Triathlon swimming made easy (22 page)

A need for speed?

The training program I have suggested will thoroughly prepare 95 percent of all triathletes for unprecedented racing success. But a small number, those seeking to race at a near-elite level or above (not just pro's but top age-groupers too) may have more specialized requirements. Particularly in races where drafting on the bike is legal, medals are often substantially decided by the swim finish. So, for a small number of triathletes, it may be critically important to splash out of the water with the lead pack.

Many triathletes have prepared themselves for that by doing "anaerobic swimming" or simply
going hard.
The goal is to tolerate the pain of lactic acid buildup. Admittedly not much fun and, I think, perhaps not all that necessary even for elites. Ivar Brinkman, a Tl-trained triathlon coach in Belgium, has his athletes do about 10 percent of their total swimming yardage in sprints, usually in combination with longer swims, mainly to rehearse for the experience of sprinting the first par t of the swim leg, to get in the draft of the fastest swimmers, then settling into a more sustainable pace.

One of his favored sets is 2 to 3 rounds of (4 x 50 + 1 x 200). The 50s are done quite briskly on a rest interval of perhaps 15 seconds. The 200s are done at about 80 percent of maximum. To include a TI emphasis, try to maintain a consistent SL on the fast 50s and a slightly lower count, perhaps one less stroke-per-length, on the 200s. Ivar also has his athletes do some fast 25s or 50s at the end of practice, to mimic the race finish. You can easily apply any of the stroke-count suggestions in the last two chapters to these sets.

And a particularly instructive way of practicing sprinting—
or swimming fast,
as I prefer to call it — is to mix slower and faster cycles on the same lap. One of my favorite ways of doing so is to swim 8 to 12 x 50s, swimming the first 6 or 8 strokes (3 to 4 cycles) of each length with great SL (as if trying to complete the lap in a very low stroke count) and then shifting to a high SR for the rest of the lap. Do the best job you can of preserving your SL as you do. Bottom line though, swim smart and you'll be far better prepared for any race.

Chapter 17

Swimming for Distance: Focus on Economy, Not Conditioning

I don't know which was harder for Alice: betting a friend they'd both finally do a triathlon or asking my advice on how to train. She's done just fine on her own in cycling and running, doing rides of up to 50 miles with a local bike club, and running semi-regularly for 25 years, lining up for a road race now and again. And she's a reasonably good swimmer, with fine technique from years of practicing TI drills. But the thought of having to swim a quarter mile across open water before she ever gets near her bike has stopped her in her tracks when it comes to triathlon.

But the bet changed all that because she let me put her on a program that can take the teeth out of the quarter-mile swim for anybody. Instead of attacking the distance all at once, as if it was the Matterhorn, you break it up into a lot of manageable hills over several weeks. By race day, almost without noticing what you've done, you're ready.

Alice's story is typical of many would-be first-time triathletes. She swims anywhere from a half mile to a mile at the pool, one or two lengths at a time. Does this count, she wonders? Can 50-yard repeats get you ready for a straight swim of 500 yards in the pool, much less in open water, where there won't be a reassuring wall every 25 yards? Well, yes, at least as the first rung. And 50-yard repeats can help get you ready for a triathlon swim of any distance — even up to the 2.4-mile swim that begins
a full Ironman. If you've swum only short distances and wonder how to build up to a non-stop quarter-mile or more, this chapter presents a plan for using short swims as building blocks to get there. We'll begin with a plan for short distances (400 to 500 yards), and then present one that can be adapted for longer swims of from 1 to 2.4 miles.

Training Program for a Short Triathlon Swim

What Alice needs in order to prepare for a quarter-mile swim is a ladder strategy, a pool training program that will build both her repeat distances and her confidence, step by step, by gradually and systematically stretching the distance she swims between rest breaks in her workouts.

After covering a quarter-mile straight (something that only an estimated 2 percent of all swimmers can do, by the way), we'll throw in a little speed to make sure her bicycle isn't the last one racked in the transition area when she hits the beach on D-Day. Because she has already done 10 years of technique-oriented swimming, her stroke is already fairly good (consistently holding 15 to 16 spl), and we can place more emphasis on swimming in her program. (You should stay mainly with drill-based practices and drill/swim practices until you can keep your spl within about 10 per
cent of your base as distance increases.)

To gradually build from 50-yard repeats to her target distance, Alice will use a single, timed, 500-yard set each workout. It won't be the only thing she does, but it will become a main set for specific race prep in each workout. She'll add another 1200 to 1500 yards to reach her normal workout yardage, which she can do with a variety of Practice-type sets (including warm-up) before and after the 500 set.

Everything is based on her total elapsed time, both swimming and resting, for the set. She can take as much rest as she needs between each repeat at first, but she'll work on gradually reducing it to "zero" rest — the same amount she'll be entitled to on race day. For example, if she does ten 50-yard repeats in 60 seconds each, and rests an average of 15 seconds every time, her total time for the set will be 12 and a half minutes. As her stamina grows and she later swims ten 50s at the same speed, but with only 10 seconds rest between, her time will drop to 11:40.

The key is making individual swims gradually longer and subtracting rest periods. That alone will improve her times. The 500-yard main set gets done at least once a week, and she will remain at each level until she feels comfortable moving to the next, or until her time for the set no longer improves. Once she tops out at the straight 500-yard swim, she can shift to an emphasis on gaining speed by going back to any of the first five levels to practice swimming at slightly higher speeds, while maintaining at least the same SL.

Quarter-Mile Countdown

Your goal is to make your swims longer without noticeably increasing the effort. A plateau on any level means it's time to go to the next one. All distances are in either yards or meters.

• 10 x 50

• 75-50-75-50-75-50-75-50

• 100-100-75-75-50-50-50

• 5 x 100

• 200-150-100-50

• 250-125-125

• 250-250

• 300-200

• 400-100

• 500

This training program could easily be expanded if you are preparing for a sprint-triathlon swim of up to one-half mile. You could adjust the distances to either 10 X100 or 20 X 50. For swims of more than one-half mile, you should use the following training program.

Training Program for a Long Triathlon Swim

Instinct tells many triathletes that the only way to get ready for a long swim is with sheer yardage and long swims. So they plod grimly through pool marathons. It's boring, sure, but at least you know that if you can keep your arms going long enough to finish, you've got a better chance in the race. But no amount of training can compensate for energy lost to inefficient stroking. For any swimmer whose skill level isn't
pretty high, generic volume-based workouts will do nothing more than imprint slow, inefficient swimming.

To maximize your potential in any triathlon with a swim of more than one-half mile, you have to be able to swim almost effortlessly. The opportunity to misspend heartbeats you'll need to bike for 25 to 112 miles and run anywhere from 5K to a marathon is astronomical. Considering how few of the total miles you'll cover in a triathlon are devoted to swimming, the watery leg often consumes an extravagant amount of the energy available for the whole race. Unless you swam on a very high competitive level in a former athletic life (think Sheila Taormina), your smartest goal on the sw
im leg is to exit the water with a low heart rate. And your swim training should be devoted almost exclusively to practicing economy.

The swimming leg — though it may seem long — is too short for a speedier swim, by itself, to make a significant difference in a race that will last anywhere from two and a half to twelve hours or more. In an Ironman, for example, if you pick up five or ten minutes by swimming harder, that effort can easily cost you an hour or more back on land. But gains in efficiency and economy may not only shave 10 to 30 minutes from your Ironman swim distance, but possibly also produce
substantial
time drops for the rest of the race, simply because you'll be much fresher entering the first transit
ion. We've received reports from many Total Immersion alums that this
is precisely
what happened to them in a race.

So your first goal is to gain the freedom to swim as easily as you wish — to be able to virtually float through the swim leg if you choose. The key is to train yourself to maintain a relaxed, low-drag, fluent stroke for distances that gradually increase to the length of the swim in your chosen race. Unless you're among the elites, swimming
speed
is simply not important. Swimming
ease
is the non-negotiable skill. Here's a program to get it, and then keep it as you gradually increase your training yardage. It's based on shorter-distance repeats, which I use as the "meat" of my own training for o
pen-water races at distances from 1 to 6 miles. This program assumes that you are training for an Ironman swim of 2.4 miles. If you are training for a half-Ironman swim of 1.2 miles, you could adjust the program by starting with, say, 10 X 100 and then, at weeks #5, 8, 10, 11, and 12, increase the
number of 100s by 2 instead of by 5. If you do this, you would be swimming 20 X100 in the final week. Similarly, if you are training for a swim of 1000 yards or meters, you could begin the program with 5 X 100 and, at weeks #5, 8, 10, 11, and 12, increase the number of 100s by 1, so that you are swimming 1000 yards in the final week.

1. Measure your efficiency. Start by doing a relaxed nonstop swim of 15 to 20 minutes (5 to 10 minutes or 10 to 15 minutes, respectively, if you are training for a swim of 1000 yards or a mile) to gauge your ability to swim at a steady pace with constant efficiency. Start about as slowly as you can go without it becoming a drill and see if you can sustain that pace (perhaps even pick it up a bit in the last minute or two) without working noticeably harder as laps go by. At the same time, count your spl at any time in the first 200. Recheck your count every 6 to 8 lengths. Can you m
aintain your stroke efficiency within 10% of your lowest count? (i.e., if your first count was 20, no subsequent lap exceeds 22.) If so, you're ready to begin some longer training swims.

2. Make flow and economy a habit. Don't worry about how far or fast for a while. Focus instead on "how right." Swim a regular main set (twice a week) of 15 x 100-yard repeats. Take about eight yoga breaths between repeats. Your sole focus on these repeats is to develop your instinct for fluent, relaxed, and controlled swimming. Using SSPs will help you develop focus — and prepare you for the race itself. Change your SSP after every one or two 100s (see pages 122-123 for SSP ideas). Practice will tell you if one or another SSP makes a noticeable difference in your stroke. If so, on race
day you can focus on that feeling. If you lose the feeling of ease, take a longer rest (more yoga breaths) and/or slow down.

3. Build distance, but maintain efficiency/economy. Next step is to start increasing your benchmark set, but to keep the focus on doing it as easily as possible. Do each set twice a week, following a prolonged warmup of drills and/or swimming with fistgloves®. Modify weekly according to the instructions to allow you to build toward the Ironman distance. Modify only one variable each week. All other variables remain as before.

Week 1. Swim 15 x 100. Keep using yoga breaths (6 to 8) as your interval. Choose a new SSP focal point after every one or two 100s. Maintain average stroke count at least 10% lower than on your initial test swim. (I.e., if you averaged 20 spl, aim for 18 on your 100s). Never breathe hard. Finish the set feeling as if you could easily keep going that way for another five or more 100s. (NOTE: If at any time your stroke count or sense of control starts to deteriorate, pause the set and do a recovery 50 of your favorite stroke drill.)

Week 2. Decrease rest by 1 breath.

Week 3. Pick up the pace slightly over the last 3 to 4 x 100.

Week 4. Decrease average spl by 1.

Week 5. Increase # of repeats to 20 x 100.

Week 6. Decrease rest by 1 breath.

Week 7. Pick up the pace slightly over the last 6 to 8 x 100.

Week 8. Increase # of repeats to 25 x 100.

Week 9. Decrease rest by 1 breath.

Week 10. Increase # of repeats to 30 x 100.

Week 11. Increase # of repeats to 35 x 100.

Week 12. Increase # of repeats to 40 x 100.

Don't view these guidelines as an all-or-nothing proposition. You don't fail the course if you can't stay precisely with the weekly schedule. They're intended more as a suggested model for a smart, systematic, progressive approach to set design by establishing a pattern of
effective
swimming — efficient stroke, consistent pace, low energy cost, moderate recovery between repeats — and train yourself to maintain that effective swimming pattern over progressively greater distances. This training format will do far more to reinforce the qualities that produce the BEST long-distance swim, t
he ability to swim economically at a target pace for a long time.