Triathlon swimming made easy (15 page)

We'll use Triple OverSwitch for the transition to swimming. Do a series of 25-yard repeats. Rest as much as needed (5 or more yoga breaths) between reps to start each completely fresh. Start each rep with a normal (but water-piercing) pushoff and begin stroking with at least four switches before your first breath. This should not be a breath-holding effort, but a measure of how relaxed and effortless you are. The purpose of beginning with several uninterrupted switches is to establish your rhythm with core-body rotation and not with your arms. Once you feel an effortless, relax
ed rhythm, you are ready to fit a breath into that rhythm with no interruption. Here's how.

1. Take your first breath simply by
rolling right to where the air is
and immediately back in the other direction.

2. Try to do that with no interruption of the rolling rhythm you established on your switches before the breath.

3. If that breath goes smoothly, do another the same way, several strokes later. If you sense a slight interruption in your rhythm, try to smooth it out on the next stroke cycle.

4. If you lose control, go
back to Sweet Spot
on the next breath and think about how to improve your breathing technique on the next 25.

Be patient. Some swimmers will fit breathing in seamlessly right away. Others, particularly those who have the most delicate sense of balance, may need to spend weeks learning to fit in a rhythmic breath without breaking down the control and coordination they have worked so diligently in drills to develop. Here are some tips that may help.

1. A weightless arm is important. During Multi-Switch drills focus on having your arm float forward after entering next to your goggles. When you take your first breath, put particular focus on keeping that weightless
arm sensation. Your hand should keep inching forward while you breathe.
Fistgloves® will help!

2. Keep the timing of every switch exactly the same. Maintain that timing as you fit in your first breath.

3. Roll as far as necessary. Old habits may be causing you to lift or turn your head. Keep everything connected and aligned as you roll your head, neck, and torso as one unit to air.
Roll all the way to the air.
If you're having difficulty getting air easily,
m\\ farther.

4. Slow down. Anytime you feel a loss of control, slow everything down. Be quieter and more gentle. Don't let yourself feel hurried.

5. The
FME
DVD illustrates several very helpful exercises for learning more seamless breathing technique.

Terry:

I wanted to touch base and let you know the results of the weekend workshop in Atlanta. I am amazed at what it has done for me and for my relationship with the water. I no longer dread getting in for endless laps, mainly because mindless swimming is no longer the focus. What I did not expect was how the experience would affect all my other training. I have been practicing my stroke drills diligently and am so thrilled with the way it brings pleasure and clear purpose to my training that I've begun to apply your mindfulness principle to my running and biking. Each time I go out
to run or bike I focus on and practice one aspect of my technique for that workout. It really made me think about all the other training I've done in years past: endless miles or laps without focus and no purpose except conditioning for race day. I'm constantly learning more ways to apply focus every time I go out and it makes every training session interesting and rewarding in itself. My whole attitude has changed now and I'm so excited Thank you so much Sincerely, Michelle Judson

The lesson: The Total Immersion approach is not just a set of stroke drills; it's a holistic discipline for practicing flowstate training that can benefit all your physical activities. Learn the habit of focus in your practice of swimming, then apply it to every form of training you do.

Part 4

Smart Swimming for th
e Rest of Your Life

The first three sections of this book explained why swimming well is universally frustrating, but utterly essential, for triathletes. They also showed how easy it can be to become Fishlike, and took your stroke to school. Part 4 provides a plan for becoming your own best coach. If you train as suggested, I can promise all of the following:

1. You will see steady improvement in your efficiency and fluency...even if you continue swimming for ano
ther 30 years.

2. You will develop exactly the right kind of "swimming fitness" for triathlon success. Not the kind competitive swimmers need. The kind you need.

3. Swimming will become an increasingly satisfying way to exercise, very likely to the point where it becomes your favorite way to stay in shape, providing more physical and mental benefits with each passing year.

So let's dive right into your plan for using every minute of pool time effectively for continual improvement today and for as long as you swim.

Chapter 11

First Step: Use Your Existing Fitness More Effectively

It didn't take long after I swam my first race in 1966, for me to learn my place: I'm a pretty average athlete. Through high school, college, and Masters swimming I've recognized that other swimmers were born with a gift to swim faster than me: They could just dive in the pool and go fast while I always had to work long and hard to come even close to them. For a time, I believed that if I was willing to outwork them, I could close the gap. And, through sheer effort, I did narrow it, but I never became the equal of the really good athletes. So I gradually accepted my status — always a
bit behind the best swimmers, but proud of having worked hard to get close.

But as I moved through my 40s and, now, past 50,1 have renewed hope: I look more closely at those who are faster than me and — particularly in longer events — can see many opportunities to gain on them by working tirelessly to eliminate inefficiency. They may still have physical advantages but, as we age, physical capabilities diminish, while skill and efficiency may continue to increase. If I use my energy better as we all gradually lose the capacity to generate it I expect to become steadily more competitive. That prospect keeps my interest high.

As a triathlete, you probably have similar goals of improving your standing. Thus you probably do as I do—gauge your competitors and ask how you can improve your performance relative to theirs. In two of your sports, it will mainly be pure hard work that makes the difference. But in swimming, I guarantee it will be your
cleverness
in training that moves you ahead. Our training plan will show you how to make the absolute best use of every lap and hour of training, at whatever stage you may be in your development as a swimmer.

Training Happens

In developing a training plan for triathletes, I can't ignore the importance of fitness and conditioning. As an endurance athlete, I've come to view every physical thing I do as "training" and am always alert for opportunities to squeeze a bit more athletic value from it, whether it's swimming, biking, hiking with my family.. .even yard work.

This is also true of Total Immersion swim training. Conventional swim training focuses on building an aerobic base, raising the anaerobic threshold, developing lactate tolerance...through work, work, and more work. TI training puts your primary focus on learning to move efficiently and then expanding the range of distances and speeds at which you can do that. It shifts the focus from how much and how hard to
how right.
And the physiological stuff? Well, we define conditioning as "something that happens to you while you practice efficient swimming movements." And be assured that
essential conditioning
does
happen, even while doing the gentlest of drills. For each type of TI training, I'll explain how it helps improve your fitness and why that form of training is important.

Functional, Not Generic, Training

Because endurance is the primary goal of triathlon training, we all know what it is — the capacity to do work without fatigue. The process of building endurance is like a chemistry experiment using your own body. You train your body to do a better job of storing food energy, converting it into muscle fuel, transporting it to your muscles (along with the oxygen needed to metabolize it) and remove waste products so your muscles can keep working at a high level. You improve those functions by.. .work.

When you do more work than your body is accustomed to — longer duration or higher intensity — your muscles and circulatory system develop the ability to circulate more blood with every heartbeat, to pack more beats into each minute, and to transport more oxygen and fuel in each blood cell. Because it seems so straightforward, we see the equation as pretty simple: More miles done harder and with less rest, produce all those desired adaptations.

And they do.. .when we're running or cycling. But the problem we face in swimming is that the "fuel tank" we're working so diligently to fill has a catastrophic leak. It's like this: As a runner you may be about 90 percent mechanically efficient. The fuel in your tank goes 90 percent into moving you down the road; 10 percent is lost to air resistance, road friction, and heat (sweat). But as a relatively new swimmer, you're more likely to be about
three percent
mechanically efficient; even Ian Thorpe is only 10 percent efficient — but he takes about 7 strokes for 25 yards while y
ou may take three times that number. In that case, three calories of every 100 go directly into propulsion, while 97 are spent making waves and turbulence.

The reason for the huge disparity between swimming and running efficiency is the difference between propelling by pushing off solid ground and moving against air resistance, compared to propelling by pushing on water with your hand and moving through a medium that's 800 times thicker than air. And then there's the matter of mechanics. You learned to run reasonably well from a very young age; as a serious athlete, by concentrating on simple aspects of carriage and stride, you can approach the mechanical efficiency of elite runners. On your bike, your feet are strapped to the pe
dals, which can move in only one direction. If you learn a decent aero position, once again the efficiency puzzle is highly amenable to solution.

But in swimming, the range of possible movement choices is
enormous
and the room for error is vast. Only a tiny fraction of those choices are correct, and, because you're traveling through a fluid, the penalty for making the wrong choice is
huge.
Conventional swim training, with its focus on more and harder, is virtually guaranteed to force you into the wrong movement choices. Thus, the smart swimmer will adopt a more accurate definition
tor swimming endurance.

Instead of the capacity to push yourself through lap after lap without pause, your new definition is this: Swimming endurance is the ability to repeat effective swimming movements (Stroke Length, economy, and fluency) for any duration, speed, and stroke rate that you choose. It takes a specific kind of endurance to stay efficient and fluent for 20 to 60 seconds at a Stroke Rate of 100 strokes/minute and a very different sor t to maintain good SL for 20 minutes to 2 hours at a SR of 50 to 60 strokes/minute.

Adopting this definition should motivate you toward the following training progression:

1. Eradicate your struggling skills and replace them with fluent movement skills.

2. Patiently turn those Fishlike movements into indelible habits.

3. Train yourself to systematically expand the range of distances, speeds, stroke rates and heart rates at which you can swim fluently.

As you spend hours doing this,
conditioning happens—
the right kind of conditioning. Neuromuscular training that ensures your muscles develop the right habits, and physiological training that ensures the
muscles that produce efficient movement
receive the benefit of the adaptations your training produces (rather than the ragged-movement muscles that are conditioned when you train by simple more-and-harder).

The Total Immersion training categories that correspond to the three goals stated above are 1) Learning, 2) Practice, and 3) Effective Swimming. Let's move straight to your plan for an effective Learning Stage.