Triathlon swimming made easy (19 page)

Finding Your SL

Let's cover some basics first. How to count? Some count
stroke cycles,
e.g., counting only right hand entries. I prefer counting each stroke for slightly finer accuracy, and I do so as each hand enters the water. In effect, I'm counting the stroke as I finish it.

Next, is there a particular stroke count you should aim for? Not at first. Just start counting and simply take note of what that tells you. If you swim a
consciously competent
25 yards and take 16 strokes, you have the first bit of information that will gradually evolve into a keen awareness of the challenge of conserving efficiency as you swim farther or faster. If you swim 50 yards and take 16 strokes going and 19 coming, you've learned that it's difficult to maintain your initial stroke efficiency. You can then set a simple goal: To swim 50 yards in 16+18, doing a little better
job of maintaining your efficiency as distance increases. If you swim 25 yards at a slightly brisker pace and see your stroke count rise from 16 to 18, you have another important piece of information.. .and you can set another goal: Find a way to add a bit of speed without giving up quite as much SL.

Doing the simplest stroke-counting sets as suggested below will help you establish a stroke-count
range
and learn the lowest stroke count you can swim at
any
speed with a minimum of effort and a maximum of flow and rhythm. In the beginning, for super-slow 25s, a rhythmic and smooth 14 strokes per length (spl) might be better than a lurching, heavy-kicking 12 spl, but in a few weeks you may learn to swim a rhythmic and smooth 12 spl. Over time, with more practice and increased efficiency, your stroke count range should both get lower and narrower. You may find your initial range, for instance,
to be 14 to 24. In three months that may improve to 12 to 20 and in a year to 10 to 16. Once you know your range, plan to do 75% of your training in the lower half of your range.

How this benefits you can easily be understood with a weight-lifting analogy. Let's say your record for one bench press is 120 pounds. When working with 110 pounds, you might be able to lift it only three times. But as your maximum improves to 140 pounds, you'd probably be able to lift 110 pounds ten or more times. As your SL improves, you'll be able to do more at every count above your minimum. When your lowest spl is 14, you
might be able to swim only two or three lengths at an average of 15 spl. And your pace for 50 yards at 15 spl might only be 50 seconds. But when your lowest spl drops to 12, you'll probably find you can swim as much as 500 or 1000 yards at 15 spl and that your pace for 50 yards might have improved to 45 seconds when you allow yourself the "luxury" of taking 15 strokes.

Start Counting

The following exercises are a good way to get started. They will allow you to begin developing some SL benchmarks, to learn how distance or speed or stroke tweaks may affect your SL, and to begin working on self-adjusting your SL. Use yoga breaths, rather than the pace clock, to set rest intervals. It's not necessary to do all six exercises in one session. Just do a couple, as a way of beginning to include some Effective Swimming with your drill and SSP practice. Some days you might do one of the exercises several times with a goal of improving on subsequent rounds. But don'
t do them to the point of fatigue or raggedness. Call it a day or return to easier drilling, rather than practice struggle. Experienced swimmers are welcome to double the repeat distances (50-100-150-200), but anyone can learn valuable lessons while doing the basic sets.

SL Exercise #1

Swim 25+50+75+100. Rest for 3 to 5 yoga breaths after each swim.

Take note of your stroke count on the 25, then
without trying to strictly limit
your count, just swim at a consistent pace or effort and see what happens to your spl average on the other swims. If you took 15 strokes for the 25, how far above 30-45-60 strokes are you on the 50-75-100? Again, just take note and file the information away for future reference.

SL Exercise #2

Swim 100+75+50+25. Rest for 3 to 5 breaths after each swim.

Start with an easy 100. Count your strokes and divide by four. This number becomes your "N" (benchmark spl count) for the rest of the set. E.g., If you took 72 strokes, your N is 18 spl (72 divided by four lengths). Again, simply note how far below 54-36-18 strokes you are for 75-50-25.

SL Exercise #3

Swim 25+50+75+100.

Repeat Exercise #1, but this time with a focus on any SSP — perhaps hiding your head, or slipping through a smaller hole, or swimming more quietly. Again, just take note of your stroke count; don't attempt to hit any particular count. This is purely an experiment to see if technique "tweaks" affect your SL. If so, this exercise demonstrates that you
can
affect — and ultimately
choose
your SL.

SL Exercise #4

Swim 2 rounds of: 25+50+75+100.

1st Round: Swim with fistgloves®. Just swim at your previous effort, not trying to hit any particular count. How many strokes above your ungloved spl are you?

2nd Round: Swim without fistgloves®. Without particularly trying, but simply letting the fistglove® experience affect you naturally, compare your stroke counts to your previous spl, both with and without gloves.

SL Exercise #5

Swim 100+75+50+25.

Repeat Exercise #2 but this time, maintain the spl from your 100 at every shorter distance. If your 100 is @ 72 strokes for an N of 18 spl, your goal is to take exactly 54-36-18 for 75-50-25. Here are several possibilities for this set:

1. You find it difficult to "fit in" all the prescribed strokes as you swim shorter distances.

2. You can fit them in, but you feel a bit ragged or hurried, trying to take that many strokes on the 50 or 25.

3. You find yourself,
without any noticeable increase in effort,
able to simply swim faster as your distance decreases.

This is a particularly valuable exercise. If you succeed and #3 happens, you've just learned how to hold your SL consistent (constant spl of 18 spl) yet increase your SR (i.e., you swam faster with constant SL; if V increases, then SR must have increased.)

SL Exercise #6

Swim 4 rounds of 4 x 25 (16 total laps).

Take the lowest and highest spl from Exercise #1 and in each round, swim 1 x 25 at each count. If your count for 25 was 15 spl and you took 72 strokes (18 spl) on the 100, swim the four rounds in these counts:

1st Round: 15-16-17-18

2nd Round: 18-17-16-15

3rd Round: 15-16-17-18

4th Round: 18-17-16-15

On the first two rounds, simply focus on
calibrating
your SL. See how finely and accurately you can adjust your stroke and timing to hit the wall in exactly the prescribed count, with no end-of-lap adjusting. You'll discover that the puzzle of subtracting strokes (2nd and 4th Rounds) is entirely different from that of adding strokes (1st and 3rd Rounds). If you were reasonably adept at calibrating and adjusting your SL on the first two rounds, then see if you can swim a bit faster on the third and fourth. If not, then your task is just to calibrate better on the final two rounds.

SL Builders

The SL exercises have allowed you to begin learning your strokecount range and how distance or speed may affect it. The next step in Effective Training is to apply that knowledge in sets that combine aerobic and neuromuscular training. The aerobic effects come from swimming longer sets. The neuromuscular training — the more beneficial effect — will teach you to maintain a longer stroke for a longer duration, which is precisely how to be successful when you swim an actual race. SL Builders give you an organized way to develop that capacity. Here's how they make you a better swimmer:

1. They systematically increase your SL and gradually lower your strokecount range.

2. They help you practice keeping your SL consistent as you increase distance or speed, or decrease your rest intervals. This gives you a type of control characteristic of the world's best swimmers.

Our starting point is a 600-yard set, slightly longer than the quartermile swim that is common in sprint triathlons but long enough to test
your ability to maintain SL for a medium distance. For purposes of illustration, I'll use an "N" of 16 spl, but in doing the sets, choose your own N, based on your experiences from SL exercises. And note that any N you choose doesn't mean that you need to swim that stroke count on
every
length. The N will be the average spl for the distance you swim. For 50 in 32 strokes, you might go 15+17. For 75 in 48 strokes, you might go 15+16+17. For 100 in 64 strokes: 15+16+16+17. And so on.

Start Here:

What: Swim 12 x 50 (12 repeats of 50 yards). Rest for at least 5 yoga breaths between swims.

How: Swimming with attention (but not attempting
perfection),
count your strokes for the first 50. Your only goal is to not exceed that count (i.e., 32 in our example) on #s 2 through 12. That may be easy enough for the first few repeats but, at some point, you may take your 32nd stroke a few yards from the wall. If so, roll to your Sweet Spot and kick easily the rest of the way. Now you're on notice: //
will take discipline to hold your SL.
You'll have to focus on how you
spend
each stroke. Before long, you'll naturally start employing strategies for making your target count. Y
ou'll realize that to complete 50 yards in 32 strokes, you probably should do the first 25 in 15...and perhaps that you need to pass the mid-pool marker in 6 strokes to finish the first 25 in 15. This kind of hyper-alertness is a big step toward developing SL vigilance.

Benefit: In conventional workouts, where you race the pace clock or other swimmers, you'd probably take more and shorter strokes as you strain to keep up or make intervals — not a good signal to send your nervous system.
SL Builders
teach you to maintain consistent SL, even as you tire, and to block out distractions that would normally cause you to lose efficiency.

The Next Step

The first few times you attempt this set, don't be surprised if you have to ease off a bit in mid-set to avoid increasing your stroke count. Don't let that faze you! Speed isn't the immediate goal; developing the discipline to hold a slightly challenging SL is. Let's say you've been swimming for years
with an average stroke count of 20 spl but are now diligently working at holding 16 spl. Until your nervous system adapts to the new SL, it's entirely normal to sacrifice a little SR and V (from the formula V = SL x SR) to do so. Whenever I've established a new PR for my 100-yard stroke count, I have to swim super slowly to achieve it, but I always rebuild that speed steadily over a few weeks. You'll do the same. So here are the steps in mastering your Level 1 Stroke Builder.

1. Do this set once or twice a week. At first, just get used to completing 600 yards in 50-yard increments @ 32 strokes (or whatever target count you choose) with no regard for speed.

2. As the new SL begins to feel a bit more natural (this means your neuromuscular system is adapting), you'll find you can maintain a more consistent speed, maybe even go a bit faster on the last two or three repeats. This means your body is figuring out how to keep SL and SR consistent for an extended set of swims.
This is a hugely important skill of successful distance swimming!

3. As you become comfortable swimming with your new, improved SL, you can make the set a bit more challenging in several ways:

• Increase the duration. Add a few repeats, perhaps up to 16 reps.

• Decrease your rest interval. If you've been resting for 5 breaths between swims, see if you can swim the last few reps just as well on a 4-breath rest. When that seems easy, extend that rest interval earlier into the set. Then try a 3-breath rest in the same way.

• Swim just a bit faster on the last few reps, and then a few more. Always add speed bit-by-bit from the end of the set. This will develop the habit of getting stronger, rather than slower, as you go.

• Don't try, just yet, to reduce your spl or N. Instead, take the time to make this new, improved SL a no-brainer, almost boring in its ease. When that happens, you're ready for Step 3 and that is...

Swim 8 X 75 on a 5-breath rest interval, all at 48 or fewer strokes.

This is a 600-yard set, the same as our initial SL Builder set, but with only 8 breaks for rest, rather than 12. You're moving incrementally closer to swimming 600 straight. The goal is to continue maintaining the original N of 16 spl (or the target count you chose.) The same rules apply as for the 50s. First learn to complete the set without exceeding 48 strokes per 75.. .then to complete the set at consistent speed/effort.. .then to reduce your rest interval by one breath, then two.. .then to swim the last few reps just a bit stronger.. .then to add reps, up to about 12 x 75.
And so on. There's no hard and fast rule for how to make the set more challenging. You have three variables: how many reps, how fast, how much rest. You decide how to add difficulty; just continue to take an organized approach.

You will follow this process in gradually moving toward a long swim done without rest in the spl that, at first, was challenging to maintain on 50-yard repeats. The steps you can follow are fairly straightforward: 6 to 12 x 100, 4 to 8 x 150, 3 to 6 x 200, 2 to 4 x 300 and finally a straight swim of 600 to 1200 yards, all of it at 16 spl. When you reach the end of the process (and don't rush it; give yourself several weeks), it should be a breeze to swim a significant distance in a consistent, efficient SL and at a consistent speed, perhaps even picking up a bit of speed at the end.

When you achieve that,
and only then,
it's time to choose a new, lower spl and start the process all over again, with a set of 12 to 16 repeats of 50 yards. After successfully completing your first cycle of this disciplined, orderly, distance-building progression, you may find yourself able to move through the steps at the new stroke count more smoothly. Most important, you have taken yourself out of the frustrating cycle of pointless lap marathons that accomplish nothing good for your swimming. And you're ready to add some other skills and challenges to your Effective Training, most import
antly the ability to "shift gears" while swimming.

How Fast?

In the SL-Builder sets, we added speed as one of our goals for the first time. That can be a bit of a distraction to a swimmer who should be working mainly on increasing efficiency. Speed is a relative term. I've mentioned
several times that the smartest thing you can do to improve your total race time is to swim easier, not faster. Faster times should virtually always be a natural product of greater efficiency. Practicing efficiency is the smartest way to make speed happen — the kind of speed that's easy to maintain for long distances with little effort.