Triathletes should train as triathletes NOT swimmers!!

El Director · 13-11-2012 9:08pm #1

I was reading this and thought and it is an opinion that I am hearing/reading more often. Some here might find it interesting reading.

couerdelion · 13-11-2012 9:49pm

Good article El D.

It's something I think is pretty relevant for the vast majority of triathletes. No point doing endless laps of kicking with a board if when you race you hardly kick. Practice the pull using a pull buoy and get it as effecient as possible before you start to looking at the kick. Most swims in Ireland are wetsuit legal so you get that effect anyway when you 'suit up. I'd still advocate doing kick drills using fins as they'll help with ankle flexibility and allow you to get your feet out of the way and create less drag.

Not great for swimming pool triathlons though.

elvis jones · 13-11-2012 10:12pm

As a rubbish swimmer i can say the pull buoy has worked wonders for me.

griffin100 · 13-11-2012 10:30pm

I'll take an opposite view and say that since I've started doing kick drills my swimming has improved due to improved body position and strengthening of my legs.

BTH · 13-11-2012 10:48pm

ElD, does Ms Frederiksen know you're stalking her? More importantly, does your otherhalf know??

I know I need to kick more. I get told this regularly. Wetsuit will help my position on race day, but kicking will still make me faster. But endless kick drills are pointless. 2/300m as part of the warm up, yeah.

RacoonQueen · 14-11-2012 6:46am

High stroke rate. Providing you work on the catch under the water a higher stroke rate will suit you better than a lower stroke rate when it comes to triathlons and open water swimming. It will keep you stable and will not be so costly should you miss a stroke.

Is that not more energy sapping?

sconhome · 14-11-2012 9:20am

From what I've read about it and Swim Smooth give a lot of advice on this, the higher arm turnover allows you to cut through the unstable conditions of open water much easier and more efficiently that trying to manage you long poll stroke.

The push and pull of the waves on a long stroke means far more stop, starting and stalling in the swim stroke, needing more energy to bring you back up to speed each time.

High stroke count is more demanding on the aerobic capacity, so heart rate will be up but energy cost is down. More strokes, less effort.

tunney · 14-11-2012 10:21am

Cannot get around it - kicking is important. Body position and propulsion.

All great saying "but the wetsuit counteracts it"

Say you eventually want to do an IM.
IM Austria and Frankfurt could very well be non wetsuit and then your race is over (bad swim, chase bike, blow on run).

Say you wanted to go to Kona?

There was a bird who "swam" in westwood clontarf. Belted it up and down the fast lane thinking she was a great swimmer. Her arms went like 90, she dropped her elbows, had no body rotation. Basically was a horrific swimmer. However because she only ever swam with a snorklel she could huff and puff away and make do with not being able to swim.

Learn to kick, learn to swim.

miller82 · 14-11-2012 10:52am

tunney wrote: »

IM Austria could very well be non wetsuit

Less of this please...ignorance is bliss

peter kern · 14-11-2012 10:58am

as usual to this my reply is for some people powermeter work for some the are useles
for some kicking works for some its useless
same for poul buoy.

i have not read the article but she usually has good goast writers to write stuff for her.

Oryx · 14-11-2012 11:18am

Tunney is right, you can't depend on a wetsuit to get you around a swim. I learned that the hard way. I'm a crap swimmer (a bit like the one described above) but Ive been told again and again and again, that unless I learn proper kick, which goes along with proper rotation and everything else, I will never be more than mediocre. Yes, you train sport specific, but with a grounding of basic good technique. No point learning a catch suitable for ow if your whole basic stroke is off in the first place.

couerdelion · 14-11-2012 11:48am

The majority of triathletes in this country swim in Irish waters and only do Oly and Sprint Triathlons so can depend on being able to use a wetsuit as a buoyancy aid.

The number doing foreign IM's with a chance of it being non-wetsuit must be less than 5% and in that case then training should be specific and take into account that risk.

Kicking does can add speed, but I still think the majority would be better concentrating on developing a good pull before worrying about there kick - as long as it isn't adding drag. If you have a strong core then you can keep your legs up behind you without kicking. If your legs are still sinking then there could be something else wrong - is your head too high or are you looking too far forward.

I think Peter's right with his PM analogy - maybe it won't work for everyone and people need to train differently depending on what ability they have and what races they are targetting.

d4r3n · 14-11-2012 11:52am

This is an interesting one, no kicking, not overly concerned about technique (mentions it only for short course) and has mentioned plenty of times previous on twitter how swimming comes down purely to strength endurance.

tunney · 14-11-2012 11:53am

couerdelion wrote: »

The majority of triathletes in this country swim in Irish waters and only do Oly and Sprint Triathlons so can depend on being able to use a wetsuit as a buoyancy aid.

The number doing foreign IM's with a chance of it being non-wetsuit must be less than 5% and in that case then training should be specific and take into account that risk.

Kicking does can add speed, but I still think the majority would be better concentrating on developing a good pull before worrying about there kick - as long as it isn't adding drag. If you have a strong core then you can keep your legs up behind you without kicking. If your legs are still sinking then there could be something else wrong - is your head too high or are you looking too far forward.

I think Peter's right with his PM analogy - maybe it won't work for everyone and people need to train differently depending on what ability they have and what races they are targetting.

A logical extension* of "most people won't have to swim non wetsuit OW so why bother training without a buoyancy aid" could be said to be "Most peoples run times are in fact closer to walking, therefore triathletes shouldn't train for running, they should train for a brisk walk".

*Could also be a fallacy of extension argument

couerdelion · 14-11-2012 11:55am

tunney wrote: »

A logical extension* of "most people won't have to swim non wetsuit OW so why bother training without a buoyancy aid" could be said to be "Most peoples run times are in fact closer to walking, therefore triathletes shouldn't train for running, they should train for a brisk walk".

*Could also be a fallacy of extension argument

and isn't that why galloway brought out his marathon run/walk plan?

tunney · 14-11-2012 11:56am

couerdelion wrote: »

and isn't that why galloway brought out his marathon run/walk plan?

no, not at all

couerdelion · 14-11-2012 12:01pm

tunney wrote: »

no, not at all

No, and swimming concentrating on your pull isn't anything like only "triathletes should only train for a brisk walk" either

BennyMul · 14-11-2012 1:58pm

as to couerdelion, is there some confusion between training like a swimmer and learning to swim correctly

couerdelion · 14-11-2012 2:15pm

couerdelion wrote: »

No, and swimming concentrating on your pull isn't anything like only "triathletes should only train for a brisk walk" either

I was rushing for lunch when I wrote that so it was perhaps a bit flippant.

My understanding was that Galloways program gave a way of training for those who were going to run/walk anyway so introducing specifity into their training. Most triathletes might be slow runners but they are trying to get faster so walking wouldn't be a benefit. Most triathlets haven't got a fully functioning pull so can still get gains from this.

If I said I was going to do all my bike training on a spinning bike everyone would tell me it was a stupid idea as I wouldn't be using a spin bike to race on and I need to think about training specificty.

So why is it that if I think simulating race conditions by adding buoyancy it's suddenly ludicrous?

It's not like the triathlets training as triathletes is suddenly revolutionary. Sheila Taormina emphasises the idea in her book and as a former Olympic Triathlete and Swimmer I reckon she's got an objective point of view.

couerdelion · 14-11-2012 2:24pm

BennyMul wrote: »

as to couerdelion, is there some confusion between training like a swimmer and learning to swim correctly

But what is swimming correctly? Harry Wiltshire is a front of the pack swimmer (when he's not trying to take Gomez out), but he has terrible technique. His coaches tried to change it when he was at University and it made him slower. Do all swimmers swim exactly the same?

Johnny Weissmuller won 5 Olympic medals but if you were to read the book that he released you wouldn't recognise what he is trying to teach as being correct today. Swimming methods have changed and continue to. Even modern methods are disputed. Some people who could not learn to swim any other way swear by Total Immersion, other say it's snake oil.

But yes, training like a swimmer and learning to swim correctly are different things.

BennyMul · 14-11-2012 2:32pm

sorry I agree on what is a correct stroke, but I think we could all agree on whats not,

sconhome · 14-11-2012 3:02pm

Interesting topic.

As someone who swam by default, had to learn as part of school PE but never taught and forever since being 'self-coached' to an improving standard, I found the Total Imersion system to be a great way to strip it all down to basics and for me to learn again properly how to put a swim stroke together.

Now I'm reading and working through the Swim Smooth stuff as I think it applies more to what we are doing as opposed to the TI system which I think works best in the pool.

OW swimming has to be flexible as the conditions are as varied as the locations and as a triathlon swimmer you have to be adaptable to this change. A good OW swim technique looks ungainly in the pool but is effective in the OW and vice versa.

Specificity is the name of the game.

shotgunmcos · 14-11-2012 10:09pm

amphkingwest wrote: »

....

Now I'm reading and working through the Swim Smooth stuff as I think it applies more to what we are doing as opposed to the TI system which I think works best in the pool.
.

+1...

Basically, get faster in the pool and you will also get faster OW..
I'd agree main difference is higher cadence for OW

peter kern · 15-11-2012 9:05am

El Director wrote: »

I was reading this and thought and it is an opinion that I am hearing/reading more often. Some here might find it interesting reading.

while this link would be mostly correct it again dosnt work for everybody.

at the same time not many people would argue that he is not one of the top 5 guys in the world when it comes to swimming and triathlon.

at the same time 3 times Ironman winner jessica jacob does actually practise to walk aidstations for ironman and it would be considered a good way for most amateurs to do so especially for the many ironmans that cant drink from a cup ;-)

fionn_mac · 16-11-2012 4:11pm

for anyone who is interested in the kicking side of things

http://www.theraceclub.net/videos/secret-tip-legs-inertia/

are a good series of videos.

PS, don't necessarily agree with the op - grand you don't need to be training like a pool swimmer - endless kicking drills (probably done incorrectly anyway according to vid above) and perfecting Sun Yangs pool technique for OW triathlon but the top 10/20 out of the water would probably still using their kick in the race - first 50m sprint start, get to buoy first, stay on feet, keep steady rhythm etc and would be able change their stroke to suit the race/conditions from shorter quicker to longer smoother. You see triathletes in the pool with the pool buoy shoved up their arse for the whole session and still with poor body position (and still kicking which seems bizarre). That's not training working on your pull. its alleviating poor body position which the wetsuit also does to an extent.

is it worth spending the time on drills - sculling, kicking etc as opposed to hard tempo sessions X number of 100, 200s etc at threshold pace? probably not as the advantage is very quickly negated on the bike. but then again it might only be a few minutes time difference but you'd use a lot less energy.

anyway enough rambling

El Director · 19-11-2012 8:46pm

After posting the OP I thought I'd give my opinion on it. First of all I like MCOS's comment re get faster in the pool and that should ensure you get faster in OW. Simples. I know that when I started to take swimming a bit more seriously I was made do a lot and I mean A LOT of kicking. I have actually been told to tone the kicking down a bit and I came to this conclusion myself when I realised that my feet were coming way to far out of the water when I had a wetsuit on in OW. At the same time I feel kicking is important and the coach gives me just enough to maintain it, not over doing it but not forgetting it either. I feel it helps my balance and my timing when I do it properly .

So like most things - in moderation. I would never stop doing kicking drills, I would hate to think that someday in the future I am lining up for a 3.8k swim with no wetsuit and in my mind cursing the day I decided that I didn't need to have a decent kick to be a decent swim

Who know's...could even be the Big Island

peter kern · 21-11-2012 11:32am

just to add to the debate as it made me smile this morning our fastest kicker has the worst body balance ...... give him bands and he hits the gound of the pool our worst kicker no issus to keep legs up with bands.
nothing is black and white .....

littlemsfickle · 22-11-2012 7:50am

peter kern wrote: »

just to add to the debate as it made me smile this morning our fastest kicker has the worst body balance ...... give him bands and he hits the gound of the pool our worst kicker no issus to keep legs up with bands.
nothing is black and white .....

But which one is faster on full stroke?

peter kern · 22-11-2012 9:47am

in this case the no kicker was 20 sec faster in the 400m tt than the good kicker.

if you compare me with the good kicker he would beat my bt 20 sec over 50 meter i would beat him by about 4-5 sec over 50 meter freestyle and just above a min over 400 m
anyway this is not the point real what iam saying is that swimming is composed of 100 little details that form the endresult and you cant come to conclusions like you cant kick you cant swim an non ironman wetsuit race
its not so black and white.

since you ask for yourself I can guarantee you that your arm turnover is by far a bigger limiter than your kick to your overall time .

Oryx · 22-11-2012 10:16am

peter kern wrote: »

since you ask for yourself I can guarantee you that your arm turnover is by far a bigger limiter than your kick to your overall time .

Slower arm turnover is better I presume? Cos thats what I get told. Its more efficient and less tiring.

If this is a stupid question, kick me now.

interested · 22-11-2012 10:52am

Oryx wrote: »

Slower arm turnover is better I presume?

Thats one of the best questions in a while

Outside of triathlon there's a big move by a lot of coaches to look at this in terms of water movement by a swimmer.

imho, its all about finishing the stroke at the backend each and every time. Increasing the stroke rate to go faster can mean that some people shorten the stroke. Over 50 or 100 metres that might be okay (not ideal in my head but if we're talking the pointy end of 50/100 f/s swimmers then it is a big deal) ... over longer distances - not so much.

Appreciate the question wasn't directed at me and at PK so ... apologies. Just something Ive been looking at myself recently. For me I've seen strange things or an entirely different feel when in an empty or quiet pool because the water feels very different. But it could be all just my imagination.

peter kern · 22-11-2012 11:13am

Oryx wrote: »

Slower arm turnover is better I presume? Cos thats what I get told. Its more efficient and less tiring.

If this is a stupid question, kick me now.

read the big book you just got ;-) and report back next year ;-)

littlemsfickle · 22-11-2012 11:15am

Oryx wrote: »

Slower arm turnover is better I presume? Cos thats what I get told. Its more efficient and less tiring.

If this is a stupid question, kick me now.

I think for me he meant I should increase my rate of turnover. Everyone has their own style I guess but my understanding was that a faster turnover is better for OW swimming, while a longer stroke is more efficient in the pool.

peter kern · 22-11-2012 11:20am

studies do show that open water swimmer (open water no wetsuit) that win world titles have an turnover that is about 3- 5 strokes per min higher than pool world champs(in this case left entires more per minute) on average

anyway again their is 100 different ways to make a world champ.

interested wrote: »

Thats one of the best questions in a while
Outside of triathlon there's a big move by a lot of coaches to look at this in terms of water movement by a swimmer.

imho, its all about finishing the stroke at the backend each and every time. Increasing the stroke rate to go faster can mean that some people shorten the stroke. Over 50 or 100 metres that might be okay (not ideal in my head but if we're talking the pointy end of 50/100 f/s swimmers then it is a big deal) ... over longer distances - not so much.

Appreciate the question wasn't directed at me and at PK so ... apologies. Just something Ive been looking at myself recently. For me I've seen strange things or an entirely different feel when in an empty or quiet pool because the water feels very different. But it could be all just my imagination.

Oryx · 22-11-2012 11:28am

peter kern wrote: »

read the big book you just got ;-) and report back next year ;-)

Will take about a year, alright!

Huff n Puff · 23-11-2012 11:47am

d4r3n wrote: »

This is an interesting one, no kicking, not overly concerned about technique (mentions it only for short course) and has mentioned plenty of times previous on twitter how swimming comes down purely to strength endurance.

That is a very interesting article alright.

I would agree with a lot of it. Many triathletes think there is some magic formula to swimming and if they could just change one simple thing on their stroke then they will be world beaters. It doesn't work like that. Technique is important but there is also a huge amount of hard conditioning work needed to improve. Most people are just not willing / not able to put in the hard work that is needed.

Oryx · 23-11-2012 12:00pm

When I was swimming this morning the swim club were using the lanes alongside ours, these are all teens who have been swimming since childhood. As I was doing a side kicking drill, a swim club chap swam past me so I had an opportunity to watch his technique. He hardly kicked at all, but when he did it was a deep kick. His arm stroke had a very pronounced catch, but other than that it all looked relaxed and effortless. He just seemed to glide without doing much, and yet he was fairly moving on. My conclusion was that nothing beats years and years of working at it.

shotgunmcos · 23-11-2012 10:26pm

Oryx wrote: »

When I was swimming this morning the swim club were using the lanes alongside ours, these are all teens who have been swimming since childhood. As I was doing a side kicking drill, a swim club chap swam past me so I had an opportunity to watch his technique. He hardly kicked at all, but when he did it was a deep kick. His arm stroke had a very pronounced catch, but other than that it all looked relaxed and effortless. He just seemed to glide without doing much, and yet he was fairly moving on. My conclusion was that nothing beats years and years of working at it.

Interesting. I try to improve my stroke by watching the swimmers who are both moving fast and have a good stroke. The lead guy in our lane (sub 20 min 1.5k guy) looks the same: 2 beat powerful kick and a very pronounced catch. I guess the catch looks so pronounced because his grab of the water is solid and he levers his body passed that point. The catch is the fulcrum and the part the moves least. Most people are trying to move the water rather than moving themselves past the catch. Looks effortless alright but he told me himself that he is working damn hard. Its just all in the water while we waste effort in most elements of our stroke :rolleyes:

Triathletes should train as triathletes NOT swimmers!!

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