and I’ll read “I don’t
know what’s wrong with me!! I suck!!!!”
Now, I don’t know how much this tip is going to
help but I sure as hell know it won’t hurt –
Don’t beat yourself up if you’re not feeling
good in the water.
Treat swimming as you would running or cycling.
Are you coming near the end of a big build? Did
you miss breakfast? Did your wife leave you the
night before?
Slow your sets down and focus on form. Put on
some flippers and/or paddles. Do some drill
sets. The time you’re putting in is valuable
even if you’re not setting records.
My college run coach used to say, if you’re
training well, you’re not training well.
Much of what we’re talking about here is
semantics.
What are they really implying when they say “If
you start the game late you’ve missed the game.”
Maybe you’ll never swim a 1,500 in 14:34 but
who’s to say you can’t swim under 20? Or under
58 for an IM?
Young Stephen Kilshaw started swimming when he
was twenty one. After a year he was swimming
twenty five minutes for a fifteen hundred, not
bad at all but Stephen dreamed of making the
Canadian National Triathlon team and twenty five
minutes for a 1,500 wasn’t going to do it. He
could bike and run with the best of them but his
swimming kept him out of the game. He talked
with NTC coach Pat Kelly who told him he was
welcome to train at the Centre but he must hold
no illusions – if he wanted any hope of ever
making the National Team he would have to knock
monstrous amounts of time off his swim.
Stephen accepted the offer and in essence did
all of the above things. He went from swimming
10k a week to 25-40k. He swam with faster
swimmers and used constant video feedback. He
was watched by proven coaches. He didn’t miss
work outs. He stuck to it.
He’s twenty three now and earlier this year he
swam low twenty minutes and change for a 1,500.
Last night I was talking with his coach. He’s
convinced Stephen will be swimming high
eighteens before the season is over.
He swam himself into the game.
If one person can do it, another can.
If you took up the piano after the kids left for
college you’ll probably never play like Horowitz
but with the right attitude, work ethic and game
plan you’ll be able to bluff your way through
Sweet Home Alabama and impress your friends.
And while you may never come out of the water
with Faris you don’t have to accept the adage
that you’ll never be really good. |
