Effortless Swimming

In today’s episode, we catch up with professional triathlete Amelia Watkinson, who has achieved remarkable success in her career. With over 17 wins and numerous podium finishes, Amelia shares her secrets to consistency and staying at the top of her game. We dive into her favorite swim training sessions, and the best advice she’s received from her coach, and explore various topics related to training, racing, and the mental aspect of being an athlete. Amelia also opens up about overcoming challenges, managing pressure, and finding perspective in the sport. Whether you’re a swimmer or a triathlete, this episode is packed with valuable insights that can elevate your training, regardless of your skill level. So join us as we uncover what it takes to compete at the top level and apply those lessons to your own athletic journey.

Amelia’s Video

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That’s definitely in the sake we all make and I think the opportunity to get in the open water shouldn’t be overlooked and if you don’t have access to the open water then even just wearing your wetsuit in the pool a month out from a race even just to start getting used to it just for the first kilometer if it’s too hot and it just becomes you normalize the feeling of a wetsuit and being restricted on your chest people often say you know if you’re hurting everyone else is hurting more and you can remind yourself that it just keeps you pushing and evidence you know I’ve been as far down as 20th out of the water in some races and managed to work my way back up to fifth place so I know that in the back of my mind so that when something does go wrong or I’m having a bad day in one of the disciplines just to keep pushing through welcome to the effortless swimming podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water become a better swimmer

and live a better life here’s your host Brenton Ford Amelia Watkinson is a professional triathlete based in Queensland Australia I caught up with her last year to record some footage and see what she was doing when she was swimming how’s her technique what’s it look like and I posted some of that footage on our Instagram if you haven’t seen it you can jump into that or go to the show note so I’ll make sure I include it there now on today’s episode I wanted to ask Amelia about how she’s been able to be so consistent across the years as a triathlete she’s had more than 17 wins as a professional been on the podium 30 times and is consistently in the top five top 10 of the races that she’s doing and she’s been able to do that for several years that she’s been competing as a professional triathlete so on today’s episode I wanted to ask her about what her favorite types of swim training sessions are what the best advice is that she’s received from her

coach that she uses in training or in racing when things get tough and I also want to ask her about how she deals with the jet lag because she’s traveling all over the world in different time zones having to race within a day of landing and she’s able to do that across many races in the year so what are some of her tactics and strategies to help her deal with that so let’s jump into today’s episode whether you’re a swimmer or a triathlete I’m sure you’re going to get a lot from this episode and learn what it takes to compete at the top level and taking some of those lessons into your training whether you’re an amateur or you’re failing you to the sport before we jump into today’s episode if you’ve listened to this podcast more than once you’ll know that we run swimming camps around the world we’ve now got all of our 2020 four swim camps on the website and open for booking so we’ve got Galapagos in May

we have the Witsundays in June Maldives in September and then our Howe Week swim camp in Thailand in October now most of those camps only have a handful of spots left so I think they’ll book up in the next couple of weeks and if you do want to join us on any of those camps go to our website effortlessswimming.com and there’s a clinics and camps section there and if you have any questions just email us at support at effortlessswimming.com and we’ll reply to you very quickly now if you have wanted to come along to one of our camps and you want to have a great holiday in an amazing location while getting to swim twice a day or more and get to enjoy the sun get coaching underwater filming and analysis and just deep dive into your own swimming for five to seven days then these swimming camps are the way to do it. What I did this year for myself personally was I got a big 365 day calendar so I can see every single day just on the one sheet this post is about one and a half by one meters

and I wrote in all the trips that I wanted to take and I just booked out or blocked out those dates because I found if I get too far into the year where I might be in May or June and I haven’t just blocked out dates for the things I want to do then they don’t tend to to happen so I’ve just made it a priority for myself personally to set aside the time to take the trips or do the things do the challenges or the crazy exercise or fitness things that I’ve got planned I’ve set aside the time to do them by having this big one year calendar where I can see the whole year in advance and so I’ve got all of the camps obviously because I’m going to be there and then some of the other challenges and trips that I want to take personally as well and so I’ve found that by looking at that one year calendar and then just blocking out those dates then all the other stuff can fill out around it but if I don’t prioritize those key things that I want to achieve for the year they don’t tend to happen

so that’s why I did it at the start of this year so my point is if you are thinking about taking a trip make sure you prioritize yourself and you book in whatever trip it is whether it’s with us whether it’s somewhere else but make sure you make that a priority and take care of yourself because I know what it can be like because things tend to fill in if we don’t do that so let’s jump into today’s episode with Amelia Watkinson all right Amelia welcome to the podcast thanks very much so great to have you on you’re recently back from the Bahrain Half Ironman and from a holiday in Egypt so you’ve had a little bit of time off how long since you’ve had 12 days off training actually I’ve had a few the back end of this year not quite intentionally we had a little bit of time off in September after World Champs and then we sort of decided to pump up the back after the season again I also got COVID somewhere in the middle there but it’s all worked out and

I think that a week to 10 days you can sort of bounce back from reasonably quickly and given we’ve got the whole year under our belt like there’s a lot of racing a lot of fitness there you can work with that so yeah I’m glad it’s finished the year really well it was a great race in Bahrain it’s nice to have a satisfying race to finish the year with so it’s good good to be back yeah definitely and so you find that you respond pretty well to having some of those shorter breaks in between and you feel like you don’t burn out when you do that because like looking at your results over the last couple of years you’ve got great consistency with your race results so you feel like that’s a part of it I think there’s a lot of learning in it over the years a lot of my training breaks have such been due to sickness or injury and in some ways that doesn’t really count as a training break and if you don’t take the

break you often find yourself getting sick or injured so you’ve really got to be careful and listen to your body and your coach and take regular breaks I mean they’re not always plans but as I said you know the back end of the year it’s when you’ve got to be really careful so and talk to me about you what’s your swimming background did you swim much as a kid

actually I grew up in New Zealand where swimming is not quite to the same caliber of the Aussie kids who when they say they can swim they really mean they can swim they can probably do 20 21s on a 120 cycle so I think I did learn to swim but that was quite literally if you fell over about you would know how to swim and it probably wasn’t until I was about 16 17 where I decided I wanted to do triathlon and I really worked I needed to learn how to swim my first triathlon I was last out of the water 750 meters I think I was four minutes behind so I don’t want to do the calculation on how much that is 100 meters but I mean it’s to reel myself back in the game so I thought that if I could learn how to swim I could actually be okay at this point and what’s that journey been like for you with your with your swimming because you now sort of find yourself pretty like generally yeah sometimes front pack at least in that sort of second pack more times

than not so what’s been the process like over the last 10 years or so as year swimming has developed and improved yeah it’s certainly gone through waves I was fortunate to have a lot of people that tried to to help me you know as young guy was put in the I think it was the youth academy back as a under 19 and triathlon I didn’t have a pathway as a professional athlete in my mind but I still wanted to get the most out of myself and the time trial to make the the next squad above that was incredibly fast and I was nowhere near making it but I sort of joined a swim squad and went back to basics just to try and I had a lot to learn you know I couldn’t even I just actively remember I couldn’t kick on my side I just didn’t go anywhere I had no body position no floatation no self-awareness so we did a lot of work with fins and yeah really just being comfortable in the water because of that stage I think my association with the water

you know it was going out on family boat trips so friends boat trips where I’d get cold and sort of miserable experience so I needed to reacquaint myself with that is there any particular type of training that you feel works really well for you at the moment or like do you feel like what are those things that make you feel confident strong fit in the in the water do you feel like there’s there’s things that kind of stand out there yeah for me I’ve definitely been through trial and error on different different swim sessions and different environments I’ve certainly found the squad environment is really effective and there’s definitely a reason that most swimmers are put themselves in that environment there’s not many elite swimmers that don’t swim with a squad so for me it’s sort of I like to use the analogy that it just takes away some of the energy of motivation you know you sit your alarm you get to the pool

when you do what you’re told and it sort of takes out that unnecessary energy you need to build up it’s almost like a free session some days when you’re just following everybody around especially if it’s a good environment everyone’s putting a lot of effort everybody’s working their hardest so even if you’re not hitting the times that you want to

you’re still in there giving it your best and everyone has good days and bad days and I think you kind of build each other up and in that sort of scenario especially when swimming is so it’s such small times you know sometimes it’s just one second per hundred which we can get caught up on but it’s really quite small amount of time. That’s it’s a good way of putting it it does almost feel like a free session in a way when you’re training with a squad because I think about the the mental energy that’s required to do a hard session by myself and I find it quite difficult to do more than about 2k like maximum sort of 3k on my own in a hard session yet with a squad we can get through a solid four or five k and it just doesn’t feel like that much work especially mentally but physically as well you kind of get into that the flow of things really easily because you’ve got the other people around you looking at people

in the lane next to you and it just goes so much quicker so I think it can be a really helpful thing for for most people if they’ve got that got that opportunity I mean you submit some pretty quick swimmers up in Queensland where you are so that’s I mean you’d probably be chasing their their tail quite a bit right like there’s some some really good good swimmers in your squad. Yeah there’s some Olympians they aren’t in my lane definitely get that clear there are a few lanes up but there’s some really dedicated there’s some surf kids there’s a few other triathletes and a lot of swimmers especially that age group 15 to 17 that are really on the cusp of making certain teams they find their work ethic really inspiring especially when they’re having a bad day and they pull through you know and I think that’s part of it we all see each other doing that and

I really think that mental energy is super super valuable so we can take a little bit of that out of the equation just smart training. Yeah speaking of the mental aspect of it one of the things that you appear to be really good at from the from the outside is that you tend to finish really strong like you will run over the top of people and just be able to maintain and push the pace all the way through a race and quite often you’re running over the top of people towards the end is there anything that goes through your mind that you find helps you perform well is any mantras or anything along those lines that you’re thinking of when you’re racing.

Before we dive into the rest of today’s podcast episode this episode is proudly brought to you by Form Smart Swim Goggles they’ve been a long time sponsor of the podcast and they are my go-to goggles when it comes to tracking my training sessions and being able to see what’s happening in real time through the goggles and we know swimming is a highly technical sport but without the guidance of a coach on deck identifying and addressing technique flaws can be a challenge they’ve recently added a new feature to the goggles head coach and this addresses that problem head on it gives them as improved access to their technique awareness focus skill development and in-app education and analysis head coach provides real-time visual coaching via the form smart swim goggles augmented reality display during and after a swim head coach provides swimmers with technique feedback using two types of metrics form score and head coach

skills form score is a measurement of overall swim efficiency ranging from 0 to 100 defined by your pace and your stroke length head coach skills encompasses five key areas that will help you identify where to focus on improving with your efficiency head roll head pitch set pacing interval pacing and breathing time to neutral and after completing a session you can check back in on the form app to track your progress and head coach provides swimmers from beginner to expert with an unprecedented level of data-driven guidance and understanding enabling you to boost your performance and your speed get your pair of form smart swim goggles today click the link in our podcast description or use the code effortless 10 on checkout to get 10 off well yeah this year i’ve unfortunately had a few really shocking swims and one of my values i guess is differently you know it’s not over to it’s over and really not letting those

little things get to you you know you’ve just got to not not be a quitter you know keep on pushing through and in a triathlon is a great example of how that works you know you can be quite far down on the swim and it’s really easy to you know be just heart tense and let that get to you but it’s three disciplines everyone has their strengths and weaknesses and there’s a lot of dynamic with a race the non-drafting obviously makes the bike a huge component so uh i’m just really good at at keeping on going you never know where everybody else is at how they’re feeling people often say you know if you’re hurting everyone else is hurting more and you can remind yourself that it just keeps you pushing and evidence you know i’ve been as far down as 20th out of the water in some races and managed to work my way back up to fifth place so i know that in the back of my mind so that when something does go wrong or i’m having a bad day in one of the disciplines

just to keep pushing through even often you can feel average on the run for the first 2k and just like that completely switched so it’s not over to the line

and is there any advice from coaches or other people that has stuck with you over the years that that you’re kind of keeping your back pocket for when times get tough or just as a general good rule to follow for for life i guess on that similar theme was i’ve been talking with my coach david we sort of have shortened the analogy to to feel is not fact which comes on we we’re really in tune with our our bodies as athletes um right down from diet to how we’re to technique but sometimes that actually backfires on us we find ourselves overthinking the little things and sometimes we actually just need to let ourselves relax and just just do it and not overthink things so that comes into play both in training and race day you travel quite a bit for for racing is there anything that you’ve learned over the years that have that’s helped you deal with maybe time differences or just the the stress and the mental load that can come from from

traveling and having to pack up especially with so much equipment that you’ve got for a triathlon all the time you know what what are some of those things that you that you allows you to basically still race while even though you’re traveling all over the world

yeah sleep patterns and time zones definitely mess with you i think the best thing is just to have enough sleep no matter what so i often try and to be honest i prefer to land in the morning so pick my flights a little bit carefully so that i can then fill the day with building my bike getting a few training sessions in and then go to bed early but to try and adapt to the time zone i suppose it’s also around keeping your meals even but at the same time i think you don’t want to overthink the time zones you just want to get enough sleep because as long as you are getting to sleep you know you’ll stay stay healthy and then working it in with race days so if it’s a morning race then it’s in your best interest to to make sure you’re going to bed so that you can still get up for that race in the morning come race day and in terms of open water swimming is there is there any advice you’d give to age groupers amateur triathletes to help

them feel more comfortable because find one of the things when people first get into it is that they get comfortable in the pool but then it’s the open water that can be quite intimidating and daunting for them especially you think like look at some of the races from the noosa triathlon where conditions have been pretty rough the last few years and i know that’s up where you’re based and what what advice do you have for for some is to get more comfortable in the open water yeah that’s definitely in the sake we all make and i think the opportunity to get in the open water shouldn’t be overlooked and if you don’t have access to the open water then even just wearing your wetsuit in the pool because i think that no matter what brand wetsuit you’re wearing that’s a big impact on people is that it is a little bit more restrictive on your chest it feels different because we’re not wearing on a regular basis and it’s more restrictive on the

shoulders so if you can just get in your wetsuits in a month out from a race even just to start getting used to it again if you don’t have access to open water then in the pool just for the first kilometer if it’s too hot and it just becomes you normalize the feeling of a wetsuit and being restricted on your chest and if it’s not a wetsuit swim then i still like to wear the wetsuit because it sort of replicates the tight chest feeling that we get at the start of the race because it’s early our bodies aren’t quite awake yet we’re a little bit anxious surrounded by people on a start line and we have to get our heart rate straight up so anything that can sort of replicate that feeling is going to put us in good stead for the race because we’re used to it are there any lessons that you’ve learned with your your swimming or your swim leg of the race over the last couple of years that that comes to mind anything where

you have have evolved or changed over that time where you think oh maybe if i knew this earlier this would have been helpful five ten years ago i guess there’s two categories to that the first one would be the little things that maybe your weaknesses to do with the swim so for me cold water like a lot of athletes we’re a little bit leaner and we get cold easily so if you can prevent that happening it’s really hard to start fast when you’re cold so there’s things like having an emergency blanket down your top having a thermos of hot water so you can drink some and pour that down your wetsuit air plugs as well is the cold water in your ears makes you significantly colder so any of those little tricks actually make a surprisingly big difference to to helping and then secondly i guess it’s confidence in your swim and being able to stay calm so the swim sets you up for the whole race in a way so how you are on the start line you can you can kind of gauge your race a

little bit so yeah being being comfortable and confident in the start line i think makes a big difference and when you speak to to amateur triathletes about their training and and what they’re doing is there anything that comes to mind where you think if you would just do this i feel like you could get much better results is there any kind of themes that that come to mind there related to the swim or bike run just generally yeah any of the three legs well consistency is is not preached for no reason but in lee anything is better than nothing so a lot of people you know they’ve got they want either they have a training program and it’s got a half an hour jog in there they don’t have half an hour it’s still better to go for a 10 minute run than do nothing and i think ways to help people time manage that would be to sort of like create patterns so just get into the routine of you know get up have a banana for breakfast run and do your dream

like a 10 minute gym session straight after so you’re just stacking things so that you’re not wasting time with transitions and that’s the biggest problem people face i guess it’s time management and fitting it in but although i’m a professional athlete and training is my job most people they want to make time they can so the excuse of time is a little bit tricky

yeah it’s i like the the thought of stacking stacking things because often just that the time it takes to get prepared put your clothes on put your runners on get out the door you know that can be a good 15 20 minutes just gone there so if you’re able to stack those things together it helps helps a lot and then yeah just getting ready the night before like to swimming for example i’ll try and just pack my baby’s my towel put my bag next to the door so when i’m a little bit hazy in the morning i can pretty much just make coffee walk out the door and i don’t have to to think about it so just trying to be as prepared as as possible with with those things seems to make a a big difference and a lot of if you look at how much time you spend on your on your phone if you look at your screen time it’s like there’s and i’m so guilty of this but yeah like there’s there’s often times to do the things that we really want to do

if we uh yeah if we really want to find it screen time is a really scary statistic isn’t it i don’t even want to look at mine it’s as bad but yeah and and timer recording this it’s just before christmas so i think in the after we make new year’s resolutions and we kind of feel like we get a fresh start come january i’ve been thinking about what would it be like if i actually like turn my phone off for half a day at least you know just just to limit that that screen time so check back with me in a few weeks time we’ll see how i’m going but yeah that would be a nice thing to do i think just like mentally and just in terms of getting stuff done or even just getting outside and you know finding other things to do apart from just get back on the on the phone when i’m when i’m bored yeah yeah and accountability makes a massive thing too you’re a whole lot more likely to go for your ride or any training session if you’re

meeting someone else or a group to get there yeah that’s a another another great point that’s the benefit of a squad and then if you’ve got someone to to ride with as well do you normally do a lot of your running and riding solo or are you training with others to be honest i do most of it solo or sometimes just a few friends we sort of coordinate if we’ve got a similar session but yeah i guess that’s part of being a pro athlete is trying to get the the very most out of yourself and we all have slightly different sessions but certainly at this time of year when we’re doing a little bit more base training you can coordinate similar stuff much easily so it’s really good to to work with others as well is there a particular race memory that’s had a big impact on your career any sort of standouts races or things that have happened over the last 10 years

i suppose my first pro year was 2016 and they there was a triathlon team called tenupara pro triathlon team based out of puke in thailand and it was a six month contract where you moved over there and they housed and fed us and we raced the asian circuit which that year was about a dozen races around asia and that i guess was my founding year and my first real professional year that sort of set me up and there’s a lot of good experiences and i think i learned a lot from other athletes as well just about what it takes to be a pro athlete so that was a valuable year and sort of you know i felt i felt sort of risky moving over there but at the same time you could just go home if you didn’t want to so it was a good year

i think i remember seeing a lot of your results in that year because we first went to tenupara in 2015 from memory yeah we went there 2016 yeah up to 2019 and yeah pretty sure i remember just seeing you didn’t you win like most of those races that you that you did in that time yeah i had a really good swim bike i was managing a bit of an injury in my hip on the run so my race strategy was actually very different than what it is now it was basically swim to make front pack bike as hard as i possibly could and run you know to try and hold the lead make sure nobody caught me so it worked for me in that scenario but i also raced differently i suppose and i think it’s really important aspect actually when you’re starting out as an athlete is to sort of put yourself in an area where there’s not too much pressure you know so sometimes we find ourselves travelling to the other side of the world to race an a race but our flights have cost us four thousand dollars

our accommodation and another thousand dollars and we kind of put this self pressure that we need to make that money back and then make all the time worthwhile so putting yourself in this scenario and maybe you don’t have that self-imposed pressure i think also allows you to be more relaxed and race a little bit differently like with less to lose which sometimes you need when you’re starting out yeah is that something that you feel these days that that kind of pressure or not so much anymore like is that something more in the early days where you’ve got to put a fair bit of money into just getting to a race what’s it like these days do you feel like it’s not not so much the case or you still you still got that pressure now i think that we’re always our own harshest critics and we do put a lot of pressure on ourselves i guess now it’s sort of different we’re constantly validating you know we want to do our sponsors prouds our

families supporters coaches everyone proud who invests so much time in us that the pressure is still there so pressure is a privilege they say but we’ve got to manage it carefully

yeah yeah that’s right so would you say that pressure has changed for you over over time yeah it’s definitely still there but it comes from different avenues hmm and do you feel like has it ever got the best of you that pressure in a race yeah certainly i think it’s few sometimes i’ve fallen into the trap of allowing it to get the better of me so it’s important to take a step back every now and then and evaluate you know perspective of everything so yeah if we don’t want to get into those those if we if we’re going down that avenue of living it when you’re over as such then something needs to change how do you how do you find you go with that like it’s can feel like the weight of the world’s on your shoulders as a as a professional triathlete as a as a full-time athlete and is it do you find that you’re able to kind of take a step back and look at it and go actually this is this is a pretty cool job this is a pretty cool thing to be to be doing with my life

that how do you find you’re able to to you know to be grateful in those those times where you feel a lot of pressure yeah you do look quite literally sometimes somebody else needs to remind you from their perspective you know actually i was chatting to someone in the lounge on my trip i’ve just been on he was about 85 he sat down he looked absolutely exhausted from his travels so it started up conversation and he was quite interested in the fact that i was a professional athlete and he sort of reminded me you know how lucky i was that i got to travel the world doing something like that so sometimes it does need to come from somebody else or even you know hearing hearing other people’s problems as such watching the news you know there’s so many things that you just have to remind ourselves that it’s sport we’re delivering our absolute best to get the most of our out of ourselves to then be able to give

back but as long as we’re doing that it’s sort of successful and remind ourselves that it is a wave and we ride the highs and lows so i kind of like the quote something along the lines of you know there’s there’s mountains and valleys but it’s a whole lot more interesting than just being on the flat all the time so if we can have that we’re lucky absolutely and is there anything that’s got you particularly excited at the moment or something that you’re looking forward to in the next six to 12 months or further on from there yeah we’re still working out next year’s race season but i am going to have another crack at a full distance iron man and try and qualify for world champs this year was taken a little bit of time off the full distance as we kind of weren’t able to find the balance of staying healthy as such so i’m really excited to into that realm again and although i’ve done three full distance i feel like the race has

got the better of me in all three of them so i’m really excited i feel like i can accomplish that and i’m excited to be able to do it awesome and you were saying before the call that’s going to be on on original home turf over in new zealand so do you do you feel like you know the course pretty well do you feel like you’ve got an advantage at all with that being where you were born where you grew up yeah so i’m a new zealand sometimes you don’t like to i don’t know sometimes it feels like you’re jinxing it when you sign up for a race and announce it like that so i’m just touching wood yeah but yeah i’m a new zealand we decided that fits really well with the calendar because it’s summer here at the moment it’s a early early race so it’s a good opportunity to use the base season and that should help then go into the shorter distances in between because it’s going to be a long year next year with 70.3 word

champs also in taupo in new zealand but not until december so we can space out the year quite carefully that’ll be really good to be honest i have a bit of a love hate relationship with taupo but i think i’ve raced there a lot it’s often really cold and flat and windy but it’s at the same time i think it’s a small town it’s got a nice vibe to it i do know the area really well and i know what i’m up for so that puts me one step ahead and it would be really cool to win on home soil and if not just have the home home soil support and a good race there yeah well i wish you all the best for 2024 and it’s been great watching your results especially of late with winning melbourne second in Bahrain some excellent results to finish off the season so appreciate your jumping on the podcast especially a day after you get back from egypt but as you’re talking about with travel it’s just like just get back into your normal sleep sleep times

and everything so you you practice what you preach and i really appreciate you being on the podcast to share all those things that you’ve learned over the last couple of years as a pro triathlete yeah thank you very much back into it keep busy and i think it makes you tired enough at night to fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow so we’re going for that love it thanks amir yeah talk to you soon thanks very much brendan thanks for listening to the effortless swimming podcast if you’d like us to help you become a faster more efficient swimmer go to www.effortlesswimming.com

The post How To Perform When It Matters with Amelia Watkinson appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

Get ready to dive into the world of triathlon with our guest, Clayton Fettell, a former professional triathlete turned full-time coach. With 15 years of racing experience under his belt, Clayton has a wealth of knowledge to share. Join us as we explore the key lessons he learned at the pro level and how he passes them on to his athletes. Discover the traits and habits that lead to improved speed and technique, and gain insights into Clayton’s favorite training sets that he uses to help his athletes excel. Tune in now!

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Yeah, it’s such a key thing because the amount of times that I get emailed from people after clinics where it’s like I was practicing this for weeks often several months and Like nothing much was changing my times were the same and then I had this one session where it just clicked and I was five ten seconds faster Don’t think triathletes to be honest have a very good handle on the swimming pacing aspects Of the sport. They’re really dulled on the bike and they’re really dulled on the run But in terms of pacing I feel like they’re kind of just having to swim before the race starts sometimes Welcome to the effortless swimming podcast to show that helps swimmers and triathletes love the water become a better swimmer And live a better life. Here’s your host renton ford

Hello, and welcome to this week’s episode of the effortless swimming podcast My guest today is clayton fatale He raced at a professional level in triathlon for 15 years and he’s currently a full-time triathlon coach with coa sports Clayton, I go back about 10 years He actually featured in our first Art of triathlon swimming course. So I knew Clayton as a very good swimmer He was typically in the front pack and has always been very strong with his swim So he featured as one of the athletes in our art of triathlon swimming course and on this episode I asked Clayton What are some of the key lessons that he learned racing at a pro level that he finds himself passing on to the athletes that he coaches We also talk about the traits or habits that he sees in those athletes that do improve with their speed and their technique How hard should you go in a half or full distance ironman? And what are some of his favorite training sets?

His go-to favorite sets that he finds himself programming for the athletes that he works with So let’s jump into the episode with clayton fatale All right, clayton. Welcome to the podcast Thank you, mate. I’m actually very excited to be here. Maybe a little bit nervous I didn’t forget my computer this morning for everyone at home Because I put a bit of pressure on myself to perform for you today, mate Oh, well, it’s nice that you come ready to go and now there’s a few nerves there the funny Those that if you’re listening to this podcast that we met through a through a mutual friend and you’re actually in one of the first Courses that I recorded the art of triathlon swimming. So it was you and another professional triathlete anabelle luxford Featured in this course and we ended up using the footage of you swimming For our in our clinics for probably six or seven years So you’re our example swimmer because you’ve got a great stroke. I don’t know if you still do

Yeah, I’m sure you still do But yeah, we we use the footage of you swimming for for many many years just before we replaced you with an olympian But you weren’t far off it. Is that right? Who was the olympian? Kia melton. She trains up under Dean Boxle up in brisbane. Yeah in hindsight I should have probably asked for a royalty not the $14 that you you pay me I was 15 but it was great to show your stroke and I when I was looking at that footage like it was fairly early on in effortless swimming days and Just looking at what you did in the stroke and great catch good rotation great connection all those sorts of things It was helpful for me to to kind of look at that and study it and then try and pass it on to under swimmers and I wanted to sort of jump into the the podcast and just talk about What were some of the highlights from your pro racing career? You did it for about 15 years What were some of those key highlights for you?

Yeah, so obviously I did come from a swimming background. I came from a water poloed slash open water swimming background. So I guess I guess one of the highlights was figuring out a way to transition from that and into being a triathlete The challenge of being a been a water poloed player Is I’m quite a big guy. I always have been quite a bigger person. So To then go and race guys that are half my weight half my size was quite difficult to begin with It obviously played into my hands at the start of the race in the water But and even on the bike like you look at guys like Craig Walton for the You know the abitriath on fans at home that would actually know who he is He’s like a 85 to 90 kilo monster Now those guys don’t really exist then and it’s a draft legal event and the non drafting side of things Which existed in the stage states, which was a two-hour event is now, you know, four to eight hours

70.3 an Ironman event. So I I guess I guess the highlight for me highlights for me to start with it was actually transitioning to a sport that I loved And and the transition wasn’t quick like it took me a few years In fact, it took it took a good solid 10 years for me to be able to piece together the swim the bike and the run To be a well-rounded triathlete now compared to the athletes today They are so well-rounded. There is not a single weakness amongst the athletes up the top And if I look back at my career Majority offers did have have our strengths and weaknesses like if I was to line up against myself I’ve made that I just have to keep me in touch and then outrun me at the end of the event And the same can be said about the runners whereas now There is no weakness because these guys that we race against they’ve literally come from triathlon from the age of Five and six years old and have done no other sport leading into their professional career

And that is why we’re seeing guys win events that say 23 24 on the big stage in Ironman. So highlights on top of What I’ve gone there with transitioning to being an athlete was Just literally being able to race professionally and get paid to do something for 10 years that I love And the same can be said about my coaching now like the transition out of racing pro into coaching I feel quite hard But once I let go of that whole training I have to go training aspect and I can go on exercise for fun I really nestled into into coaching and I’m to be honest, mate I’m having more fun coaching now than what I did as an athlete which really shocks me What do you think that is? I always got told when I was younger that I’ll be a better coach than athlete And I found that a little bit disheartening when when your coach is telling you that and you know It’s like being a young teenager even through like your early 20s to even late 20s

If my coach said that to me now I’d think yeah, you’re right. But It was it was difficult because I still saw myself as a guy that was going to win 15 olympics and a couple of coners and I was I was going to do everything. I was invincible that once I started to get into Life away from triathlon. I had my first kid just after 30 nixon and That was when I had to start managing life away from professional racing And that was where I got a little bit more of a handle or a really hard reality check on what life is all about And that was when I started to appreciate appreciate age group triathletes And I said it recently but to be a really competitive age group triathlete Your life needs to be so in sync with so many other things versus the pro triathlete That would literally train and play playstation and eat healthy So I think in terms of being a coach it’s more complex and I get to work with more people

And it’s not just about me and when I was an athlete I loved that it was all about me But I’ve certainly shifted into a probably a more mature point in my life layer Unseen all walks of life with coaching athletes all around the world and I get to work with so many different cultures and I had learned from my athletes and every single day I learned from my athletes In fact, every time I come on a podcast like this I usually regurgitate things that my athletes have given me And I almost feel like it’s it’s plagiarism. I’ve stolen it off my athletes. Do you think that Making that transition from it being all about me to it being about about the athletes Do you feel like some of that has come from becoming apparent because I think of The transition that I’ve had since having kids it’s like I see things very differently now and I And I can see that like I I don’t come first anymore. I come second and so I’m much more

Interested and invested in Other people now as a result of it. That’s it’s kind of what I’ve felt over the last seven years or so Yeah, I I agree with that and like I said, it was it was a harsh slap in the face because I want to say a harsh slap in the face. It was a five-year slap in the face My transition out of being a professional athlete Personally, I really struggled. I fell into a Almost called a depressive state I was really quite low in my mood for a long period of time And there’s a lot of anxiety about who am I what am I going to do? I didn’t think I’ll go through that but It was only earlier this year I was sitting in Italy with my wife and I wasn’t even thinking about triathlon and that was that was one of those pivotal pivotal moments in my life where I realized I had made the transition It was it was nice because I’d been Basically trying to go against the grain for the five years prior to that and

It was like, okay I’ve let go of that now moving into the next chapter and Since I’ve accepted that I’m not a professional triathlete My coaching has begun begun to flourish. My performance as a coach is is much much better I’m much more present with my athletes But more importantly as a husband and a dad I’m actually there for my kids Whereas the last five years If I was a fly on the wall, I’d hate to see how I was performing at home

Is that something that you felt At the time like you knew deep down like okay. I’m not I feel like I could be much better at home Or is that something that you’ve just realized in the last 12 months? I wasn’t I wasn’t aware of how How vacant I was that I was literally just I don’t really love the same in your head, but I was like I was just I was just in my head and I didn’t really know What to do or how to do it. I was getting I was torn between am I a coach or am I a professional athlete? And I knew I was one or the other and I hadn’t I kind of hadn’t let go of that I’m a professional athlete like I’d I’d literally wanted to be nothing but a professional sportsman You know since I was 10 years old and that’s all I cared about. I went through school I didn’t I didn’t try at school as soon as I finished school I went straight over to europe and raced as a professional athlete in germany and in a team and I stayed on the road for 10 years in europe and then I

I then migrated across to the u.s. And and had a five-year long-course career based out of bold colorado and I was living the dream and Don’t get me wrong as an anxious person there were ebbs and flows all throughout my career And there were periods where motivation was super low But the transition as an anxious guy is hard and that was the first major transition I’ve had to make in my life and in terms of life transitions now It’s something i’m interested in and it’s something that i’m

It’s hard. It’s funny because i’m actually grateful I went through it because I can see it in my own athletes and it’s all the I look back on my career and all all the all the bad periods I had in my career Like you know, I only had like five six major major wins You know, but I’d go on race 30 40 times a year. So you get really good at losing but As hard as all of those losses were I’m now such an experience coach Because of every single one of those losses and I see an athlete now like an up-and-coming pro I work with a few up-and-coming pros and they have a bad race And I have to remember that I always liked that once and that’s really hard because I remember a really Bill Daveron who’s a trough on Australia had coached before Beijing he goes But I you need to put an old head on young shoulders But you know piss off. Yeah I’m smart. I’m experienced. I’m going to win Beijing Olympics blah blah blah, but as you know, mate like

We you can study as much as you want But in terms of being a good coach for me anyway, I’m sure you probably agree It’s just reflecting or or actually experiencing things that were that comfortable at the time

And it’s it can be hard to Convey that to the athletes and give your knowledge your experience To them sometimes they just have to go through it sometimes they have to go through that bad race and feel those feelings be frustrated be pissed off And there’s nothing that you can say that’s going to help them change that Except it’s how you can then help them get back up from it But it does it does make a difference having been through those experiences and I was saying this on a podcast recently where when I look back it’s those times in my life that were The hardest that are at the time were very uncomfortable And you know at the time we’re not not great, but coming out of that some of the best things Have have happened for me. So it’s at a time. It’s hard to accept it But in hindsight I’m so glad all of those things happened So it’s if it is and I try and remind myself when I’m going through a challenging time

And like this will that something positive will come out of it, but it is hard to accept that at the time You can’t say the other end of the tunnel. I guess the turning point is when you surrender If we your hands up in your surrender, it’s like hit me And then you realize nothing actually happens And then that’s when you can start moving forwards with it and and you said it except in the situation you’re in and my situation was I was getting pulled in multiple directions and I’m an all-in personality. So if I’m all in being a professional triathlete, there’s nothing else in the world We’ll talk about it before I need to be all in on on what I’m doing with coaching It’s like you have to you have to have boundaries and to to be the best coach You have to say no to a lot of things so you can prioritize what really matters And that for me and also view is is being the best coach you can be

It’s it’s good to see I’m lost your competitive spirit though You put out the challenge on instagram The other week we’re planning to go head to head in February in nusa, you know one k-race that makes me nervous, you know because I

Your you were faster. I think is a like for your 400 freestyle time was like what four minutes or something Hey, let’s I only need to just wind it back a bit. So who was the the the short to middle distance freestyler Well that can say classify yourself But I think the fastest 400 I did was Maybe 412 long course. That was probably my best 400 Yeah, yeah Yeah, somewhere somewhere there, mate. So 404 Okay, so

I better get training anyway, but I haven’t been training my face barely fits on this screen. So I’ve got What have I got I got two two months two months till nusa We’re gonna have a red v blue showdown at nusa beach come on down Bring it on Uh now in terms of like you you coach swimmers in person outside of your triathletes that you’re coaching What do you see in terms of the traits and the habits of those people that progress and improving their swimming? So in terms of just my pool like just a pool swim up Either or whether it’s pool swimmers triathletes just general traits or habits that you see for those people that they do improve over time because you do have swimmers that or and triathletes that Stay at a plateau. They’re stuck. They never never improve and then you do have swimmers that do make these incremental gains Over years. So is there anything that stands out to you or comes to mind with that?

Yeah, I think I think the best type of athlete are the ones that improve the modes to quite receptive and And I think I think the the communication point from me as a coach to the athlete is the most important part so When I first started coaching as a professional I just assumed that everybody had the same assume knowledge that I did as a coach and and with a 15 year swimming background so I found that I was overloading my swimmers with too much information and I’d see them push off the wall and They’re almost in this frozen state where they weren’t digesting anything I said so the gateway between Coach and athlete for me got really really simple and I’ve had to draw that right back to one or two areas to focus on and and to me that’s I like as a coach I usually go straight to body position first and foremost And then I’ll work on the the arms and the legs I find I find if the body position is stable enough and you can perform drills like rotation or swordfish or

or six kick switch effectively The arms and the legs can be then used for forward propulsion and With the triathletes I coach I find going back to that really really basic step-by-step approach to be quite effective Even your swimmers like I worked with Michael sage up at koana a few years ago And he was coaching quite a few Australian open water swimmers and and some really good open national swimmers as well so Or various strokes and a lot of their sessions is all about set up so they’ll set themselves up And and when you break down the traits of those that were affected the swimmers that were successful and the swimmers that weren’t They placed heavy heavy emphasis on setting themselves up to perform their main stretch sets. Well, whereas I don’t need to categorize too much But the clubby athletes that I predominantly took care of Their technical focus on their swimming just wasn’t there They’ll jump in they’ll just see the drills is warming up and waiting for the main set

To break that down even further They waited for the last effort and the person that won the last effort was the king So that that mentality and surf is still there. I love it I love going and watching surf club athletes But the best swimmers are the best triathletes are really quite receptive and and they’re open to learn new skills And they’re prepared to go right back to the basics. So like an olympic like Chelsea Gubak I worked with The the amount of time she spent on her set up This is a girl that can swim 10 k’s with nasal breathing at 110, you know, like She would go back and spend an hour just setting her stroke up well and do all these various stroke rate changes Body position drills like stuff that she learned as a 10 year old girl But she plays so much emphasis on it because then when she got to her main set She swam and performed that so much better So I think that’s a trait as an athlete if if you can or if you do have that trait as a person or an athlete

To to look at a swim set more as more than just a main set You’re more inclined to be successful and try athletes again without categorizing too much like clubbies I’ve done it as well as an when I was an athlete would go to the pool Would jump in would do 100 meters 200 meters put the pool boy paddles on without a band Kick our way through 10 200s on whatever Warm down 3k tick done session stuff. Don’t have to swim for two days sweet So with with the swimmers or the triathletes I’ll work with now I especially triathletes I I have to really install into them the Triathlon is a three sports sport. They have to if you want to run well You have to swim a bike well. In fact, if you want to run well, there’s more emphasis on the swim in the bike than the run So that’s a really hard thing to get across especially And as an age group athlete that hasn’t come from a swimming background That their desire to swim is really quite low

Yeah, they don’t So many people don’t love it and why would you love something you can’t do that doesn’t feel good initially because you haven’t got that rhythm and that flow But it’s it’s something that can absolutely Change as you start to see that improvement and progression and you start to feel like you can swim well too And I think when you know what you need to work on to get better. That’s also very Motivating because then you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. You can actually see what you could become with it and I think it is so right with in terms of the drills and setting up where A lot of swimmers are just they they want to get the workout in Understandably they might be they might have 45 minutes or an hour before work And they just want to get that They they want to get that bars of having the workout done and just getting through it But swimming is just such a technical sport that if you were to spend even if it was like I say to swimmers

if you do two to 400 meters of drill swim work in your warm-up that’s specific and highly focused And you do that every session Six 12 months down the track you’re going to see the results of it even though you might not see it straight away But it’s just it’s just such an important time Within the workout to set yourself up whether it’s getting you your catch right getting your body position right but it’s just so easy to skip skip over it and Even like elites high level swimmers that I’ve worked with They’re still focusing on those simple things like head position and I had kyle charms on the podcast and he was saying On his non-breathing side He’s got to remind himself to rotate that little bit more because he tends to be a bit too flat Like this is the fastest guy of 100 meters in the world and it’s like He’s still thinking about this stuff. So if you as an adult learner Aren’t thinking about it. Well, like you just you’re just not going to improve if you don’t do it

Yeah, I completely agree there And it’s it’s funny because charm has probably had coaches in his ear as a 15 year old boy Kyle you’re flat. Kyle you’re flat. Kyle you’re flat And you’re for the same mate like I can rattle off five different coaches I’ve worked with but I’ve told me different things along the way like Dennis Dennis cultural is like Clayton. There’s no continuity. There’s no continuity And it took me took me probably a year to figure out what that word actually meant when I finally googled it But jat jr used to just some of jr a little bit with with nix flamer and noosa and You know jr used to just do these signals with his hands. I’m like, what does that mean? Hey, you do these kicking things like I’m like, yeah, I get I’ve got to kick But you do these hands kick kick kick and I’d come he’s like Clayton. Don’t waste your kick. You’re wasting your kicks And those things have stuck with me to the point where now I’m not a competitive athlete

But I’ll go and swim and I remember Dennis continuity Don’t waste your kick and they’re the things I’ve been said that I recognize first in the athletes Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, you see you whatever you need to Work on yourself. You see it in in the athletes. I I find that if I’ve Done filming recently. So we did this filming like wetsuit versus non wetsuit. How much faster is it? I was watching back that footage because I didn’t see myself swim for a while And I could see again my head’s too too low. I’m sort of Bobbing up and down a bit my left hand catch isn’t very Effective and I was pushing back too far. So my recovery was a little bit wide and wide and flat So Next the next week when I was analyzing the swimmers that I’m working with I could spot that I could spot that in quite a few of them Whereas previously, you know, I hadn’t probably noticed it as much. So you really start to It’s like when you’re getting your car, you just see that car everywhere

Hey, I’ve got a question. How much quicker was the wetsuit? For the testing you did. Yeah, for me, it was well six percent quicker. So I was Did it turn to me to test? I went 212 with the wetsuit. I went no 213 Went 205 with the wetsuit and then a 201 drafting behind Sam Shepard. So Yeah, it was six percent quicker But then there was a guy who I know in melbourne. He was actually 10 percent quicker So he was like a two What’d he do maybe a 230 240 without it and then he was here ever much quicker and I guess like The slower you are the worse your body position the faster that wetsuit is going to be for you Yeah, yeah, well, I mean the thing with triathlon is you wear a wetsuit and You swim hard, of course, but it also helps you control your heart rate a little bit better It’s like using pull by paddle. So The you know the fastest the rates that we just I just got back from western australia It was a wetsuit swim and the swim times weren’t fast, but australian records fell because

Basically you’ve performed 45 to 50 minutes of swimming assisted You’re getting out in a better position than if you’ve gone and swam 45 to 50 minutes in the ocean without a wetsuit and It always it always blows my mind in triathlon. In fact, it frustrates me How compromised the swimming actually is like it, you know an Ironman event We used to spend 45 minutes in the water four to four and a half hours on the bike and then get off and run three hours for a marathon and I remember I remember doing this one race in Lubbock in texas And it was boiling hot like it must have been 40 degrees and the lake was filthy And I was like, thank god. It’s going to be a non wetsuit. So as a swimmer I wanted fresh water lake nor wetsuits. I targeted this event And I watched the race referee go out with a thermometer Like I was sweet. They’re going to grab a temperature They went to the middle of the lake and they literally tied this bungee cord to this thermometer

Through it to the bottom of the lake Pulled it back up but out cut off is like, I think it was 21 9 or something Anyway, they pulled they pulled the thermometer off. You wouldn’t believe it 21 8 wetsuit swim So I had a terrible race. I remember driving straight back across to colorado I didn’t say a word to candle but that the swimming component of triathlon I would wish it would change but I can’t see it changing because The sport ironman is a business and naturally they’re trying to attract numbers and the general population don’t swim well Hmm. Yeah, and I guess the the upside to to that as a triathlete is if you can get your swim to a good spot You can set yourself up really well for the rest of the race And I know it’s something that’s very frustrating for the majority of of people But there are things that you can do to You know to to work on it and I like what you were saying about get the body position right first

And then then you can work on the other things But I can’t remember who I heard it from but there was a coach who said you should swim from the Inside out so you’ve got to basically keep your core. Keep your hips. You got to keep this controlled If this is like a wet noodle in the middle Nothing’s going to to be able to connect up and so if we start with head body Just get the body position sorted then you can start to to go from there and even like Sometimes 70 80% of the people who who attend our clinics Their head positions too far forwards or even even too deep like that simple basic thing that everyone can get right Even that alone is like often people are getting it wrong and me as well like I was too deep when I go fast I put my head too deep and it wasn’t until I saw myself filmed and I looked at my form goggles data as well Where it shows you the head pitch and that was it’s just too low So like even these simple basic things that people think they’ve got sorted are often not

Not there. Yeah, I’m hearing you and And you need to be constantly reminded like I tell all the guys I work with all my athletes and like Swimming is not like bike around like if you want to get good on the bike You go and sit on the bike and you ride the thing you want to get good at running You go and perform running a lot without getting injured. That’s a rabbit hole in itself. We’re swimming It’s it’s not as forceful. It’s not as it’s not as powerful like you can you know You and I could jump in this one car and still get beaten by one of jr’s 14 year old girls up at noosa We probably will and and that’s because it comes so much so much back to a technically heavy sport And I think if if you’re new to the sport If you’re not putting a heavy emphasis on being technically decent enough swimmer as a triathlete Yeah, you’re missing the whole you’re missing the whole sport itself as a swimmer and You know, like I think it’s like, you know, you have a physio. You have a masseuse

You almost have to dissect your swimming to a point where it’s like Have your technical aspect train the technical aspect and then have your other stuff have like the cardio effect of swimming And I don’t think a lot of triathletes. In fact, I’ll say 90 plus percent of the triathletes around the world don’t do that and I I it’s hard for me to do it But you know, like just I’m an online provider I get to see my athletes sort of sort of quarterly or at an event here or there But I love I literally just send guys to see you so You’ve seen you’ve seen a few of my athletes and it’s you know Giving them homework to take home work on it and then readdress it, you know, three six months down the track I think is really important and and if swimmers or triathletes rather are looking to improve their their swimming More so improve their overall triathlon performance You need to go right back to the start and technically learn how to do something

They’re there’s such a heavy skill set component in swimming that the bike and run don’t have and triathletes need to see that because The the the general triathlete is quite tight one and they think more harder faster is better But swimming is not you’re not rewarded with with that. So My advice to people at home that do want to be better triathletes start with swimming properly Technically swimming properly and then look to add to that Hmm. Yeah, I completely agree and there’s always obviously there’s the fitness element to it if you’re brand new to it it takes it takes a little bit to get the Muscularly and and cardio wise as well just to get the the reps in so that you’re not completely Gas, of course, there’s that element to it But as you said, it’s such a technical thing that get like just focus on that first and if you can persist with

The foot your focus for several months and not be worried about seeing the results of that focus for several months Yeah, that is such a key thing because the amount of times that I get emailed from people after clinics where it’s like I was practicing this for weeks often several months and Like nothing much was changing my times were the same and then I had this one session where it just clicked and I was 5 10 seconds faster like it It happens all the time where you feel like this all this work you’re putting in all this attention that you’re giving to your stroke Isn’t paying off straight away Well, you’re not wasting your time like it just it just takes time to develop that that muscle memory and The way that you swim right now is just that muscle memory that you’ve got and so for us to make some changes to it Well, we’ve just got to be Consistent and frequent with those with those changes and do those things in in your warm-up to set yourself up

So it’s yeah, I agree and it’s I think for triathletes mate. It’s It’s more so than not being afraid to put themselves in the deep end so to speak that And actually take it like it’s quite overwhelming for trial like triathletes don’t like swimming I’ve got a lot of athletes that are actually scared of swimming in the open water So why would they go and technically look at how they swim? It’s almost easier just to neglect that component of the sport and I think if you look at a lot of triathletes They tend to spend too much time looking at how the best athletes in the world swim And what we need to realize is you have to be real with what you’re trying to achieve from the sport And to be a really good triathlete You technically don’t need to be great But you need to figure out a way to be efficient and to get to that point You need to work with a professional or you need to have somebody overlooking what you’re doing

With your stroke and make those subtle changes like That’s something i’m really aware of is when I start technically giving out advice to swimmers that don’t have a swimming background Is I just like I said earlier. I just simplify it so much to the point It’s just one thing to work on and you know like The head for example the heaviest part of your body and in the water If you can change your head position There is a domino effect down the chain where other things will improve So if I can get a swimmer who’s not receptive to change just to keep that space in the water That’s a win and then two weeks later. I’ll try and add something So if you talk about being a slow process It really is like to make change. I think like the how the tool changes 28 days they say so And you see that with fatigue swimmers like it, you know, like we all revert back to to what we’ve always known But to try and sort of plant those new techniques into our swimming. It’s a real step by step

And it’s something you do need to revisit. So You know like jake for example one of my boys who came and saw you like two weeks ago It’s like, all right, let’s make he gave him changes to make Revisit again in six months time see what you’ve done make sure you do your home If you’re going to spend the money and take the time out of your life to make those changes I think it needs to be sort of a consistent part of what you’re trying to achieve as an as an athlete

Before we dive into the rest of today’s podcast episode This episode is proudly brought to you by form smart swim goggles They’ve been a long time sponsor of the podcast and they are my go-to goggles when it comes to tracking my training sessions And being able to see what’s happening in real time through the goggles And we know swimming is a highly technical sport But without the guidance of a coach on deck identifying and addressing technique flaws can be a challenge They’ve recently added a new feature to the goggles head coach and this addresses that problem head on It gives them as improved access to their technique awareness focus skill development and in-app education and analysis Head coach provides real-time visual coaching via the form smart swim goggles augmented reality display During and after a swim head coach provides swimmers with technique feedback using two types of metrics form score and head coach skills

form score is a measurement of overall swim efficiency ranging from zero to 100 Defined by your pace and your stroke length head coach skills encompasses five key areas That will help you identify where to focus on improving with your efficiency head roll head pitch Set pacing interval pacing and breathing time to neutral and after completing a session You can check back in on the form app to track your progress and head coach provides swimmers from beginner to expert With an unprecedented level of data-driven guidance and understanding Enabling you to boost your performance and your speed get your pair of form smart swim goggles today Click the link in our podcast description or use the code effortless on check out to get 15 off your form smart swim goggles absolutely and What I recommend for People who come along to our clinics is if you can get effortless 10 on check out to get 10 off or form smart swim goggles

absolutely, and What I recommend for People who come along to our clinics is if you can get another video in three months time four months time That’s that’s a good amount of time or even like everyone’s got a phone and there’s a good chance a friend Or a colleague could just film you at the pool just to check in on how those things are going because There is a big disconnect from what we think we’re doing to what we’re actually doing And the video doesn’t lie and when I saw that footage of me two weeks ago I’m like all right like this is and I I compared it to sam shepard who is who I was drafting off and he’s he just missed out on the olympic team in the 10 or 25 k event like very very good swimmer And I could see just how much more water he was holding on his his left hand sides and here I am thinking like I’m I’m actually doing pretty well with it But there was a big big gap there and so I think you need that visual

Feedback to really take it on board and then to understand what you need to change it It’s quite difficult to change otherwise you can still do it Like I have people who might just follow along with like our eight week course and they’ll improve People can absolutely do it But there’s nothing better than just seeing yourself swim and In I’d say in most cases there’s no excuse to not getting footage I know some pools are very strict about it, but sometimes you can just be sneaky and get some footage and you know Find a way to do it. I ask I always ask my athletes to send footage and The athletes all around the world and some of the footage is always pretty fun to watch There’s some shock in footage. I’ve got footage of fingers all over the phone But yeah, see and again, like you said people have never seen themselves swim I ask them can you please go and just do 50 meters easy the easy then whatever they’re training for the 50 meters of that perceived effort

and I’ll get a long message from then saying I can actually see what I’m doing wrong already Before I even propose anything So then it makes my job easier I come back and say well as you can see your head position is right and coming back the head position The most basic thing as a triathlete It’s so easy to look for a can and then not playing your head back flat into the water I see a lot of a lot of athletes be included I’ll just you know, skin my eyes under the water let my legs drag So just a simple cue reset reset looked site reset look reset and Bust wasn’t on the weekend. It was a really good swim course because we had a We’ve got to remember which way the wind goes on shore over there we had a we had a westerly onshore wind at busso and We had to assume that the athletes had to swim into the chop And then turn around and swim with the with the chop behind them So I was almost like a down window and the three days leading in

We didn’t do much training other than technically learning how to swim teach my athletes how to swim into the chop and For me to teach that I had to go out and practice it and remember what works best because I’ll swim behind guys like chai hers and just watch them plow through chops like they’re in the pool If that’s again coming back to learn and experiences I learned how to swim in the chop by that guy destroying me at a bar and base swim 15 years ago. I was like wow his face is so deep in the water His stroke rates completely chased into the chop and I remember cutting back Where we had to cut back from out wide and then we had we had the chop behind us and the way that he kind of Zigzagged through the ocean and chased runners That was something I learned and then I’ve taken that board now i’m teaching my athletes how to do it so it’s it’s amazing how you how your curriculum is is pieced together, but

Yeah, having having the opportunity to sit behind someone like chai and seeing somebody like that In in in their natural habitat was was pretty cool. It’s such a an amazing skill to see in practice like watching watching sam shepard when he Raced peer to par against mac horton. So olympic gold medalist in the 400 free So max max a faster swimmer than sam but sam was just able to draft off him for 95% of the way and then he just Came over the top quarter wave and beadman peer to pub, which is our our local race down here in melbourne and It’s it’s just all comes down to those skills I I imagined someone listening to this is going. What did you what did you tell them about swimming into the shop? How should you change your stroke compared to when you’re going with it? What what are some of those things that you’d advise them to do? Yeah, so again, of course like depending on the angle of the job So for us it was more of like a like a head cross job

So on the way out so swimming into the job I just told my guys to To rate up so rain up a little bit Not not too much because you get to a point where you’ve moved beyond your sweet spot And you’re sitting at threshold and you don’t want to spend too much time at threshold where you’re lactating In a 10 hour event So basically it’s like subtly increase your rate keep your face in the water if you do have feet to follow Put trust in the person in front and follow those feet Obviously you’re going to look to the cans when siding those cans I just told my guys to do it on the top of the peak So instead of lifting your head up when you’re down in the trough and just see in the chop in front or the feet in front Time it like get your timing right like without sounding too barren bay Be a little bit in touch with the ocean because the guys that are the best at swimming in the ocean Really are in touch with their surroundings in into the chop as well like

This this was actually interesting for me like I played around with my head position into the chop over there and I had to go really quite deep with my head To plough through the waves So the reason I do that or the reason I prescribe that is so you’re not swimming up and over every single chop Versus swimming through the chop through the chop is a lot faster than up and over every single wave And and the distance that you’re going to swim by going up and over every single chop Is far greater than going through the waves So having the ability to stroke through the waves technically it is hard But it is again something that you do need to practice when you do turn around It’s a little bit a little bit more of the fun time turn around The the chop behind like I said, it’s like a down window where you’re chasing bumps So to speak it wasn’t quite powerful enough for that But that’s where I got my athletes just to bring their feet into play

The feet kind of becomes the the motor the legs the kick rather and You can slow your rate down a little bit something With that downwind section That’s like, you know, I and the way that the race went over there It was very much, you know headwind tailwind head with tailing So it was, you know on the bike It’s like make yourself as small as possible when you go into the headwind when you go to tailwind You can relax your body position a little bit and push a heavier gear To get a really nice speed for less power with that with that swimming into the chop one thing I did find interesting and I played around with I don’t know if you’ve played around with is I almost went to like an anchor or like a three quarter catch up on the way out And I found that provided pretty nice stability In terms of having an arm out and an arm out in front and the semi body surfing that hand in front Uh on the way back. It wasn’t so much. It was just right up when I felt a chop kick when I felt a chop

So The only like I said, the only way to get good at doing this stuff is to put yourself in pretty horrid conditions And learn how to do it Yeah, when I was training for right next to a couple years back every wednesday we’d go out and do our our longer swim just out at half moon bay in melbourne and We had some great days super flat and we had some days that were felt like we’re out in the surf And you the more you do it you you just tend to figure out what works And then you don’t have to think about this stuff too much And it just comes comes naturally and and being in tune with the ocean like you were saying And there’s no There’s no shortcuts to it. You’ve just got to get that experience you can Practice a little bit in the pool if you get to you know draft off people swim in a pack But it’s just it’s not the same So you do need that that experience and I know it’s hard for some people depending on where they live

They’re not near a body of water. Yeah, that’s open water But yeah, if you can if you can try and replicate it as much as possible It’s it helps a lot and if you’ve got something like it like a team like you guys have gotten You can go and practice that stuff Before a race It’s a huge advantage and they’re even just in the confidence of them going out there They’re going all right Well, I know it’s going to be this headwind and then this towel wind I know Two or three key things that I’ve got to focus on like that Sometimes that’s all you need to provide as a coach It’s like you don’t need to over instruct them on what to do It’s like just give them what give them the things that are going to give them the confidence Going out there and and that knowledge they feel like will Will help take them to where they need to be with it. So I think that’s right Yeah, it was it was good fun and like us like, you know, I’ve very much gone boots on ground

But to relearn as a coach like you just said earlier with refilming yourself I think we need to put ourselves as coaches back in the water sometimes Yeah, yeah If I’m swimming regularly, I learn a lot from just My own my own swimming and then that plays a part in the coaching I want to go back to one thing that you’re talking about in terms of effort level in the swim So say for a half a full distance. I mean as a professional triathlete What sort of effort would you be putting in to the to the swim? What would be the maximum that you’d want to be Working at in terms of perceived effort maybe Yeah, so I go off I go off a percentage and I know what those percentages feel like I guess in swimming terms they talk a 1 a 2 a 3 In triathlon terms we talk percentage of threshold The thing that has shifted over the years of threshold is it used to be A one hour threshold now everything is a an ftp. It’s a functional threshold threshold test

So it’s it’s a 20 minute best effort So to go off my one hour threshold for for an Olympic distance, for example I’d go 96 to 100 percent of my threshold Okay, so then I’d drop up a god kick up to the half Ironman I’d go 92 to 96 percent of my threshold and then my Olympic distance I’d go 86 to 92 percent of that threshold number So that’s that’s more so threshold threshold heart rate I find obviously the nature of racing in the open water You can’t really go threshold pace and on on the day It’s very much threshold in terms of perceived effort because the the thing with swimming versus the bike and run is We don’t have the devices to tell us Exactly where to sit you can have your heart rate strap. I do find that Yeah, you’re not really going to be in a position to be looking at your high rate in the water. So I know I know what that feels like in terms of sweet spotting it my athletes You know, they they should as well in terms of setting yourself up and getting a really good gauge of

Of what percentage you’re swimming at something sagey used to do is you know I spoke about technically setting yourself up, but then you’d set your paces up So every single set three 100 percent a one a two a three So basically you’re testing, you know the the the aerobic capacity like you might go from You know 65 up to 80 percent for example and For me that would look like a 116 114 112 and I used to try and get that pace as dull as I could You know and now I’d get the pace back and I used to try and get it to the second And you know, it’s like you come from a swimming background You can almost get your stroke rate and the time without anyone even telling you know what it feels like But I think I think that’s something really good to include in your swimming as well because It does give you a bit of a gauge of where you’re at on each given day. So It’s nice. I always use it like I’m like, I’m not warm up

Do you do your technical focus and then you’ll activate with a bit of speed or or do a pace check Like the three 100s I spoke about grabbed your heart rate if there is that heart rate suppression It’s like hey I’m carrying a little bit of fatigue today or if there is that, you know Elevated heart rate for what your normal 112 is a cycle and maybe carrying a bit of sickness To the extent where that may even if it’s if it’s out of proportion, you know Like 10 beats away from where you’re normally sit that may even dictate what your scent looks like So something I’m trying to train into my triathletes is that don’t have that background as a swimmer You know, we spent 15 years as swimmers, mate Like we’ve looked at a pace clock every almost every single 50 100 150 200 We had someone telling us our rates So we were educated from such a young age of what it feels like to swim a 115 to the point where I’m sure you’ll probably agree

I used to dictate it just by it, you know a two-beat four-beat six six-beat kick And that’s one of the biggest changes I’ve seen in swimming at the top level Is the whole two four six-beat kick doesn’t really exist anymore And when I get in the pool and start doing a two-beat kick I feel really quite old and I see the younger guys looking at me like, oh look Here’s one of those old guys that does the two-beat kicks Just like the way I used to watch the old guys pull their toads up really high with no goggles to one of those belly flop dives remember those It’s been the belly flop dive. So Yeah, in in terms of it’s like getting back to the pacing of your swim You do want to have a little bit of an idea of perceived effort because the other two disciplines in triathlon Like the bike very much goes off power and high rate and the run almost goes solely off pace I do suggest high rate though on those other two disciplines because

On the bike, for example 200 watts in melbourne Isn’t the same high rate, you know, isn’t the same high rate for 200 watts in say cans where the humidity is in behind So you see that a lot where guys will come out of melbourne, you know They’re going race Ironman cans and they’re like, I don’t know what happened. I averaged 200 watts So yeah, your high rate was 40 beats higher in cans and you did no heat adaptation Or the same we said you’ve swum in soup up at Port Douglas They make you wear a wetsuit because they’re worried about your again He’s the only you know being stung by even like crocodile or whatever So, you know, you have to you have to train for what what what you’re you know, you have to target specific events and train Specifically for what you’re trying to achieve And I don’t think triathletes to be honest have a very good handle on the swimming pace in us Of the sport. They’re really dulled on the bike and they’re really dulled on the run

But in terms of pacing I feel like they’re kind of just having to swim before the race starts sometimes

Yeah, that’s an another difference with with swimming is that like If you the perceived effort is such a such a big one because you don’t have that feedback in a race And if you can start to become really in tune with how you’re feeling Then it’s going to help you long term. So Like I I recommend to people at least like once a week do a swim Without your garment without your form goggles like just do something where you have to Use this the pace clock on the wall and just go by feel and you you’ll probably become much more aware of of what’s happening and how you’re feeling and You know, you’ll be coming in tune with it bear I mean, I feel like I don’t really I would rarely ever swim with with the garment I’d use my form goggles in a in a couple of sessions because I just for the pace feedback But if I’m if I do use a garment, I just feel distracted from everything and I find I don’t I don’t swim as as well

So I think it’s good just to get rid of some of the tech and just some soons without it Yeah, I mean yeah, it probably makes us feel old Yeah, I remember having coaches make mistake go wrist watch off the wall growing up You want to land the swim in a watch Versus now I’ll see my athletes jump in the water with a With a device I’ll have to have the garment on they have a wood on the other side Then a then a heart rate strap on their temple under the goggles with their form goggles as well so There’s there’s a fair bit going on and I think it can be paralysis by analysis and if If you’re so like going back to what we’ll speak about earlier There’s too much emphasis on Just cardio training in triathlon and with the swimming component You need to dissect that further and put more emphasis on just technically performing the sport Well and no device is going to help you to do that I think a form goggles really great where you can get your immediate feedback in terms of a stroke rate

Or or a lap time if you are to go to the pool on your own That’s that’s that’s beneficial But if you’re trying to perform drills prescribed by a professional Do you need to know what your heart rate is? Definitely not. Do you need all these things on your wrist? Definitely not. In fact, I’ll say get rid of them Get back to the roots get back to the real basics of the sport because there’s five six seven year old kids learning without heart rate straps And without music in there is it’s like we live in this this world where we’re just Fluttered with information too much information and to get good at something you need to simplify and Grant jiles is my old coach He you know and being the anxious guy that I am and I was as an athlete He used to send me up to you know high attitude places where I couldn’t take a phone for Four weeks and months and he’s like don’t get on your phone. Don’t get on twitter

I’m like, all right. So I remember going up to a thread though one year I wasn’t fit when I went up there. I had three or four weeks up there for iron I got super fit in the three or four weeks and then I came down for long 70.3 and I thought off I’m gonna get smashed. Anyway, I’m too tired. I’ve done this attitude. I’ve come down too late Which now I know actually makes sense and I ended up winning the race and that wasn’t my fitness level It was just the level of calm that I was in when I raced and I was so relaxed and that came from Just I guess I guess taking a step back from from information and That that to me is such an important part of the sport and sometimes it’s nice to go for a ride Let’s go for a run and go naked so to speak and just get back to the fundamentals of why we’re doing this sport and try and Move away from the the whole achievement side of things and the irony is You’re probably performed better anyway. So

Forget about the people who are looking at how you train on Strava. I forget about You know getting home and getting kudos because it means nothing. You you don’t get kudos on race day Like yeah, yeah, I’ll clap and I’ll yell at you but I couldn’t care less like In terms of people that train well They’re best that they’re the best the best guys do it alone and you look at the best professional athletes in the world They’re not sharing too much information or if they aren’t sharing information There’s holes in it which leaves hacks like me at home or coaches like me at home Looking further into that prep to try to figure out what the hell they’re doing so I can then Potentially take it with a grain of salt and salt and move it onto my athletes So with we’re swimming sure and you know and it’s if you’re a non-sumer One thing non-sumer struggle with is being relaxed in the water So by by kind of getting rid of that one thing where you’re like my heart rate needs to be 160

It’s like no, no, you need to have a have a stable body position. That’s it

I was that looking a couple weeks ago. I was I jumped onto Strava and Looked to see if I could find Lucy Charles data on the swim from Kona and of course it wasn’t there And she’s posted like two sessions in the last six months like there’s nothing there Because I was yeah, I was keen just to see some of the data from there Which she she didn’t post but I was in in Brisbane yesterday actually and I had an hour to kill before I was coaching and It was been a long time since I’ve swum in the morning in a public pool where there’s kind of limited lane space And I was like, all right, I’m not going to set a session because it’s just it’s too busy I’m just going to go in there and just roll the arms over and I ended up swimming for for the full hour Doing some 25 some 50s just some some skills a few sprints And I didn’t want to get out because it was just I was enjoying the water just being in there Having no agenda, but just you know just kind of getting into the groove of it

And I think if you can if you can do that and just appreciate swimming for what it is like it’s when you just forget everything else Forget the times you’re doing and just enjoy moving up and down through the water to me It’s obviously very meditative And it’s it’s a great feeling that I think when we put when we too forceful on on the things that we want to try and achieve Then we don’t tend to enjoy it as much and I find that So many things in life are like that the more you try and force it The the less they tend to happen if you can set your sight and then just Enjoy the process relax along the way for me That’s when things have things have happened whether it be with my own swimming With with effort with swimming all those sorts of things like yeah, if I don’t try and force it too much They tend to tend to come Yeah, I agree and it’s the same with running mate. Like I always get my athletes to look at how the canyons run

They’re not they’re not thinking about much. They’re running completely free. It’s almost like What’s that almost they they run without even a technical focus at all. They technically don’t run You know I guess in the western world perfect. In fact, they they run quite messy. They’ve a lot of them pronate quite hard But you have a look at it the way they are running. They’re like children in a playground and the You know how like abriso lesi is one of the greatest runners of all time He’s still run like he’s he’s retired now that he won the 10 000 at the sydney olympics He came over. I should have known this the canyon runner Anyway, he won the 10 000 and he was literally You know, he used to run to school Holding his books in his arm and he’s still to to this day as an olympic champion runs with one arm Like he’s still holding the books He hasn’t he hasn’t changed that but he’s the best runner in the world

I can I can imagine there’s a lot of bio mechs that would love to get their hands on the way that he runs But the thing is He hasn’t let it, you know confidence compromise. He’s running career It’s just a part of who he is and and the reality is he runs so so freely that there’s no care. There’s no force There’s no way that guy runs with too many devices either. I’ve seen those guys run and You know, they they all what I do love is they run as groups It’s like, you know, like kip chogi apparently has never run on his own He runs in his groups and and someone like chogi like You know, the guy’s worth millions of dollars. He’s the greatest marathon runner of all time And he literally lives in these communities where, you know, they take turns cooking They take turns cleaning the bathrooms. It’s a really really sort of monastic way of living And I think there’s something about that for triathletes and and

I mean just people like just to try and pull back Get back to the fundamental roots of what we’re supposed to be doing here and care a little bit less so to speak Because I know I used to race of guys It was like they didn’t have a care in the world And I used they used to beat me like what am I doing or I’m training twice as much as they are But the reality was it was so forced and there was so much pressure put on myself from within You know, I thought there was external pressure now a bit older I realized that that was just me putting that pressure on upon myself again And the guys that don’t care if they win or lose or the guys that can can can move beyond that Are the ones that generally win the racing and Getting back to swimming being meditative the best swim is in the world if you watch a really good swimmer You know in the water They’re not really think technically thinking too much about what they’re doing. They’re always in that flow state

I see i’m borrowing again. They’re very flowy in the water They have nice distance per stroke rotation is almost immaculate and the way that they’ve gotten there Is by just you know add in these little tips to their arsenal along the way And it becomes almost an unconscious practice where you if you dive in And you just know the basic fundamentals to help you be a good swimmer And I think that’s the biggest thing is if you want to be a good swimmer It’s going to be completely different to the person in the lane next to you like for me to be a good swimmer I can’t technically be trained the same as you and that’s something that I really Emphasize in terms of being a being an individual coaching provider is Try and look beyond the generic programming Especially in terms of technically technically swimming because there’s no way you’re performing the same as as the guy next to you It’s like we all know about our own little things that we do wrong and right and

And you need to identify what those areas are and you pick up those couple of things and that’s That’s part of this whole practice We spoke about and become in a good swimmer and you will get if you keep practicing that you’re in you’re out You will get to a point where it is effortless Oh There it is Hey, what a what a way to end

It’s I’ll serve on your shirt. So I’ve got to say

I’ve got I pull that joke way too many times in the clinics that we run That’s thank god. It’s like you’re most you know, most of new swimmers. So I can I can keep using it Well, that’ll be like a swimming video mate. That that’s now your slogan Yeah Well that clay I was but it’s been great to catch up because it’s actually been a couple years since we’ve caught up I think it was probably 2019 maybe maybe 2020 actually that we got to catch up up in the lullaby We had a swim. We had a swim. Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. So I think that was Yeah, maybe early 2020 or 2019 so yeah Yeah, you’re a bit you’re a little bit flat on your rotation there mate. I think that’s a I think I do remember you. Yeah piece me up a little bit there. So I’ll still and I’ll still enough like that, mate

Well, it’s been been great to catch up and thanks so much for being on the on the podcast I’ll absolutely get you back on again and be good to catch up in person Hopefully soon and and it’s been fantastic. So for those that are that are listening Where’s the best place to get in touch with you? Well, I’m a bit of a I call myself a swim flancer now No, I’m a triathlon coach at coach Clayton for tell. I am a full-time coach at color sports triathlon coach But I do I do coach individual sports as well Fantastic. Well, mate. Thanks again. We’ll put all those links in the show notes Get in touch with clado if you’re looking for triathlon coaching if you’re up in Lenox at all You can visit him there. So it’s been great. Thank you very much. Thank you, mate It’s been fun Thanks for listening to the effortless swimming podcast If you’d like us to help you become a faster more efficient swimmer go to www.eff

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Ready to level up your swimming game this year? In this episode, we’re letting loose a treasure trove of ideas that will make your swimming better than ever before. Whether you’ve been swimming for a long time or are just starting out. Tune in now!

This podcast is brought to you by NanoClear — our own range of anti-fog swim goggles, designed by Effortless Swimming with the anti-fog treatment bonded into the lens itself (not sprayed on, so it doesn’t wear off after a few swims). Check out the NanoClear range here and use code PODCAST15 for 15% off.

That kind of mindset, I think helps a lot when it comes to improving as a swimmer, whereas if you’re looking long term, to me, that’s going to make you do the things that will help you develop as a swimmer over the course of 12 months, 24 months longer than that. And that’s what I’ve seen with the athletes that I work with who have had the most success. Welcome to the effortless swimming podcast to show that helps swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford.

Hi, Brenton here. Welcome to episode number 314 of the effortless swimming podcast. I wanted to start off our very first episode for the year with a few ideas that will help you take your swimming to the next level over the course of the next 12 months. The first idea is infinite versus finite games. This is an idea I got from Simon Sinek in one of his books where he talks about finite games are games that have a clearly defined set of rules and players and an endpoint. They’re games that you can win. Something like talking, swimming, training for an Ironman. You’ve got the date, you’ve got the distance and you know what time you’re going for and you’ve got that clearly defined set of rules. That is an example of a finite game. Infinite games on the other hand are things that you can’t win. There’s no defined endpoint. They’re ongoing, they’re adaptable and the aim is for perseverance and improvement rather than that clearly defined endpoint.

So you can’t win at marriage. The aim is to stay married. You can’t win at business. The aim is to stay in business and you can’t win at health. The aim is to stay healthy for the course of your life. Now, I think certainly in swimming, you do need those finite games where you might be targeting a race. But if you have the approach of swimming being an infinite game, a game that you can’t win, the aim is to be able to continue swimming. To me, that’s not only a user word healthier approach to it, but I think it allows you to have that mindset where you’re willing to enjoy the process a lot more and you’re not looking to force things too much. And that kind of mindset, I think, helps a lot when it comes to improving as a swimmer. Whereas if you’re looking long term, to me, that’s going to make you do the things that will help you develop as a swimmer over the course of 12 months, 24 months, longer than that.

And that’s what I’ve seen with the athletes that I work with who have had the most success. They’re ones that have been willing to think long term and looking at swimming as an infinite game is a great way to be able to do it. And when I think back to what I’m doing with my swimming, I firstly don’t want to get injured. I don’t want to do anything that’s going to stop me from swimming. And a couple of years ago, I came off my mountain bike and I couldn’t swim for about two months or three months. I couldn’t surf either. And so the two things that I love to do the most I wasn’t able to do. So I’ve hardly spent any time on the mountain bike ever since. Because it stopped me from doing those things that I love. So it made me change the decisions that I was making, the things that I was I was doing. So now I look as at swimming as that infinite game that I just want to be able to continue doing it. And part of that, too, is just making sure that I’m strong enough that I don’t get injured.

So I’ve been going to the gym consistently two to three times a week for the last 18 months now. And that’s made a huge difference to to just not getting injured through my shoulders back. Those sorts of things, places where occasionally things can come up. The second idea is the concept of play. And a couple of years ago in the podcast, I spoke about the concept of play and how you can incorporate that into your swimming for more enjoyment. And when we’re thinking of swimming as something that’s fun, playful, it’s much to improve. I heard it a quote. I can’t remember it exactly, but it’s something about you want to be sincere in your actions, but not overly serious. So if you think about playing a game of cards with a friend, you want them to be sincere in their approach where they’re playing it. They want to win, but they’re not overly serious. It’s not much fun if they’re super serious and and not enjoying it.

You know, that’s not much of a game to to play. So the same thing applies when you’re approaching your swimming. You want to be sincere in your actions, but not overly serious with it. And you think about any training buddies that you might train with. It’s the ones that are sincere, but not serious, that are good. They’re good fun to be around. So when you do that, you treat those activities. You treat your swimming as something that’s enjoyable rather than a burden. And let’s say I’m in a bad mood and I’m looking at all these things I’ve got to do. If I’m thinking about how serious it is about I have to get all these things done. Then I don’t often do them and I don’t do them with the same sort of joy. But if I just look at it and go, all right, I’ve got to get these things done. This is great that I have the opportunity to do these things. Then they tend to get done quicker and I’m in a much better mindset when I’m doing them.

So I think looking at swimming as it’s something that can be very fun, can be playful with it and you’re sincere in your approach, but not taking things too seriously. I think that helps a lot when it comes to improving your swimming. And I’ve mentioned it many times on the podcast and it’s just about in terms of going fast, you’ve got to stay relaxed. You can’t tense up and fight the water. And when you’re looking at swimming from that concept of play, that’s a great way to stay relaxed as you’re doing it. The third idea is a concept I got from the book Die with Zero. And if you haven’t read the book or heard of it, the summary of it is that if we look at things, let’s just say in terms of financial, we tend to save all of our money and spend most of it in the very last few years of our life. And if we look at most people, they tend to spend the majority of their wealth that they’ve accumulated in the last two to three weeks of their life,

just looking to prolong it for another few weeks or another few months. And the author makes the case that we’re better off spending more of our money in the years when we can use it more, when we can use it better. So 30s, 40s, 50s and even 60s. When you’re physically more able to do more things, you’re able to travel more. That’s a better time to spend more of your wealth, because as you get older, you tend to spend your money a bit less because there’s less things that you’ll do. And I think of my Nan, who’s 93. So she’s not going to travel overseas. She’s not going to even traveling interstate. She’s just more limited with the things that she’s able to do. So can’t spend as much money as she’s gotten older. So what that’s meant for me, what I’ve thought about there is that, OK, financially, I’m probably better off spending money on experiences now when I’m younger. And part of that is we’ve got this Galapagos swim trip

that we’re running in May. And this is a place that takes me a day and a half to get to from Australia. And it’s something that about 10 years ago, I saw that this is a place that we could go and run a swim camp. And the opportunity arose where I thought, OK, we can actually run a swim camp here. But let’s just book it. Let’s just organize this trip and go because this is something that we there’s probably going to happen once in my lifetime. And if I don’t do it now, when am I going to do it? So just looking to bring forward some of those experiences and things that maybe that I’ve thought of and had put off and just bringing them forwards and doing them now. And while it might cost a bit of money to do, it’s like, well, yeah, I’m probably not going to do it when I’m in my 70s. So just bringing those experiences forward. So to me, that book made a good point of not only the financial side of things in terms of when to spend your money.

But the other part of it, too, is just similar to what I talked about in idea number one with infinite versus finite games. It’s about your health as well. So when it comes to having a good life, it’s when we get injured, when we get sick and we can’t do things, then there’s very little quality of life. So you’re better off investing your time and your money in the things that will help that will keep you healthy through your later years in life. So for me, that was making sure I’m doing the strength work required, the mobility work, doing the physical stuff as well with swimming and running, so doing the aerobic work as well. But then also just in terms of treatment. So I hurt my ankle running the other day. So immediately I went and saw the physio. He just said, all right, rest it for the next two to three weeks and see how it pulls up. And whereas typically I would just continue to run on it, wouldn’t get it treated, wouldn’t get it looked at.

And I’d find myself three months down the track where I can’t run for three months. So just investing time and money into the physical and health things. That’s a good investment of money and time. So the book Diver Zero, some really good concepts and ideas that before actually listening to the full book, I would have disagreed with the concept. But there’s a few things that I’ve started to adjust in my life just based on what this book presents. So I think it’s a good one to read. Before we dive into the rest of today’s podcast episode, this episode is proudly brought to you by Form Smart Swim Goggles. They’ve been a long time sponsor of the podcast and they are my go-to goggles when it comes to tracking my training sessions and being able to see what’s happening in real time through the goggles. And we know swimming is a highly technical sport, but without the guidance of a coach on deck, identifying and addressing technique flaws can be a challenge.

They’ve recently added a new feature to the goggles, Head Coach. And this addresses that problem head on. It gives them as improved access to their technique awareness, focus skill development and in-app education and analysis. Head Coach provides real time visual coaching via the Form Smart Swim Goggles augmented reality display. During and after a swim, Head Coach provides swimmers with technique feedback using two types of metrics. Form Score and Head Coach Skills. Form Score is a measurement of overall swim efficiency ranging from zero to 100, defined by your pace and your stroke length. Head Coach Skills encompasses five key areas that will help you identify where to focus on improving with your efficiency. Head roll, head pitch, set pacing, interval pacing and breathing time to neutral. And after completing a session, you can check back in on the Form App to track your progress. And Head Coach provides swimmers from beginner to expert

with an unprecedented level of data-driven guidance and understanding, enabling you to boost your performance and your speed. Get your pair of Form Smart Swim Goggles today. Click the link in our podcast description or use the code Effortless on Checkout to get 15% off your Form Smart Swim Goggles. The fourth point is to look for what’s missing. And we we did an episode on this a little while ago where I mentioned being completely honest about where you’re at with things where I was looking at my at my strength and did some strength tests, realized I was in the lower percentages of strength in a few different tests that we were doing at the gym that I go to. And initially, yeah, I’m going through my head, all right, what? Well, OK, that can’t be right, because I’m not in the bottom 20% of strength for this exercise. But basically, that’s what the data was saying. And I just had to be upfront with it. And then I was able to adapt and start to work on that.

And that’s starting to increase with these certain strength tests that they’re doing at the gym that I go to. Same thing was for when I used the swim better devices. I looked at my catch on my left hand side. Propulsion was low 20s, when ideally it should be 50, 60 to 70% somewhere in that sort of range. So just being looking for what’s missing in my stroke, in my training and making adjustments for it. And there’s probably one or two things in your own swimming that you might that might be lingering in the back of your mind. And you’re thinking, yeah, OK, this is something that I need to address. But maybe you haven’t addressed it. And when I talk to most people, when I think of it myself, there’s a couple of things there that I wasn’t willing to take on board and make any changes to. So just identifying what’s missing in your training or your performance and what can you do to to adjust it? The fifth and final one is is habits.

And we’ve done a podcast on the book Atomic Habits, which I think is a great read for any athlete, not only for their sport, but just for general general life. If we look at diet, for example, you’ve probably got 10 meals that you would eat on a consistent basis. And if you change those 10 meals, you can change your life when we think of diet and diet and health. It’s just those habits that we’ve got. And we can think of it in terms of swimming as well. There’s probably there might even be five or six workouts that you would do on a consistent basis. And they might be really good ones for you. But maybe they need to change. Maybe they could be improved. So if you change those five or six workouts or and you change those 10 exercises that you do at the gym, that way you can really change the way that you’re that you’re swimming. So we can look at the things that we’re doing is a set of habits that are probably quite simple in terms of what we’re doing,

like those 10 meals, and we can change those. And over the course of time, that is going to have this compound effect where we can be in a completely different place in the next six to 12 months if we change those things. So for me, it’s helped me to keep it really simple and doable in terms of making changes to things if we look at it in that type of type of lens. So when it comes to swimming, there’s a few things that we do. Number one, OK, what drills are you doing? What’s your warm up look like? So maybe we need to change your normal warm up. And when I for me, my warm up is generally pretty similar. Every single session that we do, it changes slightly, but it’s pretty similar in terms of we’ll do about 600 fins of choice. Then we’ll do some kicking, some sculling, some drills, and then we’ll do a little bit of speed work or progression work just to get the heart rate up at the end. That’s this. That’s the process that we follow.

So if you were to change your typical warm up every session, that might change your swimming for good. And then obviously the workouts as well. So if you were to if you’re not sure what to do, we’ve got a bunch of workouts that you can just follow along with inside of our effortless swimming membership. And you can just follow along with those and find your eight to 10 workouts that you typically go through, especially if you’re training on your own. And that can help set you up for your next six to 12 months. We’ve also got the mobility and the strength side of things as well. So maybe there’s maybe I’m doing any of those. So if you were to just add in a couple of them, then that can also help just make a difference down the track. So they’re the key ideas that can help you make two thousand twenty four your year, infinite versus finite games. Swimming can be a long term thing that you can’t that you don’t win at.

And if the aim is to just continue to be able to swim, you’re going to make those decisions that will help you do that. The concept of play, play, if you look at swimming as something that’s fun, that’s playful, then it’s much easier to have the approach of enjoying the process and also kind of doing the things that you need to do to get better. The third one was the concept of dire with zero. So just bringing forwards those experiences and those things that you’ve been putting off and looking at investing your time, maybe your money in the things that will help keep you healthy and keep you moving and keeping you able to do those things that allow you to swim. Number four was looking for what’s missing in training, being completely upfront and honest with yourself about where things might be lacking and where you can improve and get better. And number five is habits, changing those couple of key workouts

or the drills or the exercises and mobility work that you’re doing. And that can make a big difference six to 12 months down the track. If you enjoyed this episode and you haven’t left us a review, I’d love it if you could leave a review on Spotify or Apple iTunes, wherever you listen to this podcast. It means a lot to help other people find the podcast. Thanks so much for listening. We’ve got a whole bunch of great episodes coming up. The first couple of episodes we’ve got we have a range of pro triathletes. Some who have made some massive improvements going from being an age group to a pro triathlete and some really good lessons in there. And then, of course, we’ll have a whole bunch of interviews, solo episodes like this for 2024. We release one episode every week. And thank you to everyone who says that they listen to the podcast. I’ve met so many people at the pool, just randomly that say they listen to the podcast.

So that means a lot to me. Thank you so much for listening. I’ll see you next week on another episode. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.

The post 5 Ideas That Will Make 2024 Your Best Year Yet appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

In this episode, Carl Reader, an expert in exercise physiology and Pilates, discusses exercises that can improve movement patterns for swimmers. He focuses on the modified squat, which enhances mobility and activates the hip flexors, and the sumo squat, which targets inner thigh muscles and aids in knee stabilization. Carl emphasizes the importance of addressing imbalances and discusses the electrical system of the body. Tune in to learn how to enhance your swimming performance through improved movement patterns.

More About Carl Reader:

Functional Movement Course

Today’s podcast episode is also sponsored by Skillest. Exclusively for our Effortless Swimming podcast listeners, you can receive a free course, ‘The Art of Triathlon Swimming,’ and an online analysis through the Skillest app.

This podcast is brought to you by NanoClear — our own range of anti-fog swim goggles, designed by Effortless Swimming with the anti-fog treatment bonded into the lens itself (not sprayed on, so it doesn’t wear off after a few swims). Check out the NanoClear anti-fog swimming goggles here and use code PODCAST15 for 15% off.

As I say to clients, we don’t want to like target one muscle because muscles, they all work together. There’s a relation. So the answer is not just releasing the hip flexors. So I do a lot of exercises where I have clients rotating onto left side, pushing from the right buttocks or glutes onto left side. And especially for swimmers with right shoulder pain. This is one of my go-to for programs. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. I have Carl Vrida back on the podcast. You’ve been on multiple times, Carl. Kind of our squat guru, movement guru. Today, I’d love to get stuck into a couple of exercises that you’ve been doing with clients that you’ve found to just help them much, much better with their movement patterns and just some things that you’re seeing

and some patterns that you’re seeing amongst swimmers and how we can essentially move better because that is a big factor with improving your swimming. So firstly, welcome back and what have you been working on? Yeah, Brent, thanks for having me back. It’s always good and as always, it’s great working with the swimmers and your members. And you know, you learn a lot as you work with the swimmers. You just start to see new nuances and exercises and what’s working and what’s not working and just tracking those results. It’s been really, really exciting and especially seeing the guys making significant improvements with shoulders and backs and even just getting their glutes or products activated. It’s all good. Yeah, so for those who don’t know me, I’m one of my things that I really focus on a lot was helping clients with doing the squats and we’ve got a course that we worked on together and that’s also the basics

of the introduction to how to squat correctly. But today, I’ve got two new exercises I wanted to take people through. And just to give a bit of history or just a bit of background is we talked about the last podcast that you remember this thing of like connection, electrical connection. And so basically the body, when you use your muscles, you’re generating electricity. And so just the same way is if you have wiring in your body that there’s a resistance or there’s a problem or break in the circuit then you don’t get that transfer of electricity and power. And so what we wanna do is use these exercises, especially the squats to try and get this, improve the connections with the body and we’ll touch on the different patterns later but that’s the basic behind what we wanna do today. And I met one of your clients, she came to our Thailand camp and she said she’d been working with you for quite a while and some of the, what you were doing

was watching her through Zoom, basically do some exercises and you’re able to just see where she was falling short in how she was doing the exercises and making some changes and now she’s really been able to get her, get her glutes working through a lot of her training. So with her running, cycling and swimming as well. And I mean, you hear it and you think well, you can just work your glutes, like just get it happening, but there’s often things that people are doing that’s not allowing them to fully use them. And then when they can, they can start to use them, it makes a huge, huge difference. One of the things you mentioned before the call was modified squat. So do you wanna take us through the modified squat, how you use it, who it’s good for and what is a modified squat for those that don’t know? Yeah, exactly. So for those of you that, the average swimmer is actually generally quite stiff in their lower back and in their upper thoracic spine

and we also find they’re very tight on the inner thigh and groin and hamstrings as well. So just the average guy or lady who’s working and so to perform a like a pretty functional squat requires a lot of mobility and that’s quite challenging for the average person. And so I found that when I was coaching the swimmers and you’re not always working with elite swimmers. And so this is why I developed this modified squat and it’s simply just raising the heels up about half an inch or one and a half centimeters depending on the clients and what we need. But by raising the heels, you take out the posterior, well the tension in the back of the body, the lower back, the calf and the hamstrings which are generally quite tight on the average person. And that allows them to really squat down deeper and put a lot less strain on the knees and they’re able to get into their hip flexes. And this is a key point here with this exercise brains

is that so many swimmers are trying to stretch out their hip flexes, it’s quite a common thing on Google, how do I stretch my hip flexes? And this exercise allows you to get down deep enough into the squat that it actually activates and strengthens the hip flexes. And then we see that actually has a huge powerful way to release the hip flexes. So one of the things that I’ve, it’s sort of like a mind shift is instead of trying to stretch the hip flexes, I’ve actually been trying to get my guys to really strengthen them. And this really helps them to get into it. So you basically just raising the heels. Now people often ask me, oh, but I’m going to be shorting my kiddies tendon by doing that. And I’ve always just said, so you’re doing this as a tool in the squatting, you’re not walking around with like a wedge in your shoes, you know, like keeping that would cause trouble. Yeah. And what are you getting them to use to raise it?

So you’ve got, you’ve got a few things. You can roll up a towel, right up your gym hats. You can actually buy these slant boards. You know, I don’t have people who’ve seen them in a gym that like slant boards you can stand on and you can vary the angle of the slant. The only problem I find with the slant boards is they often make them too narrow. So when it comes to squatting deep, but sometimes for the especially clients like over 50, 60, you need to have a little wider base. But just simply rolling up a mat and you can get that thickness to about an inch. Again, depending on what, what, what we desire result. I’ve done this myself as well. And it’s just much easier to get into, to some of those, those positions. And I’m probably not super tight through the hammies, but I’m certainly not really mobile with them either. And it just makes everything a whole lot, a whole lot easier. So you find that by doing that,

it just allows people to get to, to fire the hip flexors better, to use them better compared to when they’re not, not doing it. And it’s a great way to, as you get done deeper, you know, you can, you can maintain a better position in the lower back. So people often overcompensate and doing squats in the lower back. It’s, it’s the first thing that they, they seal. And the other thing they feel is their knees. So depending on their foot structure, so they got flat feet, that’s a problem because the knees kind of roll in too much. And if they’ve got these high arches, they, they don’t have enough internal rotation or all the, all the knees to move where they’re going deep. And then they get knee problems. So this is quite a simple tool just to use to get people to kind of navigate around all those, you know, those restrictions. Mm, yeah, I like it. And another one that you mentioned was the sumo squat. So from my understanding, that’s where their feet are

sort of wide outside the knees, wider than the knees. What’s the difference between this, the benefit, I guess, of doing the sumo squat compared to a normal squat? Or what’s the difference really? That’s a great question. So the, you know, we often think about what we want to do leg muscles, like the quadriceps of the thigh muscles, the hamstrings, the glutes, and those are like the main kind of guys that you want to work on. But the inner thigh muscles, which are known in medicine as adductive muscles, and they’re actually a huge, large group of like muscles on the inner thigh. And we often think of them just as being tight, you know, we want to stretch them out, but they, they’re pretty bulky muscles. And they are used to stabilize the knee in swimming or squatting or climbing stairs. In gym, if you remember those machines where you sit on your legs wide apart and you kind of pulled your legs together, they’d be called that adduction.

That’s the way to strengthen them in the gym, but you don’t really do that in real life. And they should kick in a soccer ball, but you’re not really kind of walking with your legs closing and opening like this. But they used to stabilize the knee. So with sumo squats with the wider stance, you’re getting into those muscles. You get, you’re activating those inner thigh muscles. And they’re very, very powerful again because when they’re activated, they help release the hip flexor muscles as well because they conjure, they work opposed to each other. And really, really brilliant to release the hips. And if clients have got tight hips, especially if you’re for swimming rest stroke or any swimming edge, if you want to improve that mobility, those squats are really, really, really good. And often is having them holding a catabal or a weight and just go down gently and just getting into those muscles. How deep should you be going on those squats?

That’s a great question. You need to go where you’re comfortable. And you also need to just be aware of any sort of tension in the back because sometimes, and this is where we get into those patterns, sometimes one side is tighter than the other side, often it’s tighter. So you’ve got to be careful where you’re going down too deep that you tend to gravitate into like the one side and strain your back. And that’s where the coaching comes in where we just kind of guide the people through the exercises, but you can go quite deep if you feel comfortable. Yeah. I’ve done the exercise where you’ll have a workout bench and it’s like a side plank and you’ve got your top leg resting on the bench and then you bring your bottom leg up off the ground, working the same muscles or similar muscles, is it? Before we dive into the rest of today’s podcast episode, this episode is proudly brought to you by Form Smart Swim Goggles.

They’ve been a long time sponsor of the podcast and they are my go-to goggles when it comes to tracking my training sessions and being able to see what’s happening in real time through the goggles. And we know swimming is a highly technical sport, but without the guidance of a coach on deck, identifying and addressing technique flaws can be a challenge. They’ve recently added a new feature to the goggles, Head Coach. And this addresses that problem head on. It gives them as improved access to their technique awareness, focus skill development and in-app education and analysis. Head Coach provides real-time visual coaching via the Form Smart Swim Goggles augmented reality display. During and after a swim, Head Coach provides swimmers with technique feedback using two types of metrics, Form Score and Head Coach Skills. Form Score is a measurement of overall swim efficiency ranging from zero to 100, defined by your pace and your stroke length.

Head Coach Skills encompasses five key areas that will help you identify where to focus on improving with your efficiency. Head roll, head pitch, set pacing, interval pacing and breathing time to neutral. And after completing a session, you can check back in on the Form App to track your progress. And Head Coach provides swimmers from beginner to expert with an unprecedented level of data-driven guidance and understanding, enabling you to boost your performance and your speed. Get your pair of Form Smart Swim Goggles today. Click the link in our podcast description or use the code Effortless on Checkout to get 15% off your Form Smart Swim Goggles. This podcast is also brought to you by Skillist, the ultimate digital coaching platform that’s making waves in the swimming world. Imagine having the opportunity to train with Olympic and World Champions like Kyle Chalmers, Ryan Murphy and Brent Hayden. Well, with Skillist, that dream is now a reality.

Swimmers, you now have the chance to work with the absolute best in the sport, gaining insights and guidance from these elite athletes like never before. And Skillist isn’t just your run-of-the-mill coaching platform, it’s a game changer. Here is what sets it apart. You can discuss training programs, receive detailed stroke analysis and even develop race strategies with these incredible athletes and coaches. It’s like having a personal coaching session with an Olympic champion right in your pocket. And excitingly, coaches from around the world can also tap into the power of Skillist. Coaches can use Skillist’s amazing tools to train their students, analyze videos and incredibly connective swimmers from across the world as well. So whether you are a swimmer or a coach, go to the App Store, download the Skillist app today. That’s S-K-I-L-L-E-S-T. Download the Skillist app today and get started. And only for our effortless swimming podcast listeners,

we’re giving away our Art of Triathlon course free as well as a technique analysis online through the Skillist app from me for free as well. Go to effortlesswimming.com forward slash Skillist offer or click the link in this podcast description. And you will get the Art of Triathlon swimming course for free as well as a technique analysis from me through the Skillist app. And now back to the podcast. First of all, thinking about from a functional point of view that we want to try to get as functional as we can. But that’s using the muscle as an adductor which is bringing the legs together. If you can imagine like you’re bringing that leg up to the bench together. But this we want to work like in an isometric or in a functional manner where the leg is actually grounded which is what you’re doing most throughout the life. And swimming is also stability but it’s also provides a lot of electrical energy in the system.

So when those muscles are not working or not effective it’s a huge drag or strain on the body again.

And is there, at clients that you’re not doing this with or is it something that you build up to? How would you normally integrate this into their program? Yeah, we first start with building up the quad strength and the glute strength through those modified squats or just general squatting and then we start to take them into the sumo squats so they can go wider apart and improve that mobility. Yeah, it’s a little bit more, it depends on what they’re looking for and what we’re looking, you know, on these pats which I’ll talk about now as well like if you want to target those muscles you need to have a pretty good or fairly good range of motion in the hips before you start doing sumo squats because it can cause compression and especially if you’re really tight there.

Yeah, makes sense. And now with the work that you’re doing with clients are there any patterns that are standing out to you when it comes to swimmers? So like movement patterns that they could improve on. Yeah, what are those common threads that you’re seeing amongst the swimmers where you look at and go, yeah, we need to work on this and this is going to help you in your swimming. Yeah, that’s a good question. So, you know, the average person again is like more right-handed than left-handed, you know, and so you see what I see is what we thought we sort of get stuck on the right side. It’s a pattern where people are over onto the right side so they were to stand and you asked them where did your weight feel? They tend to be more on the right side and the right hand’s more dominant in the things that we do. It’s also linked to the interesting brains in that your thought processes, so if you, someone who’s very analytical,

someone that worries a lot, thinks about things, strives hard, pushes, ambitious, over-ambitious, there’s nothing wrong with being ambitious but so that pushing too hard, which we find a lot of sportsmen and ninjas in general, that tends to get people onto the right side. Another interesting thing is the right diaphragm is bigger than the left diaphragm and it’s not that sort of design fault, it’s just that when people are over, even if they’re over-ambitious or just whatever it is, they tend to be pulling more on the right side so we see the left hip kind of pushing forward, which is then overactive left hip flexor and then they tend to get stuck, compressed ribs on the right. You can see as I’m even, if those are watching on YouTube, it kind of falls into the right shoulder, gets out of alignment, right jaw, it’s all the sort of ripple effects up the chain so the one of the ways to improve that is to get onto your left side

and so I do a lot of exercises where I have clients rotating onto left side, pushing from the right buttocks or glutes onto left side and especially for swimmers with right shoulder pain, this is one of my go-to for programs is like getting them back onto left side and it’s very, very effective. You will see that a lot of shoulder issues and especially when you sort out the rib cage, we talked about that, the thoracic spine, it really just, it’s such a simple way to just, it’s a simple way for swimmers to understand, you know, like too much on the one side. And is that conversely with someone who’s more left side dominant? It’s the same thing, right? You can see the same thing again, there’s a lot of factors that push you on so it could be an old injury so you might have hurt your knee and now you’re sitting onto one side so it’s not always the case that you are on the one side because it’s that big so it could be a compensation for injury

or problems that can be even just like bowel disturbances, you know, like problems in the stomach or like we talked about, the ways of thinking is a big thing or like I’m a golfer and so you know, you’re on the surface as well like yourself, you know, you’re always on the one pattern or I like to ride, you know, natural, like the front side way so I don’t like to go on the left. There’s just many things that can contribute to those things but often we find this right side of pattern is quite common, you know, compared to left side, yeah. I was at, I think it was in Thailand, I was looking at one of our swimmers and just from behind and his right shoulder was sitting barric and inch or two lower than his left one and just, I didn’t sort of dive into it but I do see that among a lot of people that it can be old injuries coming off a mountain bike, it could just be a dominance to one side but with a really big imbalance between

like just the height of the shoulders, it’s to me just really stood out. Then after, yeah. Yeah, what, I mean, there can be, as you said, a range of factors there but is that something that you see much of? Well, it’s this right side as you see this pattern that we pick up on and in fact, I’ve got quite a few clients and the membership, your swimming membership that are struggling with right shoulders, you know, so we’ve actually been kind of just like working on getting left, rotation left, pushing to the left, left on exercises and then then we go, once they feel their shoulder just really loosing up in the mobility, then we start to see streams on the right side but you’ve got to get your body in the right position before you do shoulder strengthening and then another key point for shoulders because that’s very common in swimmers as you know, the injury is that when you do shoulder rehab is to start with working your lower body first

and using squats because the squats actually are really powerful at generating electricity so they’re kind of like a reserve of electrons and then when you start to do shoulder exercises you feel super connected and you feel like the power’s coming from somewhere that you never had and so I give an example like if you start doing push-ups and you get to like 10, 11, you start feeling tired if you stop, then go do two sets of 10 squats suddenly you’re bashing out 30 or 20 and you feel really comfortable you might fatigue from lack of fitness but you don’t feel it’s coming because it’s heavy does that make sense? Hmm, is that a little bit like the Wim Hof breathing thing where have you seen that way kind of do this not hyperventilating but it’s like this intense breathing and then you do push-ups and you can do like double what you’re normally about to do in terms of the push-ups and it’s just, is it the same concept?

It’s probably working with the oxygen there’s an oxygen component there as well the release of oxygen into the body and then you’ve got like availability power like you said, yeah, right It’s really, I find it, you know it’s even my own personal training like for myself, like if I ever wanted the upper body I straight away go to my squats I really make sure I get that connection and then I go and do my shoulders so yeah, so that is that right shoulder I’ve got, there are obviously some of them their shoulder problems as well but we do see that as a big issue that right side of it it’s just also when you’re doing the programs and coaching, it’s just looking because a lot of people have got this idea of like they’ve got to do what they do on the left and it’s just to the right so they, you know, they want to balance their bodies but sometimes and often it’s actually working you know, reversing those as symmetries

and trying to get out of those patterns and you know, as I say to the clients we don’t want to like target one muscle because muscles they all work together there’s a relation so the answer is not just releasing the hip flexors now I use the strength in the hip flexors but in that I’m also working glutes I’m working hamstrings we, you know, we’ve got rotation so we’re trying to get this whole reverse the pattern is what I’m trying to say, yeah hmm, yeah and it’s the more you look into it the more you see it I think with people as well and especially for you with a trained eye it’s something that you can probably pick up pretty quickly when you’re watching people as well and I mean, I imagine you probably walk down to the supermarket and you’re watching people walk and seeing how they move as well you know, like when I go to the swimming pool as your right shoulder hurts yeah, it’s hard to know, you know yeah one of the key things we do is just have them standing barefoot

and that’s usually a dead giveaway you can see where the pressure on the feet that tells you where the weight is I’m not sure if you, do you walk barefoot or are you familiar with this whole grounding everything affects as well because I’m a big into that electrical being so like actually training doing a lot of the squats and everything bare feet and not doing it in trainers makes a big difference as well so like if you wear like whatever shoe you’re training you wear you’ve got these big thick soles and you just, you can kind of get the muscles to activate but if you take your shoes off and do the same exercise it’s amazing how much more activation you get through the body I had, you have heard that I, I’d say when I go to the gym I’ve got just sort of runners on but outside of that, I mean I’m generally just barefoot at home but I’d say not doing a lot of yeah strength stuff in bare feet at the moment I’d say

Okay, it seems to be to go out on the side on the grass so and do like a single leg lunge or you know like a squat and then put your trainers back on or go and gym and you’ll feel the difference it’s actually quite, quite substantial, significant Yeah right Just when you’re going to gym barefoot but there’s something in like especially because I’m on that whole electrical I’m really passionate about this whole electrical beings that we are like electrical, you know we literally like the muscles like that you packs and like I do quite a lot of trail running and when I run with my trail running shoes I never feel comfortable but it’s never should get any pair of shoes but the thing is it’s when I run barefoot it’s I just, it’s just I mean they’ve got these minimalistic shoes as well which is quite popular but there’s something to be said about being barefoot on the ground, yeah Hmm, yeah, what got you interested in that

that side of things?

I think for me was this whole idea of like how come when I do my squats I feel so much stronger in the upper body like what has just changed like how do I go from doing six push-ups or seven push-ups and feeling tired and then I go and do 20 squats which are nothing related to the upper body and then I can just go and do like I have to feel so light to talk about the last podcast about movements that feel light like I feel like, I feel like really 60, 70% lighter I feel like I’m just like bench pressing like five kgs Now, what changed? I mean, like how did it go from feeling like I’m bench pressing 100 kgs to bench pressing five it might be exaggerating, bench pressing 20 kgs it’s just something’s changed and that was where the electricity came and I’m getting power from somewhere like something has changed or resistance hasn’t proved there’s no ways I’ve warmed up my own muscles so that started me and then I did a lot of research on muscles

and the electricity of the heart, the brain and the back like ADP, are you familiar with ADP, ATP? Sorry, ATP like the in mitochondria now mitochondria, that’s the actual energy so when you use that ATP, you’re releasing electrons then through the crevicycle, through the fatty acids then you recharge ADP back up into ATP so you’re recharging as mitochondrial and that’s actually the electrical system and so that’s why you have fatigue or drop we talk about a drop in voltage so yeah, it’s this whole connection that’s been very, very fascinating Yeah, interesting, there you go I’ll have to look into that more because I don’t really know anything much about apart from when you mentioned it on the last podcast and to finish up here, is there anything anything we haven’t covered that you think we should have or any last pieces of wisdom for people listening to the episode? No, that’s pretty much it, I think the last thing

just always weaving, progressing slowly not trying to like, it progressed too quickly I guess it’s the same as swimming or anything, any sport running just with the exercises, just really make sure you’re dialed in, you feel the muscles you wanna work, you’re not trying to just go through a program and get on with it and then go back to work or you just be intentional and have a good body awareness of what’s working and also that’s what the coaching helps you mean like this is a thing on Zoom we can see a lot when I work with the clients even if it’s just a one-stop session or if it’s personal training for a couple of weeks just to get the muscles, having someone that you can talk back to and say this is what you’re feeling or not feeling makes a big difference. Yeah, definitely, I mean that steady build up and that patience, people who are willing to commit to either better mobility or increasing their strength over a minimum

six months, 12 months, this stuff will take time and for me it’s really taken, I’d say 12 months of consistent strength training to really feel like I’m a lot more solid, a lot more unbreakable and that first 12 months after that first 12 months, the next six months after that I feel like I can really make some good gains and I’ve got that a strong foundation so it really just takes time and consistency and every expert that I talked to on the podcast they always talk about consistency. It’s like that’s number one. That is the secret to success, it’s just showing up and doing it consistently at a couple of times a week. And that’s one of those products that they could know when you book sessions, you commit it to doing it. I mean it’s so hard, it’s so easy to drop your exercises like sometimes you wake up in the morning and you just don’t feel like doing anything or you. So having a coach helps that consistency.

If it’s once a month or whatever, just check in. It helps with consistency. Where can people get in touch with you to either book a session or see how they can work with you? Yes, so my online is called readercoaching.com and it’s called in a C and I can reach out to my email address is called wellness at gmail.com. Terrific, we’ll put those in the show notes as well. Kyle, thanks for jumping back on the podcast. I think it’s episode number four or five we’ve had to get, if not more. So I appreciate you being on the podcast and working with the athletes in the membership and people who listen to this podcast. As I said, got to meet Claire in Thailand who I think you’ve got another session with today which is terrific. So yeah, I appreciate all of that. So thanks for being on the podcast. Thanks, Brian, always a pleasure, keep well. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster,

more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.

The post How To Strengthen And Stretch Your Hip Flexors For A Better Kick with Carl Reader appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

Join me today as we sit down with Andrew Sheaff, a highly accomplished coach and author of the book “A Constraints-Led Approach to Swim Coaching.” In this episode, Andrew shares his expertise on various aspects of swimming, including breathing techniques and innovative methods for improving catch and pull development. Whether you’re a competitive swimmer or simply looking to enhance your swimming skills, this podcast is a must-listen for anyone seeking valuable insights and practical tips from a true expert in the field.

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You can see that with swimmers is sometimes like they’ll have this bad breath to their preferred side and they’ll breathe to the other side, and it’ll actually look a lot better. And they’ll be like, ah, it feels terrible. It feels terrible. It feels terrible. You’re never going to get your breathing under control if you feel like your legs are constantly sinking and you have to kick because it’s just exhausting. Like you’re always going to feel out of breath because your legs are always hammering to try to keep you afloat because you feel like you’re sinking. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford.

Welcome back to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. My guest today is Andrew Shafe. He’s a three times NCAA championship winning coach and author of the book, A Constraints Let Approach to Swim Coaching. On this episode, Andrew and I talk about breathing, how often should you breathe? What causes someone to feel like they’re running out of breath, even if they’re really fit individual? How do you improve your breathing to the other side? If it feels like it’s more of a challenge to breathe one to one side compared to the other, and do you need to breathe bilaterally? And we also talk about some of the common mistakes that we see as coaches and how we go about correcting those mistakes. We also discuss at the end the catch and pull development for adults. So how do you take someone with very little feeling for the water to the point where they feel like they’ve got a connection with it and that they can move themselves forwards effectively with their proper catch and pull?

And what are some of the innovative ways that Andrew likes to teach his athletes these types of things? So let’s find out the answers to those questions on this episode of the Effortless Swimming Podcast. All right, Andrew, thanks for being back on the podcast. Yep, great to be here. So Andrew, today I want to talk about two key things. One is breathing and the other one is catch and pull development for adults because I’d say people that I coach, they’re two big things. One is they get people get tired too quickly. They feel like they run out of air. Well, they feel like they can’t breathe to the other side or they struggle with their catch and pull and feel as though they don’t have much connection or feel for the water. So I want to get stuck into those topics. And with your experience in working with some of the best swimmers in the world, with how detailed you’ve got with some of these things with your book, which you can see here, Constraints that Approach to Swim Coaching, then I think you’ve really dug deep into some of these topics.

So I’m excited to get stuck into them and ask you about some of these topics that I get asked about because I love to hear how other coaches approach them and some ways that people can improve on them. So let’s start with that with the breathing. So first of all, how should someone breathe? Should I breathe in really big and exhale really big? Should it be normal? What’s your thought there? Right. So I think that with the exhale itself, they just the biggest thing is to make sure all the air is out by the time they breathe. And so like some people like to kind of like trickle it and then kind of like get the rest of it out. And some people like to kind of hold it and then kind of blow it out right before they, you know, as they’re turning their head like right before they open their mouth. And I think there’s probably some some options. I don’t know that one or the other really, really matters. But I think it is important that that you really kind of breathe out so that when you open your mouth, it just it’s almost like a vacuum and then the air just kind of sucks in.

And so you don’t have to really like stress about, you know, thinking about breathing. And I think if people are like, you don’t want to be like gasping and trying to get like that huge breath, you just want to kind of get a breath because I think if you if you try to get that massive, you know, if it’s a gasp, you know, one, you’re probably in desperate need of oxygen and two, like that’s your focus and it’s going to probably disrupt the rest of the stroke. So I think the biggest thing is just making sure that you’re kind of exhaling out like before you actually breathe because that’s going to take it a lot, you know, it’s just going to take a lot more time. If you’re doing both with your heads out of the water and it’s going to lead to probably a rust panic feeling. So I think, you know, if someone’s comfortable, it’s just kind of letting it trickle out a little bit and then blowing out the rest of it right before they breathe.

I think that’s fine. If they want to hold it a little bit longer, I think that’s fine too. But making sure they really blow it out is pretty. Yeah. And even to kind of get quite nuanced there, because I’ve said the same thing to swimmers before and sometimes I’ve had a few swimmers take it too literally where they’re trying to expel every last little bit of air they’ve got in their lungs. Right. And so I had not to the extreme, but just like where you’ve, where you’ve a solid push. Yeah. Yeah. Not where you’re continuing to push for another second or two. And if you’re going for a jog, your heart rates up a little bit. Your breathing is going to be a little bit like that where it’s not like, it’s not this big like right in how it’s how it’s just like, it’s just kind of not slow and steady, but it’s just, it’s a bit more controlled. I’m not trying to do it. Yeah. Yeah. I think you kind of touch on a big, a big point is that there has to be like a rhythm to it.

Whereas in, in land sports, you know, you can kind of get away with not having as much of a rhythm all that’s still going to be a problem eventually. But, but there has to be really rhythmic and swimming because it’s tied into the rhythm of your stroke. And if you’re trying to have a solid rhythm with your freestyle and then your breathing is on this totally different rhythm, I think that’s going to cause problems. And so like, like, like you kind of said, it has to be kind of a steady flow to it. I think that’s also really important aspect of it. Yeah. You bring up a good point there just in terms of the rhythm of it. So when you look at, look at the top summers racing, they’ll generally have a set breathing pattern, whether it’s every two or two, four, two, four, like we say with Ariane Titmuss or every three. And sometimes it will change within a lap. It might be two off the wall and then maybe settling to a four and then going to a two for the last five, 10 meters.

If it’s like a 1500, for example, you’ll see that with some of the distance summers, but they’ve got that, that rhythm to it and that consistency to it. Do you, would you be trying to teach that to adults or to kids or what’s your approach there with developing that? Yeah. So I think that what’s important, so there’s two separate things. There’s a kind of like a training aspect and a performance aspect. And so in a performance aspect, I think people should do whatever feels most comfortable and they should kind of stick with that throughout the duration of the race. And if they feel comfortable with kind of different patterns, then that’s okay to mix them in because like, you know, if you want to be breathing to your left to see somebody or breathing to the right and see somebody, like that’s fine to switch that out. I think in training, it’s good to expose people to a lot of different breathing patterns because I think that can help them find a different rhythm.

And it doesn’t have to be like, you know, you breathe half of the time to your left and half the time to your right. You might like spend, you know, I’m kind of making up the numbers, but like 75% of the time with your preferred pattern and then maybe 25% or, you know, something like that. Doing some different patterns where maybe you’re just, you know, if I always breathe to the right, maybe I’m doing somewhere. I breathe to the left and then someone I’m breathing every three, just so I can kind of get a little bit of a different feel. And, you know, I found that that sometimes people learn things, if they always breathe to the right, they’ll breathe to the left. And because it’s new, they’re trying to figure things out. And there’s usually something they can take from breathing to the left and apply it to breathing to the right. And so I think that from a learning perspective, it’s good to do kind of all of it.

But it’s, you know, you need to find the rhythm that works best for you. And that’s what you have to kind of race in and compete in. So I think that there’s kind of two separate processes. And then, you know, when they’re doing most of their kind of like race stuff or their higher intensity stuff, you just kind of let them breathe however, however it’s most comfortable for them. Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree with you there. And it’s totally okay to breathe every two to the one side in a race. But as you said, it’s great to mix it up within training. And interesting, you talk about, they learn, people can learn when they breathe to the other side. I had one of the athletes that I work with send through some data. So they were using the EO swim better devices measuring the force and direction. And when he breathes to his left, which is what he would normally do, he, his power on his left hand side was, I think it’s about 30% less than his, than his right.

And he did a test breathing to the right hand side. And that came up almost even with his right side powers. Yeah, 10% less now. So what we, what we were seeing there is that, OK, the power is more even, more balanced when he breathes to the right hand side. And when we look at the propulsive forces, when he’s breathing to his right, it’s how it was, it was, yeah, it was, it was a lot, a lot higher and more sustained as well. So what we’re looking to dig into now and haven’t got the answers to, to this is, like, all right, let’s, we’ll see if that’s, that’s faster first of all, but it seems as though that’s probably a better stroke to work towards. So we’re just looking at, all right, what’s the next, what’s the next step from here? So it’s quite interesting to see that. And I’ve actually had swimmers who would only breathe to one side and then they’ve changed to the other side, at least sort of tested it.

And they found they’re actually faster, even by a second or three per hundred. Right. He’s, which is quite a bit. And yeah, sure. And that wouldn’t think so, because it doesn’t feel as comfortable to break to that, to that side. Right. And that’s, that’s an interesting thing too, is like, you know, just as a coach with, without the measurements of it, like you can see that with swimmers is sometimes like they’ll have this bad breath to their preferred side and they’ll breathe to the other side and it’ll actually look a lot better. And they’ll be like, oh, it feels terrible. It feels terrible. It feels terrible. And so sometimes though, it’s just they, they haven’t spent all that time doing it poorly. And so it’s relatively like, you know, it hasn’t been ruined yet. And yeah. And I think the challenge is, is like, can they, can they manage to find a good rhythm on that other side? And is it worth that change?

And sometimes it’s tough to figure out what the best thing is. And that’s kind of like the art of it with, with both the coach and swimmers figuring that out. And I think it’s definitely worth exploring. And in terms of getting more comfortable and more balanced on the non-preferred side, are there any drills or exercises that you would do with your swimmers in the water to develop that? Yeah. So I think a lot of times when people struggle to breathe to one side, what happens is that their rotation is kind of like asymmetrical. And so, so they, they rotate more to the, to the breathing side, which is, which is fine. Like that’s going to probably happen, but that for whatever reason they really struggle to get to the other side. And so, and, and you know, just think about it, like if you can’t, it’s a lot harder to breathe that you’re completely flat. And so, you know, if they, if they can’t rotate to the other

side, it’s going to feel really uncomfortable to breathe. And so one drill I like is, you know, it’s, you know, I call it stroke and roll. So you can take a certain number of strokes and when you breathe, you basically stay low and roll on your back. And so you’ll, you’ll really exaggerate the rotation. And for someone who struggles to breathe to the opposite side, that can be effective because it actually forces them to roll all the way over. And they keep their, keep their head in line. So it’s just a purely rotational movement. And for those that are struggling to breathe the other side, because they lack rotation to that side, they’re going to feel that when they do that. And that could be really helpful because, you know, they probably think they can’t do it. And then once they do it, it’s like, oh, that’s kind of what it’s like. And it kind of opens the door, opens the window. And now they have a sense of what it could be or what it could feel like.

And then, you know, they’re more likely to be able to figure that out then. So I think that that’s one thing that I found pretty helpful. That’s like, that’s a great approach because when I run clinics, you’ll have new people come in who I’ve never seen before. And we’ll do, we’ll start with some front kick drill. We’ll go into some side kicking. And for the swimmers that, yeah, for a lot of the swimmers, and these are all adults there, they struggle to rotate at least to one side. So when they’re doing the side kick rather than being at 45 or even a little bit more flat drill, I don’t mind. They’re just flat, completely flat for that drill. And they really struggle to just get the hips and get the legs and the feet kicking on the side there. And because it just feels unusual, feels different and they don’t have that balance there yet. So by encouraging them to overdo it and exaggerate it, it just gets them to make that change.

And it’s quite often what needs to happen in many cases is to overdo it. Then we can dial it back if we need to. Right. Yeah, that’s just in change and in general, I think, you know, so say someone’s arm is, you know, they’re crossing over and you tell them to like put their arm way out here and they move it an inch and they think, oh, it’s way out like people’s perception of what change is, is usually wrong. That what would feel to them massive is usually not massive at all. And so like you said, overdoing it, like I just, I don’t, I want you to do it so wrong, like exaggerate it so much because then once you go past, it’s way easier to bring it, as you said, it’s way easier to bring it back. But like if you’re trying to like just go an inch, an inch, an inch at a time, it’s like, don’t do that. Just go like make a massive change that feels so terrible that there’s no way it can be right and you’re probably going to be a lot closer to

where you need to be than you think you are. Yeah, I see it like having a rubber band where it always just wants to come back to right where you really got to stretch it. Yeah, exactly right. And then it’s like, OK, it’s kind of out of its constraints a little bit there. So yeah, that’s I think it’s such a such a good approach. What are some other common mistakes you see there with the breathing? So lack of rotation to the non-preferred side.

Before we dive into the rest of today’s podcast episode, this episode is proudly brought to you by Form Smart Swim Goggles. They’ve been a long time sponsor of the podcast and they are my go to goggles when it comes to tracking my training sessions and being able to see what’s happening in real time through the goggles. And we know swimming is a highly technical sport, but without the guidance of a coach on deck, identifying and addressing technique flaws can be a challenge. They’ve recently added a new feature to the goggles, Head Coach. And this addresses that problem head on. It gives them as improved access to their technique, awareness, focus skill development and in-app education and analysis. Head Coach provides real time visual coaching via the Form Smart Swim Goggles augmented reality display. During and after a swim, Head Coach provides swimmers with technique feedback using two types of metrics.

Form Score and Head Coach skills. Form Score is a measurement of overall swim efficiency ranging from zero to 100, defined by your pace and your stroke length. Head Coach skills encompasses five key areas that will help you identify where to focus on improving with your efficiency. Head roll, head pitch, set pacing, interval pacing and breathing time to neutral. And after completing a session, you can check back in on the Form app to track your progress. And Head Coach provides swimmers from beginner to expert with an unprecedented level of data driven guidance and understanding, enabling you to boost your performance and your speed. Get your pair of Form Smart Swim Goggles today. Click the link in our podcast description or use the code Effortless on Checkout to get 15% off your Form Smart Swim Goggles. This podcast is also brought to you by Skillist, the ultimate digital coaching platform that’s making waves in the swimming world.

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store, download the Skillist app today. That’s S-K-I-L-L-E-S-T, download the Skillist app today and get started. And only for our Effortless Swimming podcast listeners, we’re giving away our Art of Triathlon course, free, as well as a technique analysis online through the Skillist app from me for free as well. Go to effortlesswimming.com forward slash Skillist offer or click the link in this podcast description and you’ll get the Art of Triathlon swimming course for free as well as a technique analysis from me through the Skillist app. And now back to the podcast. Yeah. And then the other, you know, the three big things to me are always like people lift their head to breathe. And sometimes that’s because their head position is just too low when they’re swimming anyway. And so they kind of have to lift and then, but they just, and they end up lifting way too much. And, you know, that’s going to cause all sorts of

problems and then where they pulled the head to the side to breathe. And so they’re not staying on a straight line. And then the third one to me is just, it just takes too long. And so it just magnifies whatever mistakes they make because they’re out of position for an even longer time. So I think, you know, helping people learn to stay low and then stay straight is the biggest thing because that’s where, you know, when you come up and over, it’s also going to take more time too. And so, you know, you’re getting in positions where you’re creating a lot of resistance as you move through the water. And, you know, that’s definitely not what you want. And that’s what, you know, to me that can cause the most problems with breathing is just people lose their body alignment and sometimes they never get it back.

And it’s the thing that I think as coaches, that way you say, like, if people swim in snorkels, generally they swim pretty well. Pretty even, quite balanced. You know, it’s quite a good stroke overall. And then as soon as we introduce the breathing, that’s when things can fall out of place. So if you can keep your head low when you breathe, if you can keep it centered, if you can get it relatively quickly, that’s going to cover most of your bases. That’s going to help you just keep that better alignment and stop you from dropping the hips and the legs because anything below that line is going to slow you down a lot. And so it’s just a matter of just getting that breath. It’s going to be a lot harder than it’s asked. Yeah, and it’s going to be a lot harder too.

One of the form goggles, they’ve just released a couple of features with the breathing. So one is it will show you the angle of your eyes. So for people who don’t have, say, coaches on deck and getting that feedback, having this feature is pretty helpful. So there’s head tilt. So just where you’re looking. Now there’s a range there for where everyone should be. And so I’d say with that feature, you don’t need to get it to 100 out of 100 there because there’s a range. I don’t think you have to get it to 100. But if you’re way outside it, if you’re looking obviously straightforward or too deep, that’s not a good thing either. But the other one they have is time to neutral, which is making sure you’re not taking too long to get there. OK, cool. That basically just looks at that. And I’m guilty of it. Like occasionally I do take too long to get the breath and it’s just habit. And so I have to remind myself, just bring it back quicker.

Bring it back quicker. Like I’m getting out of there still. I just get out of that habit of doing it. Right. So one thing that, so two like visual tricks that I’ve found. And this is assuming that the breath is, you know, if someone has a lot of breathing problems, this might not help them that much. But, you know, the first is always be seeing the bottom of the pool. And so like when you breathe, you want to get back to seeing the bottom of the pool as much as possible. And that could just help like reinforce that you don’t want to be breathing for any longer than you need to. And then the other one is like half people, they close their eyes as they breathe. So there’s someone with their eyes open so it’s safe. But then when they breathe, they just close their eyes. And for like, I think there’s, you know, when people breathe, they’re looking for something. And like they have to wait for their eyes to focus to see it.

And then they, and then that takes time. And then they put their head back down. And so when you take the visual element out of it, for whatever reason, people, you know, just, it’s just more fluid. I don’t really, you know, I’m not sure exactly why, but it just seems to clean up stuff. This, you know, especially if people have a pretty solid breathing pattern already. Yeah, that’s a good one. I haven’t heard that before. I’m going to try that tomorrow and I get into the pool. But it seems to make sense. It’s like you want to just get back to that point of where you’re comfortable and you’re balanced. So you want to open your eyes again. You can only do it when your eyes are looking down. So that makes better sense. And it’s just one of those things, you know, because as you said, it’s hard to just think about it. Like it’s hard to say to yourself, like breathe faster, breathe faster, breathe faster. Like it just, you know, it’s hard to do that for an hour.

And so, you know, whenever you can have these tricks that kind of keep you, keep you focused, it can be, it can be pretty useful. Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. So that’s, that’s great. I think there’s a lot of, a lot of good things there that can, can help someone. And something that, that I find that helps as well with that is just, it’s very hard to breathe correctly if you’re starting with the wrong head position. And I, I have a lot of swimmers who are looking too far forwards, she’s a long way forward. So it’s very difficult to, to be breathing low if you’re starting from that, that position. So get that sorted first of all, and then the rest becomes a whole lot, a whole lot easier, basically. Otherwise, it’s a real, it’s a real sort of different turn of the head coming from an eyes forwards position there instead. Right. The next, the next not supposed to do that. No, no, I say this from the, you’re swing for an hour.

If you’re walking around for an hour and you’re looking up the sky like that, you’re going to get a sore neck. You’re going to look pretty silly. So don’t do that in the pool. Now, if you can see where you’re going, you’re looking too far forwards is a general rule of thumb. Right, right. Now, let’s, let’s go into the catch and pull. So let’s say you’ve got an adult who would say doesn’t have a great connection or feel for the water. Doesn’t look like they’re moving themselves forwards very well. Let’s assume that they’ve got a decent body position, functional kick, all those sorts of things, but they’re not moving forwards very well. What would you say would be the issue there and what would be some things that you’d work on with them and some drills and exercises you’d go through with them? Right. So I think, you know, the biggest problem is that, you know, the way we, the way that you swim effectively with your arms and the water is just like totally foreign

to everything you do on land. So like, you know, if you think about it, like if you were going to row something or do a pull up or something like that, you pull the elbow down into your rib cage, but that’s like, you know, that’s basically a dropped elbow position. And so, you know, what’s strong is not necessarily efficient because you don’t like, you got to have the bigger paddle to work with. And so I think that’s like the challenge is that so many swimmers, because they’re used to moving on, especially if they’re, they come to the sport late, they’re just used to, you know, dealing with gravity and that’s not going to be, you know, effective way to move water, unfortunately. And so helping people understand that they have this big paddle that they can use and how to keep that paddle in the right place while they’re still trying to apply force is pretty important because the instinct is just to collapse everything

because that’s what works on land. And so I think what can be useful as much as possible is giving them ways to kind of feel what that’s like and feel the different way of interacting with the water. And so a couple of strategies that I like is like, you can just have them put their arms on the deck. And so their whole arm is flat and literally just kind of push into it and have them like move themselves up and down so that they kind of get used to that feeling of pressure on the whole arm, moving them backwards and they can also kind of feel the muscles working too. And so that can be useful for kind of creating a sensory awareness. And then the other thing I like to do is give them different ways to like, you know, change the input and have them be more aware of their hands and so like you can take paddles and like pinch them. And so that way they kind of have to be effective with how they’re pulling or it doesn’t really work at all

or you can hold them upside down. Like I’ll use my phone as an example, but like, you know, like that. So the paddles like that. So then they have to, if they’re gonna pull their arm back, they have to use the whole forearm to make that happen. And so to me, that’s even stuff like closed fist too can just help them be a more, you know, when they open their hands back up, they’re more aware of what’s happening. So that can be a good starting point just in terms of creating awareness. And then, you know, they can start to feel this different way of moving because, you know, you can tell, like, you know, if you just tell someone that doesn’t have a whole lot of experience to have a high elbow, like they don’t really under, like they don’t know what that means because it’s not necessarily what people think it means. And so kind of giving them those experiences is pretty useful. And then something as simple as, you know,

giving them some stroke count stuff, there’s just over 20 fives that forces them to do something different. And I think that’s a big issue too, is they’re just kind of used to doing the same thing and they don’t really know how to get out of that. And so whenever you can give them something that really forces them to do something differently, like we were talking about earlier, like they’re only gonna make these microscopic changes. And so if you were to, you know, say they usually take 20 strokes a lap, if you’re just like, I don’t care what you do, I’m gonna put a buoy and you said, you don’t have to worry about the cake, but just get across the pool and 10 strokes. Like, again, it might not be right, but they’re gonna have to do something very different. And that’s at least the starting point to get some change. And then we can kind of work together to figure out what, you know, how to make, you know, specific changes for that person.

Yeah, that’s great approach because in one way, you’re getting them to figure it out themselves, but also giving them things that kind of forces them to have to make a change. If you’re holding the paddle that way, if you’re using fists and that sort of thing, just where they’ve got less of a chance of getting it wrong, more of a chance of getting it wrong and then having them discover and sort of figure that out just in themselves as well. So there’s a lot of really good strategies there. And as you said, day to day, there’s nothing that you’re gonna be doing that’s gonna have your arm in the same position that you would have going through the catch.

The concept that I’ve found really useful lately has been this concept of a big armpit, big underarm. The catch trying to keep that nice and open. It’s one I’ve been using a lot while coaching and personally for my own swimming as well. And I’ve found that to help a lot because when someone’s dropping their elbow, it’s a poor catch. They’re very small, very closed up with their underarm, but getting them to keep that nice and open through, you know, somewhat through the recovery, but especially through the reef and then through the catch, that helps them work more towards that high elbow position. So one thing I’ve been playing around with a little bit is, there’s this little, I haven’t got it here, but like a little kickboard type thing called Encore that I’ve been mucking around with. And it’s about, what you call it, maybe two inches thick, about the size of your hand. And it’s just kickboard material. And I’ve been doing a little bit of kick on the side,

hand in front and just push it down just below the surface of the water. And that kind of gets me to feel my lats and my peck and everything just sort of switching on in that initial setup of the catch. And then when I take it off after doing kick on the left and right side, I start to feel like I’m keeping that bigger underarm, like I can hold a bit more water and I’m using the right muscles. So just a few things there, just to kind of get that feeling and that sensation has been helping a lot too. Yeah. And it’s the same idea just with different aspects of the stroke. It’s just like, the more you can give people a pretty clear sensation of what they should be doing as opposed to just like kind of, it’s great to have a concept of what they’re trying to do. And then when you can provide them with like specific sensations that they can experience, they’re much more likely to pick it up because whatever they think it’s supposed to be,

like whatever they’re expecting to feel is just totally wrong because they’ve never done it before. And so, as much as possible, you’re trying to like push them into a situation where it’s like, no, this is what it actually feels like. And once they get a sense of it, they can start to like iron out the details and fix all that stuff. But if they don’t have the right conception of it, both in terms of psychologically what they think it is, but also kinesthetically in terms of what they think it should feel like, it’s gonna be impossible. And so, trying to get them in positions where they can feel those things is super important. And what’s your thought behind, how far should you push in training and when should you stop? So let’s say you’re training hard and you feel like halfway through the main set, your technique has fallen to bits and you’re just practicing the wrong thing now. What should a swimmer do in that situation?

Right, so the way I like to handle that is have people be aware of their stroke counts and when they start to fall off the cliff, you have a problem that you like, so say you’re taking whatever, 15 strokes a lap and if it creeps up to 16 and maybe 17 towards the end of a set and you’re still swimming pretty fast, like that’s probably not the end of the world. But if it starts going up higher than that and you’re trying to get it back down,

you’ve gone past the point where you can hold it together. And so, you may be continuing to work hard and train physically, train your physiology, but you’re now practicing skills that are not gonna be effective. And so, I think especially if someone’s swimming by themselves, you just stop, take a little bit extra rest and then you can try again and see if it’s working and say you’re doing 200s and you take a break and then you go back to it and it’s still not working. Well, then maybe today for whatever reason, you need to do hundreds or you need to swim a little bit slower or you just need to stop if it’s that bad. And so, it’s finding little ways to get back on track because again, if your stroke count isn’t the perfect thing but if it’s, you’re taking five more strokes and a 25 meters, like something bad has happened and you’re not doing what you wanna do. And then in a group context, it’s a little bit tougher

especially if you’re part of a training group. But even then, it’s like you just might need to take one off. You just might need a little bit rest and that’s some of the situation where you work with your coach and you’re just like, hey, this is clearly not, something good is not happening and I can’t figure it out. And if you’re tired, you’re not gonna be like, if you’re tired enough, you can’t out-technique that in the sense that like, if you’re so tired, like you can’t continue to execute certain skills and so you just might need some rest. Yeah, and that’s a, I mean, we all have bad sessions and there’s reasons why that happens. Sometimes you’re just not feeling it. Sometimes you’re tired from the day before. If I’ve been coaching and walking around for 12 hours the day before, like I can feel that my hips are sitting what feels like about four inches below the surface of the water, not that bad. But it’s like, it’s great.

You just, you notice those things and I do exactly that. It’s like I’ll count my strokes, especially at the start of a main set. And if I’m taking 30, like 36, 37 strokes per lap

in the 50 and when it should be, you know, when it should be maybe 32, 33 for the same effort. So all right, today’s not the day. I’m gonna have to change something here. And yeah, and it’s just, yeah, don’t they happen? Probably once a fortnight for me. It’s quite often and you just have to know like what your standards are. And so like, and you might not know that today, but if you play with something like this over time and so you clearly, you know, you’re at 32 and you know, when I’m at 36, it’s like something, you know, I have to do something different. And so just like some, some degradation is okay because that just means you’re pushing yourself and you’re trying to figure it out. But, you know, if it falls off a cliff then you need to do something different. And then, you know, as someone gets more experience they start to figure out what that different might be. And so like in your case, it could have been all,

like you just need to open up the intervals. You just need to go a little bit slower. You could have just shortened the distances. Like it could be all sorts of things. And those are things you learn with experience. But if you’re not keeping track of it, if, you know, you have no idea, because there’s sometimes where people think they’re falling apart and they think it’s really terrible but their stroke attitude hasn’t changed and their times haven’t changed. So, you know, it’s, you know, you just might be feeling terrible but you’re still performing just fine. So it’s not something that you really need to worry about. Hmm. And so we’ve talked about the braiding. We’ve talked about the catch and the pull. What’s one other thing that you’ve been working a bit with lately with some clubs or coaches that has kind of stood out to you or you’ve had a bit more attention on recently? Yeah, so I think what’s important,

especially with, you know, people that are still learning the sport, whether that’s young kids or even adults, is, you know, they don’t really spend enough time and this is kind of related to the breathing is really learning how to manage their body position effectively and kind of, you know, almost learning how to float because that’s, you know, you shouldn’t be working to maintain your body because it’s usually just kind of happened and you can use your lungs to make that happen. And a lot of times people, you know, they kind of skip that set because it’s not swimming. It doesn’t look like swimming. It doesn’t, I mean, it isn’t swimming and they think it’s not important but you watch anyone that’s a reasonably accomplished swimmer they can just swim back and forth effortlessly like, you know, forever at really slow speeds and that’s because they can manage their body position with no effort. And it’s something that people tend to overlook

and that’s something that’s, you know, pretty important because you’re not gonna, you know, most people are not gonna just figure that out unless they dedicate some pretty focused effort to improving it and it doesn’t take a lot of time to fix a lot of time to improve but it just tends to be something that’s overlooked by a lot of people. Yeah, great. That’s a great point. So let’s talk about that. You got lungs, that’s what’s filled with air. That’s what’s provided with your buoyancy. How can we then start to bring up the hips and the legs while using that? Right. So, you know, I think the first step is just like feeling that the lungs hold you up. And so like a couple of things I like is like, you know, you just wrap your arms around your legs and you just grab a big breath and most people will float. And so that kind of shows you that, you know, without any effort you can float on the surface in some situations and what you can do too

is like if you have a partner they can like push on your back and you’ll go, you know, you’ll sink but then you’ll kind of shoot back up to the water as the air wants to get back to the surface. So that’s like the starting point and then what you can do is from that position you can kind of learn how to, you know, extend your arms out, extend your legs out and you learn how to kind of lean into the water like people talk about the pressing the T and or press the buoy in your lungs. Like, you know, you figure out how to kind of do that because a lot of people don’t realize that that’s something they can do. And then also how do you do that while creating some tension in your legs because you know, your legs don’t just hang there they have to have some tension but it’s, you know, good swimmers are using as little tension as possible and then you kind of learn how to manage your position and you know, you’re just,

and it’s not that everyone has to be perfectly flat on the surface of the water doing those things but if you can make progress that’s gonna improve your swimming. Yeah, firstly it’s just the awareness that that’s where you have to press is in there and then as you said that little bit of tension switching the core on kind of through your hips through your glutes, your hammies there’s that little bit of tension to hold that straight otherwise you’re just gonna be bent at the hip and that’s gonna slow you down even more. And it’s just not a natural, it’s not naturally where you’re going to go if you’re going to swimming. Right, right. And what people do is they feel their legs sinking until they’re kicked and that doesn’t like, that helps the problem a little bit but it’s completely exhausting. And so kind of going back to the beginning of the conversation people that really struggle with their breathing you’re never gonna get your breathing under control

if you feel like your legs are constantly sinking and you have to kick because it’s just exhausting. Like you’re always gonna feel out of breath because your legs are always hammering to try to keep you afloat because you feel like you’re sinking but and that’s not really gonna solve the problem if you’re not managing your body position affected. Yeah, it’s a great thing to just start with get good body position, get the head sorted and then you’ve got the main foundations there that you can then build on from there. And yeah, it’s a big one. I ran clinics on the weekend here in Melbourne and I would say that probably a little bit over half the swimmers that came along had pretty low hips, pretty low legs and it was a combination of head position was one and how they’re breathing. That was a big one. Some of them just they weren’t leaning and pressing on their chest enough or they were bending their knees and hips too much

when they were kicking. And look, sometimes it was a bit of timing as well. Like they weren’t out in the front quadrant. They were just rushing the stroke and so that makes it a bit harder to keep it as well. So there’s a number of factors and what I go through and I’m analyzing someone’s stroke is I’ll look at the head first of all if they’ve got low body position, how they’re holding their body as well. And then we’ll look at the breathing and then the timing and just see if there’s anything else there that might be a bit unusual is causing their legs to drop. Is there anything else that comes to mind for you that you think or you go, okay, this is another reason why they can’t have a good body position? I think another thing could be that they’re, if they’re pressing in the front, like so what that’ll do is that’ll lift their head up and it’ll lift their chest up and then that’ll push their hips down too. So a lot of people again,

like they’re not used to how to apply force in the water. And so they think as soon as the hand enters the water they’re pushing and so if they’re pushing a little bit, it doesn’t take that much because you’ve got a pretty long arm there’s a lot of leverage on the water that’s gonna start pressing them up too. And that can, and when they do that they’re gonna press through the front half of the stroke and that whole front half of the stroke is gonna be pushing them up a little bit. And so that can cause problems too. And if people don’t really kind of figure out how to like navigate that, that’s another one that can cause problems too I think. Yeah, excellent. Well, Andrew, thanks so much for being on the podcast. Again, I really enjoyed chatting to you because I learn something every time. And I like, I love chatting about this stuff because to me it’s problem solving and it’s just trying to figure out how can we make swimmers better

and how can we get them to learn these things yes, without help but also getting to learn these things on their own and start to sort of be aware of them and figure them out. So I really appreciate you being on the podcast. Where can people find out more about what you’re doing and who you’re working with? Sure. And you can check out my website it’s www.coachandrushief and that’s probably the best way to get all of you. Brilliant. And if you listen to this, go grab the book. It’s, if you’re not a swim coach there’s still lots of good things in there. It’s quite, it’s very detailed. So I wouldn’t say read it from start to finish. Just pick one thing or two things and get working on it because there’s a lot of really good stuff in here. And I mean, I’ve never had the chance to go through the whole thing but there’s just like little, little things in there that I go, OK, this is a great exercise. This is a really good way to teach this aspect of the stroke.

So grab yourself a copy. We’ll include that in the links to the show notes. And thanks for being on. Yeah. Thanks, friend. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.

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Have you ever wondered what makes certain podcast episodes stand out, becoming favorites among listeners? Join us as we explore the most impactful episodes from this year on the Effortless Swimming Podcast. From overcoming mental barriers to training secrets of Olympic athletes, each episode has left a lasting impression on our listeners. Reflecting on these conversations, we’ll uncover the wisdom and experiences shared by our guests and the valuable life lessons they offer. Gain insights into what made these episodes popular and discover the secrets that set them apart from the rest!

Today’s podcast episode is also sponsored by Skillest. Exclusively for our Effortless Swimming podcast listeners, you can receive a free course, ‘The Art of Triathlon Swimming,’ and an online analysis through the Skillest app.

This podcast is brought to you by NanoClear — our own range of anti-fog swim goggles, designed by Effortless Swimming with the anti-fog treatment bonded into the lens itself (not sprayed on, so it doesn’t wear off after a few swims). Check out the NanoClear range here and use code PODCAST15 for 15% off.

Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Welcome to episode number 311 of the Effortless Swimming podcast. Today is a highlight reel of our last 12 months on the podcast based on our most popular episodes. So those that got the most downloads, as well as some of my personal favorites and some parts that I found insightful, inspiring, eye-opening, some of my favorite bits from the podcast throughout the year. So let’s get into it. The first highlight is from episode number 266 with former professional triathlete and triathlon coach Tim Reed discussing the changes that he had to make in his open water swimming so that he could make the front pack because he said he had the speed in the pool, but wasn’t able to match it in the open water until he changed this. Yeah, I wasn’t sure how much he touched on this before, but

it was something I thought, I should bring up. But when I first year or two I was racing pro, I was swimming faster in the pool than I ever did later in my career. And I could not make the front pack. And I was trying to swim like a swimmer. And I actually got so frustrated with it. I went to LA and started training, did a block of training with Jerry Rodriguez over there. And the first thing he did when he saw me swimming, he’s like, you got to stop trying to swim like Ian Thorpe. You’re not flexible enough. You don’t have the feel for the water. What you have is a high VO2 max. So you just need to get your stroke rate from 65 to 75. And I think you start making the pack. And that’s literally what we worked on. I just just rated up. It looked a lot more messy. But especially when you’re in the bubbles of the people’s feet in front of you, I didn’t I didn’t have that range of motion anyway, to get a really nice catch at the front. So by getting that

faster turnover, I was getting an extra 10 strokes per minute. And I wasn’t falling off the back of the pack anymore. And I left that six week block in LA and every race for the rest of the year, instead of getting out two minutes behind the pack, I was riding the race from the start. And I think yeah, it’s probably you might be able to speak more on this than me. But I feel like the open water swimming, especially on feet, the how pretty it needs to look is secondary to the just the basic physics of pushing water behind you. So yeah, so so true. And actually, I sort of went through a similar thing where my background was was competitive swimming in the pool. And then I started when did I start tries? I think I started tries in 2015. But I sort of started doing open water swimming from about 2008. And the evolution from say 2008, where I was at a pool from over the next eight years or so, just my stroke started to get

scrappier and scrappier. And but I was doing really well in the open water and I had some really good swims in the few triathlons that I did and open water races I was going well. But then I’d also do this one pool race every year, touring country champs. And I had a friend who’s a very good pool swimmer who was on the Olympic team and he coaches a lot of good swimmers. And he saw me swim the 400 freestyle and he goes, That looks hideous. That looks your stroke looks so bad. And I’m like, I’m thinking like, All right, that’s a kick in the guts, but you’re right. It looks like an open water stroke. And it just it wasn’t pretty in it. It wasn’t that quick either in the pool, but it was so good for open water. And I found it hard to sort of have those have those too, because I’ve just gotten so used to swimming for the open water. But yeah, it did not look good. It wasn’t that quick in the pool. People aren’t on feet. I’m interested, in your

opinion, why is it that that scrappier stroke seems to work pretty well? Like, is it because of the chop and the currents? Or is it the high buoyancy of salt water? Or well, I think all my races, I’d say we’re with a wetsuit on. So you’ve got that that buoyancy. And then obviously the salt water as well, where you’re just better off having that faster stroke rate, because you’re just sitting so high in the water that you can sort of get the stroke rate up and you need to get to come over quickly. You can’t do it with this Ian Thorpe like recovery, you just better swinging that hand over the top, getting it in. So I think that’s partly where that scrappiness comes on. You’re taking to just even in a wetsuit to have that neoprene around your elbow to then do that high elbow catch. I find it a lot of our athletes, we really go, you know, go for almost a straight on recovery or just to relax whatever feels natural recovery in your wetsuit. And

if you want to go high elbow and pretty in the pool, that’s fine without one, but it’s just too hard in a wetsuit. Yeah, yeah, that’s right. And I mean, yeah, pretty much with the wetsuit on as long as you’re not swinging really low and flat over the water where it’s causing this sort of side to side movement, it doesn’t matter too much how you’re coming over as long as, yeah, as long as you’re not too low, low and flat there. So it’s something I learned as a as a coach, originally coaching pool swimmers to then coaching triathletes and open water swimmers. And I think, and I see a lot of coaches going through the same thing that I went through coming from a pool background where there’s a lot more emphasis on looking good, being smooth, all that sort of stuff. But yeah, you’ve just got to have some other allowances there for the triathletes. And that’s such an interesting story about you going to see, see Jerry there and actually had Dan

Atkins on the podcast who coached a lot of the ITU guys, guys and girls in Australia and he had Michael Bol next to him, who’s probably the best Australian swim coach at the moment. And Boley said to him that with these athletes like they haven’t got the range of motion, the technique is okay, but they’re not going to be swimming like swimmers. So just get them as fit as you can to swim as they need to swim. Don’t, yeah, don’t worry about trying to perfect everything with their stroke. Just get them as fit in the pool as they can. And that’s what’s going to help them be really, really good ITU swimmers.

Next up, we had episode number 272 with Brant Best, who has coached swimmers at the highest level here in Australia. And in this episode, Brant discussed the concept of softness in swimming and how it relates to optimal tension and power. And it’s a way to think about conserving energy while maintaining maximum speed. Now you mentioned softness there. Do you want to talk about what you mean by softness? And I want to sort of preface this with how to send an email to me this morning. He’s sort of struggling to go beyond that 100 meters without feeling totally, totally gassed. And in his email, something he mentioned was the first 25, like I feel good, I feel lots of power in my, in my catch in my pool. And I’ve asked him another question, which I’m waiting for him to reply, how much effort are you putting into that, that catch in pool? Because if every stroke is like a maximum effort each one, that is not sustainable, no matter how, how good

you are. So when you talk about softness, what are you talking about there? We’re talking about myths and misconceptions. I think the myth is that the maximum amount of power you put on the water and also the maximum tension is going to produce the maximum speed. And that’s, we know that’s not the case. Look, it might be the case over 15 meters. We’re even finding that’s not the case, even over surely this is like that. But if you have maximum tension, I can’t stand here and hold my fist closed of maximum tension for 47, 48 seconds without getting very, very tired and running out of juice in my shoulders and in my hands. These guys have got their physiological range of responses happening. And they’re trying to do that from the start. So for me, the tension needs to be optimal rather than maximal. And then when we’re looking at extent, extending that across and you’ll see I might be going a minute or a minute 10 or even 50

I was like, observe it. He’s very, very good at going 50 seconds. You can’t hold maximum tension. You can’t probably even hold eight or nine out of 10 tension for that amount of time. So you’ve got to find the right amount of tension in your hands to extend across the race. So obviously we don’t want to have zero out of 10. Did something recently with a team where we dropped their attention to about six or seven. And they were only going to slower over 25 meters because they were setting better body position. They had a better length of stroke because they traveled better because they weren’t gripping and switching off their deeper controlling muscles. They are able to access better muscles in their core when they’ve got a little bit of control, their strength, their stroke length increases, their stroke rate holds on as well. So the basic technique are maintained and probably enhanced by defining that optimal

level of control through the first part of your race. It’s a long answer to a short question, but that’s what I mean by softness. It’s not complete softness, but it’s just finding and testing out what the optimal range is. So with that, when we’re doing this exercise, whether it be on a clinic with swimming Queensland or one of these camps with swimming Australia, we’re finding out what optimal is. For me, if the swimmer’s swimming at 12 seconds through the first 25 and they’re at maximum force and then they have a crack at one and they might be 7 out of 10 and they’re 0.2 slower, I’m happy with the 0.2 slower because we’re going to gain much more than that on the back end of the race. We might gain a second on the second 50 and I’m happy to give up 0.2 of a second to gain one second on the back of the race. So it’s just about finding where that sweet spot is to be able to come home at the speed that you want. And is this them judging

their own force, tension, like their perceived tension? Yeah, it’s hard to judge and it is a trial and error. I spent some time with one of our very good clubs in Brisbane yesterday, working this out, just going through 30m sprints yesterday, caught them sprints because we started going, they tried to go very hard at the beginning and we found that they went equally hard if not faster, a little bit lighter. So it is a trial and error thing. We’d like to be able to quantify it as closely as we can. We’re finding out with our swim better devices that we’re working out that peak forces aren’t exactly what we’re after if we’re going to get peak speeds as well. What we’re also finding is that the peak forces that we’re seeing when there’s maximum application. We get higher peaks but we don’t get the width of impulse. So we’re looking at our force versus time curve, which is my go-to, which I love looking at. We want to get maximum volume under

the curves we can. When I’m looking at the swimmers that are putting maximum force and we’re getting really high peaks, we’re also getting gaps in force through the middle of the stroke, which are easily identified and quantified and honestly so far when the athletes look at it, they can’t believe what’s going on. And it’s not a question as to whether they are or they aren’t losing force. They can see where it is and they can fix it a lot more quickly and they buy in a whole lot more quickly, which I think is super important when we’re trying to sell this concept to our athletes. So again, going a little bit deeper than the question asked, mate, but yeah, quantifying that is massively important.

Up next we’ve got professional triathlete, Joshua Lewis. On episode number 279, he and I were discussing the importance of putting yourself out there and pursuing something that maybe you’re not very good at in the beginning, but how taking that risk and making those scary decisions that feel scary at the time can lead to the personal growth and the enjoyment that at that time you may not have thought was possible. Yeah, it’s interesting. It makes me think back to when I first started coaching. So I was at university first year and I was living on campus at Melbourne University and they had a swim squad that was training twice a week and the coach there was finishing up and someone I think said, oh, look, they got a coaching role there. You knew how to swim like you’d be, you might be good at that. So I took on this coaching role and my dad was or is a swim coach. My granddad was a swim coach as well, but I never thought

I’m going to be a swim coach. It hadn’t entered my mind, but I did like teaching people. I did like working with people and I think my brain was very much oriented in that kind of direction in the teaching coaching. Anyway, that’s what I really enjoyed just based on school. I wouldn’t shoot a people, but I helped them with different subjects and stuff like that and I really enjoyed it. And then so I got this coaching role twice a week, enjoyed it. One of the swimmers there said, oh, we’ve got a masters club. Our coach there is leading. We’d love you to come and see if you want to do it and ended up coaching seven sessions a week there for about eight years. And at that time I started effortless swimming while I was at university and then just sort of started that while I was coaching for about 12, 13 hours there at this masters club. And yeah, like same thing. I just sort of fell into it, but realized that I loved it and

then just see what you really enjoyed doing and you just sort of follow that follow that path. So yeah, for me as well, it wasn’t just an active decision where I’m like, all right, what do I want to do with my life? You’re just especially at that age, you just got to figure out what it is that you good at what you like and how you like to think and what you’re doing at the moment is teaching architecture at university. And so you obviously sort of thinking that way as well. And you’re coaching triathletes as well. So you probably very similar sort of mindset to mine, I imagine. Yeah, I’d say definitely very similar. And the way that you describe well, I say falling into it. And I realized that I explained my transition into professional triathlon is falling into it as well. But it’s far more, we should give ourselves more credit, I think, because we’ve both put ourselves out there to do things which we thought we might be good at

or had an interest in and actually pursued it. So I think that I always forget that I’ve put myself in the position to do these things. And it was that is falling into place and things like that it’s actually far more you’ve given yourself the opportunities you put yourself out there, you’ve explored what you might be interested in. And I mean, I’d never have it any other way. I’ve definitely I’ve definitely never been shy to put myself in positions like try and help other people. I was always like putting myself out there to like be a year rep or tutor people before I started actually tutoring after university. It was there was an option to I think tutor younger years and I would always like put my name forward just because I enjoyed it. And then yeah, it was again almost a seamless transition. I went for an interview at university, not for tutoring necessarily, but I think it was for a graphic design role. And then they

were just like, oh, no, actually, we’d prefer you to tutor if that’s okay, your skills are more apt for that. So I was like, amazing, literally amazing. That was what I’d prefer to do anyway. So it was like again, falling into place, but you put yourself out there for the interview or whatever it was. And that’s where I really, really put my passion for teaching, which I very much find similar to coaching. I think we were saying before like, teaching and coaching is a very similar sort of thing. You’re just delivering information to people in a way that they’re able to understand it and then also execute it. So yeah, like for the coaching side of things and teaching, I absolutely love the puzzle of delivering information to different people in different ways, so that they can actually achieve their goals. So yeah, no, it definitely sounds a similar sort of kind of trajectory as to what you found with your teaching and coaching.

And I also have to remind myself that people who are starting out swimming and it’s the same thing with triathlon is that can be a very big step for them if they don’t have a background in any of the sports or even if they’ve got a background in running, but they’re new to swimming or to cycling. It can be quite nerve-wracking for them. It can be, people can be quite reserved and very conscious about how they look or in the water, what they’re doing, those sorts of things. So getting into a sport like swimming or triathlon can be a big life decision for people. So just I have to remind myself that like not everyone’s comfortable or confident walking into the pool and like you don’t know how it works in the beginning. You don’t know that you’ve got to go around in a circle and get in the right lane and all there’s all these little rules that we have to learn. And so even just some of those basic things can be life-changing for people

when they learn them. And in terms of putting yourself out there, I think it’s like those things that you hesitate to do that are a little bit scary are the ones where you look back and go, I’m so glad I did that. And some of those ones for me were when I started this podcast, which was about, I think it was about 10 years ago now, like this was before podcasting was cool. I started the podcast because my coach said, look, you should do a like start this podcast. And I was like, so I thought about it for six months. And then I’m just like, I’ll just whatever, I’ll do it. And I had a guest, Michael Clemont, who’s an Australian Olympian. And he was my first guest. And I was so nervous talking to him. I was just asked, I was there like an interview or just asking questions. And there was no, no back and forth because I’m just like, I’m just who wants to listen to me first of all. And then I can’t believe this Australian champions decide to come on my podcast.

But I’m so glad I did because had I not taken that step, we wouldn’t be talking. Most people probably wouldn’t know about effortless swimming. And I wouldn’t have developed and grown as a person and as a communicator. And I’ve learned so much from this podcast with guests I’ve had on and just improved my communication skills because of this. And we’re nearly 300 episodes in. And I’m just so glad I took that step. So it is those decisions that can be a little bit scary initially that you often look back at and go, God, I’m glad I did that. On episode number 286, we had Olympic gold medalist Ryan Murphy. On this episode, Ryan discussed how in the early days of his career, he was very much driven by wanting to compete and beat the top semis in the world. But in recent years, that motivation has shifted and it’s changed. Has your motivation changed in the last five to 10 years? So sort of in your earlier days of your career, do you feel like you were

driven by different things than you are now? Oh, totally. Totally. Yeah, I mean, I think in leading up to, you know, leading up to the 2016 Olympics, like it was, I was just like a young buck. Like, you know, I just wanted to get out there and race. Like, and then in the improvement curve was, was sort of see it that it, you know, every time we got into the water, it was like, all right, I’m going to best time here. That’s, that’s going to be, that’s going to be a good race. And so the motivation then was like, all right, I’m chasing. Like, I want to, I want to do some of the things that, you know, Ryan Lochte and Tyler Cleary were doing in the 200 back. I want to do the things that Matt Griebers and David Palmer are doing in the 100 backs, really like studying how they are doing things, trying to do, you know, trying to be like, create a player mode. Like growing up, I love playing Madden. And like, you could create a player however you want.

And I kind of view the way that, that those guys were doing things as a menu. Okay. What can I learn from Lochte? Like, what can he, what, what can, what does he do that I can do? And what are some things that I would maybe want to do a little bit differently? And you kind of, you look across enough good swimmers and you can make those, make those decisions in that way. And I would say coming off of, you’re not coming off of 2016, leading into 2021. I think my confidence got to the point where it’s like, all right, like, you know, it’s a little bit, it’s a little bit more on me and like, I’m trying to optimize me. So like, what am I doing that I think I could do a little bit better? And you do look at other swimmers to, to figure that out. But it, but it becomes like every, every person is want to lean into your relative traits instead of just copying what other people are doing. And then I would say now, like where I’m at is, is I’m really interested

in all of the things that correlate with a good performance. So, so looking at really like a lifestyle of success and all of the things that I could do to help myself have a great performance. Can you talk a bit more about the lifestyle of success that you mentioned there? So, are you talking more things outside of the pool? Just how you go about your daily life? Is it a bit more of a, like a, not a wholesale approach, but like a, a bit more of a, looking outside of just a swimming portion of, of your daily life? Sure, yeah. So, I mean, like when you’re, when you’re looking at swimming, I think there’s, there’s a tendency to, I mean, obviously first we’re going to look at like your, your physiology and your technique. So like, am I in great shape? Am I swimming the most efficient way possible? And that’s like, obviously, a great place to start. But I think that’s like, I think that’s kind of just like baseline, like at the Olympic level,

like everyone’s in incredible shape and the majority of people have also really good technique. And so like beyond that, like what are the things you can do to, to be even better? And so like, then you’re parsing apart, like, okay, what’s my nutrition look like? What’s the optimal, what’s the optimal, like eating plan for me? Like, at what times of the day, what, what types of, what types of meals I’m, am I eating, what are the macros in that meal? How has that changed throughout the season on the recovery side? Like, am I, am I doing the right things to recover practice to practice? And really looking at the different ways to do that. So, are you someone that responds to, to massage better or physical therapy or chiropractor? Like there’s, and then there’s so many products that are coming out to also help with, help with recovery. So it’s like, what do you, what do you hyperize come out with? Like, is that, is that a product that I should use

on the, you know, the mental fitness side, like you definitely want to walk behind the blocks with, with a clear mind understanding your strategy on the sleep side, just making sure that you’re staying on top of it and, and really like digging into that and making sure that you’re not,

that you’re not over treating in any kind of looking at, at things through that lens. So, I mean, those are just a couple of examples, but like everything you do in the day does impact performance. So most, I mean, throughout the day, like it’s honestly subconscious for me now, but like, a lot of decisions are made with performance in mind.

Before we dive into the rest of today’s podcast episode, this episode is proudly brought to you by Form Smart Swim Goggles. They’ve been a long time sponsor of the podcast and they are my go-to goggles when it comes to tracking my training sessions and being able to see what’s happening in real time through the goggles. And we know swimming’s a highly technical sport, but without the guidance of a coach on deck, identifying and addressing technique flaws can be a challenge. They’ve recently added a new feature to the goggles, Head Coach, and this addresses that problem head-on. It gives swimmers improved access to their technique awareness, focus skill development, and in-app education and analysis. Head Coach provides real-time visual coaching via the Form Smart Swim Goggles augmented reality display. During and after a swim, Head Coach provides swimmers with technique feedback using two types of metrics, Form Score and Head Coach skills.

Form Score is a measurement of overall swim efficiency ranging from 0 to 100, defined by your pace and your stroke length. Head Coach skills encompasses five key areas that will help you identify where to focus on improving with your efficiency. Head Roll, Head Pitch, Set Pacing, Interval Pacing, and Breathing Time to Neutral. And after completing a session, you can check back in on the Form App to track your progress. And Head Coach provides swimmers from beginner to expert with an unprecedented level of data-driven guidance and understanding, enabling you to boost your performance and your speed. Get your pair of Form Smart Swim Goggles today, click the link in our podcast description or use the code Effortless on Checkout to get 15% off your Form Smart Swim Goggles. This podcast is also brought to you by Skillist, the ultimate digital coaching platform that’s making waves in the swimming world. Imagine having the opportunity

to train with Olympic and World Champions like Kyle Chalmers, Ryan Murphy, and Brent Hayden. Well, with Skillist, that dream is now a reality. Swimmers, you now have the chance to work with the absolute best in the sport, gaining insights and guidance from these elite athletes like never before. And Skillist isn’t just your run-of-the-mill coaching platform, it’s a game changer. Here is what sets it apart. You can discuss training programs, receive detailed stroke analysis, and even develop race strategies with these incredible athletes and coaches. It’s like having a personal coaching session with an Olympic champion right in your pocket. And excitingly, coaches from around the world can also tap into the power of Skillist. Coaches can use Skillist’s amazing tools to train their students, analyze videos, and incredibly connect with swimmers from across the world as well. So whether you are a swimmer or a coach, go to the app store,

download the Skillist app today, that’s S-K-I-L-L-E-S-T, download the Skillist app today, and get started. And only for our effortless swimming podcast listeners, we’re giving away our Art of Triathlon course, free, as well as a technique analysis online through the Skillist app from me for free as well. Go to effortlesswimming.com forward slash skillistoffer or click the link in this podcast description. And you will get the Art of Triathlon swimming course for free as well as a technique analysis from me through the Skillist app. And now back to the podcast. On episode number 278, we had Brian Johns, former professional swimmer and head of technology at Form. In this episode, he was discussing how to find the sweet spot between your stroke rate and stroke length. Have you got any sort of advice for those listening about how they could find their sweet spot with stroke rate and stroke length?

Yeah, absolutely. And like to kind of build off that point and carry it through to this is that like with the goggles, we have real time stroke rate. And like when I was swimming, it was like touch the wall, wait for the coach to bark it out to me. And to be able to see that stroke rate in real time as you’re swimming, I think is a big way to understand that relationship between distance per stroke and stroke rate where, okay, you’re doing a 50 and maybe like you have a sense that it’s supposed to be like 60 strokes or like your stroke rate supposed to be about 60 but the start 70 in the end is 50. It’s like, well, you’re not really training in a way that’s reliable that’s going to affect your race. Or if anything, you’re actually like training in the opposite way that it might actually be hurtful for your racing. And if you want to be there, you actually have to learn how to be smoother at the start, hold on to it and just like roll on that stroke rate.

And so thinking about how to find that sweet spot for the stroke rate. I think it really comes down to understanding like for me, the distance per stroke piece has always come first where it’s like the distance per stroke is your technique. Then you apply the technique to your stroke rate and that comes with training. And it’s like in theory, you could tell somebody it’s like go in and do 90 stroke rate. It’s like, well, they can physically do it but not in a way that’s going to be helpful for their long term success. You have to be able to learn your technique. And then it’s like, okay, your technique right now and your stroke count right now has yet 45 stroke rate. Let’s try and keep the same technique, hold the same stroke count and bring it up to 50. And right there, you’re going to get some improvement. And then you might find that as you make some sort of other technical improvement, increase the stroke rate, your distance per stroke

may not increase like in the first length of the 200 but your seventh and eighth length do. And then that’s how you really get the technical reliability going from start to finish. So to find that like sweet spot of stroke rate, I think it comes really down to what are you training for? So if like you’re trying to train for like a 100 meter freestyle or a sprint triathlon or an Ironman, it’s a lot of different demands between that. So having the end goal in mind, know what you kind of need to go for that and then work backwards from there. Have your goal. My goal, shouldn’t it be X stroke rate? How am I going to train that here? And then you find that you’re accomplishing it a little bit earlier than expected, you can build it up and be actually better than you had anticipated. We do this set of 7100s, like almost like a ramp test where in our eight week faster freestyle course, which we’ve which we’ve just got added to. So if you’ve got form goggles,

you can basically just add those workouts or those sessions to your goggles now. One of the things we do there in week eight, I think it is, is the 7100s test and we’ll get them to bump up their stroke rate by four strokes for each hundred. And it doesn’t have to be four. You could do it less, it might be three because four is a relatively big jump. But what we see there, and if we start them on 56, I’ll go 56, 60, 64, 68, 72 and so on. And if you look at the time and the stroke time and the stroke rate and also getting to measure their perceived effort as well. And if you’re wearing a heart rate monitor, that could be the same thing, essentially. But we find there’s typically a sweet spot there where some people will get to say 64 strokes per minute and let’s say their time’s 130. And then they will go up to 68 strokes a minute, 72 strokes a minute. But their speed doesn’t actually change because their distance per stroke has shortened so much

and they’re really just spinning the wheels. But the perceived effort is increasing. So then they’re going backwards, that it’s not working for them. So it can help you find the sweet spot that way. And if you see that and you do a test like that, it gives you a bit of an idea of where you might be looking to sit, maybe a 1500 meter swim or a 1.9K swim. And if you see, when you’re doing this, that there is no change in speed with any difference in stroke rate, then we really just want to work on just some basic technique because the feedback that I get from a lot of people when they first start with me is I’ve only got one speed. I can’t go any faster. I can’t go any slower. I’ve just got this one speed. You can change that. That can be fixed. That can be changed. But I think it just comes down to knowing some basics of technique and making sure in training that you’re not just swimming at the one speed. Make sure that you’re

giving yourself the chance to actually vary your speed and adjust it.

In episode number 263, this was a solo episode where I was talking about how to find the root cause of the issues or the problems that you’re experiencing in your swimming. If we look and see we’ve got that crossover with the arms. Okay, maybe it is you’re just swinging your hand around too wide and then it comes across. Maybe that’s the case. But it also might be that you’re over rotating and that’s causing you to or you’re like you’re over rotating. That’s kind of throwing your timing off and causing the arm to swing around. So you can work it back from those couple of things to work out where should you focus. So to go through those one more time, the first thing we want to look at is body and it’s head, kick, rotation and arms. So I think that’s a great way to analyze the stroke and what’s the order of things I should be looking at them in. And if you are looking at a video of yourself, you’re recording yourself, you’re comparing it to

some of the videos on our YouTube, some of the analysis videos there. Then you can compare some of the aspects that we like to look at there and compare it to say perfect stroke like Dan Smith or Kim Elverton. But you can also go through that order and look at things in that way. And if your head is moving all around the place but your body position, your body line, your body position is fine, then you may just want to start with your head position. So I thought that was a really good way to approach them. And so we want to look at the cause and not the symptom. Another example of this is I was getting a really tight like mid-back, sort of thoracic and sometimes lower back. And I would only get it on the days where I was sitting down for three or four hours at a time. And so I would try and stretch, I’d go get a massage, get a fix, that’s great. But the cause was I had a really crappy office chair and it’s taken me way too long

to make a change to this. But finally, I saw a friend post about a chair that he had had good success with. So I bought this chair and since switching over to this chair had no back issues, so much better. But it just took me a long time to realize that. And I think speaking personally, for myself, I know that when we do look at these, when we do have things that come up, too often to try and fix the symptom, the thing that’s come out of it. But we don’t often look at and treat or change the cause of it. So this is my way of wanting to show you that there is maybe a better way for you to approach the things that you’re doing in your life. Because I know that when I have actually tapped into the cause and made a change there, life’s been a whole lot better. And you can do that with your stream of stroke, you can do that with other aspects of your life. On episode number 275, we saw Dr. Jim Taylor discussing a very simple mind hack

that has a significant impact on your physiology and your emotions. Another mind hack has to be smiling in two ways. Now, I think I did talk about this a while ago in one of our earlier ones, but I’m going to add a little twist to it. So smiling is a very strange thing. It has a tremendous impact on our physiologies and our emotions. So a lot of people think, well, you’re smiling when you’re happy. But it also goes both the other way, where if you smile, it makes you happier. And there’s been a lot of research that’s found that if you simply force yourself to smile, your mood lifts and you feel less pain for a couple of reasons. First of all, as we grow up, what do we learn

how we’re feeling when we’re smiling? Well, life’s good, I’m happy, on so on. Also, smiling releases neurochemicals and dorphins, serotonin, dopamine that actually make us happier and our natural bodies, natural painkillers. So this is a little hard to do in swimming, but I do it every day when I’m in the pool is I’ll actually smile during a workout. And obviously, after, let’s say, I’m doing sets of 100 or 200 or whatever, I’m hanging at the wall and I’m breathing hard, I’ll smile. And I don’t mean to be having a great time because when you suck and wind, and I train part of the time up in the mountains of Northern California at 7,000 feet, that’s really impressive. I can assure you, there’s no joy there either. But simply going like this, smiling is a motor skill, simply raising the sides of your mouth produces those same feelings. Now it’s not the same as actually genuinely feeling those emotions, smiling for genuine reasons,

but even when you’re hurting, you can often find reasons to smile. Like I’m pushing my limits, I’m challenging myself, I’m getting stronger, I’m pursuing my goals, whatever it might be. So when things get hard, simply forcing yourself to smile. And this is a great just life thing. You know, you’re driving the road and you’re stressed out because of the traffic, just forcing yourself to smile. It’s just hard for our bodies to think, and our minds to think and feel in ways that are inconsistent with what the messages our bodies send us. So if I’m going like this, it’s hard to be really angry because the message my mind is getting from my face is, oh, wait a minute, but you’re happy. And so it goes okay, and then it makes the physiological changes. So simply smiling is a great tool to use in the water, on the bike, on the run, when things get hard, force yourself to smile. And all of a sudden it’s like, whoa, you know, you actually feel better.

So that’s part one of the smiling. Part two is this, there’s been some fascinating research done in the Human Performance Lab where they have a cyclist on an indoor trainer with a TV screen. And it might be something like Zwift or something like that. And they would flash smiley faces below the level of consciousness. So the people riding and looking at the screen can’t see the smiley face consciously. But the mind picks it up. It’s called subliminal messaging. And what they found was that when people are exposed to subliminal messaging,

that is of a smiley face, they actually go faster and have lower perceived effort and can push harder than if they see a frowny face or no face at all. Now, here’s the problem with swimming. You can’t put a smiley face maybe in your goggles or something. But you can picture the smiley face because that’s just like putting it on that screen in your mind’s eye. And when I do my effort, my training cave, I don’t like to call it pain cave as sort of negative connotations, but I call it in my training cave. I print it out a smiley face and put it up above my TV when I’m doing indoor workouts. And so when I swim, I’ll also, in addition to smiling periodically when it’s getting hard, I just pop that image of the smiley face in my mind. Now, realistically, is this scientifically proven to be able to just put a picture in your mind? No. But I think it works. And if anything else, it’s a placebo. And so I’m going to stick with it. So smiling is this really powerful tool

that we can use. And if we use it on a regular basis and we train ourselves to use it during those hard times, we’re able to get more out of our…

…and his skills. Can you talk a bit about how much of that you’ve done over your career and how you like to use it and that have improved with that kind of feedback on a consistent basis? Yeah, feedback for me has been probably the biggest aspect of my swimming career, I think. I think I’m naturally pretty strong and fast through the water and powerful, but being able to actually use that to my advantage by putting,

what the feedback that they’re giving me into place to swim faster and be more efficient is both what’s been the driving force to me actually improving over the years. So I think I started working with skill acquisition probably early as 2015 with underwater cameras and GoPros. And as we’ve kind of progressed and I’ve had a bit of success, I think the funding into swimming in South Australia has probably gone a little bit more. So we’ve been able to acquire probably better equipment and gain that little bit more knowledge from me racing against other guys around the world or things that I’ve done to be able to improve myself. But just that constant feedback of when I’m in the water just videoing every single turn we have the big screen in the pool is kind of a live stream of that turns. It’s on a 50 second delay so we’re able to look straight up on the screen and see the turn that we just did or occasionally we’ll swap it to the other end

to see the finishes that we’re doing. And then I have a skills coach there that’s able to give me feedback straight away with how my feet are hitting the wall, how I’m pushing off the wall, my fly kicks, my break out, whatever it might be that I’m working on in that period of time which I find super beneficial when I’m a visual learner so I have to actually be able to see what they’re talking about and then try to put that into practice. So I know that if it’s something on my turn I kind of have to do it. They have to show me what I’m doing wrong and then I have to get straight back in the pool and do it to be able to learn that skill and acquire it. But I know that I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today without my skills. You know I used to think back in 2016 or early days I probably used to win races by being one of the fitter swimmers in terms of my back end and but if you watch my skills from probably Rio it’s probably some of the worst

skills you’d kind of see you know like my turns probably two to three fly kicks and then it’s my head comes straight out of the water on my break out and my finish was terrible. I remember in that race thinking I’d lost the race just on my finish so

over the years I’ve got better and better at my skills and I have to do that if I’m going to match the likes of Caleb Dressel. In the 100 freestyle his skills are amazing his dive is incredible and I’ve learned to watch a lot from watching his dive or his turns and his underwater fly kicks and breakouts and then trying to put that into practice on myself and I think that’s what’s allowed me to get to get better and have you found that what you’ve learnt from those skill acquisition coaches with how they how they analyze it how they go about teaching you have you done much work with younger kids in sort of clinics or just in in squads where you’ve been able to take that stuff on board and then pass it on to those younger kids who are up and coming yeah definitely like an example of that this year’s probably being on the national event camp on the Gold Coast we split up into our strokes so I was with 100 freestyle guys and we’ve got a couple

of young guys coming up through there like flints out them and Dylan Dylan Andreia that are both really keen to learn and both looking to me for advice and I think you know we did a morning where it was just kind of based around turns and I’m kind of almost giving more advice to them than what the actual skill act that we had there was giving to them because I think I’ve been learning you know freestyle turns for such a long period of time I do the however many hundreds of times a day probably that I’m able to kind of look at their turns see exactly what they’re doing wrong and then give them the advice which I found really cool and they’ll both super eager to learn and both super keen to be able to then put that in the place so quickly and they’re going to be important parts of of my relay next year so the faster that they can turn and the faster they can swim the better but but yeah definitely the kind of skills that I’ve learned from being coached

by skill acts for such a long period of time has allowed me to probably retain that information to then coach the next generation and I’ve been able to do that and but it’s something an area that I definitely love doing is helping the younger kids that are coming through because my time in swimming is probably coming to an end a little bit you know like I’m at the pointy end of my career whereas these guys are start just starting up and if I can help them kind of take over from where I’m at you know it’s just going to be more beneficial for Australia really moving forward On episode number 276 we had Annie Donson who completed the Ocean 7 within 12 months and broke the record for it he was discussing how he rediscovered his passion for swimming and what that meant when it come to changing his old goals where he didn’t quite reach the heights that he wanted to in the professional swimming world but he was able to shift and then go on to actually break a world record

and do something that very few people have actually done I dedicated so much of my life to swimming and I think I was neglecting other areas like my career so I’m an accountant and so I’ve wanted to spend a bit more time pursuing that and growing and building a career and thinking about life after swimming and it was a bit of a shame I probably left the sport not having really achieved the things that I wanted to or feeling a bit unfulfilled and perhaps in my own view as a bit of a failure so I was I was a bit burnt out from it all so you know I didn’t actually have any intentions to come back to the sport but not in a competitive capacity at all but you know it’s funny what happens in life and during the coronavirus that I found myself coming back to swimming as a way of managing my mental well-being one of my friends during lockdown invited me to come swim along the coast and through those swims from Trig Beach in NWA to Sorrento yeah I just rediscovered

this passion for the sport and swimming and that’s just how much I missed it as an incredible finest part of my life so yeah was very fortunate in that regard and you know blessed that happened to me during you know a worldwide pandemic what is it about the sport that you think drag me back I think there’s a number of things I mean obviously there’s the physical benefits of swimming it’s a full body workout but I think from a mental aspect you know you’re in the water but you’re with nature you’re out in the element and there’s time for you to be alone with your own thoughts I don’t think there’s many things out there in today’s world in society where that happens you know you’re always connected you’re always you know if you go on the train everyone’s looking at the phone or listening to music but when you’re in the water it’s just you and and you know in nature and I think there’s something very freeing and liberating about you know your swimming

and it is peaceful there’s a breathwork element to it which is I think has you know a very calming effect and then once you’ve done your swim you know this there’s the community aspect of it and all these people around you in for the same reasons and you know with many of them working towards particular goals so through the process of these swims I got started to get quite fit again and you know with a bit of encouragement from that friend that invited first invite me down a guy called Martin’s Movie he suggested maybe maybe you should revisit some of your old goals and and and see what happens and so from there this would have been in mid 2020 I decided to get back into swimming and have a crack at trying to win the Rodney’s Channel Swim which is the big open water swim here in Perth West in Australia In episode number 293 we saw Olympic medalist Brent Hayden and here he was discussing in the lead up to the Olympics the importance of teamwork

and some of the challenges that he and the other relay swimmers faced in the lead up to the Olympics and what they’re able to do to turn that around and actually use it to drive them forward talk me through that relay so you’re on the Canadian team obviously you let out well you guys made the final first of all you let out the team and you’re the ended up going 47.99 so were you 37 at the time 37 years of age yeah 37 yeah so oldest oldest person to swim under 48 by like five years which is unbelievable yeah Jason Lezak I remember when he he did that and that was at Beijing but I’ll still remember that that anchor swim he did right we were over there and like lane one or lane two or something like that when he when he did that and so to be able to to like have his name there and now like see seeing my name above his there it’s you know like

we still like I just want to say that we kind of like you know we we all stand on the shoulders of giants right so the fact that Lezak did that showed us that we can keep being competitive as we get over and now that I’ve done it I think we’re going to be seeing like I don’t expect my name to be at the top of that list for for much longer I think we’re going to have swimmers that are now opening up their eyes to the longevity of what’s possible and you know

probably like maybe even after World Champs we might already have another older so older swimmer ever under 40 seconds or after Paris right so but it’s it’s cool to be able to see my name at the top of that for the time being what was it like hitting the wall and looking at a time and going wow that was so unexpected yeah that was that I mean I think everything kind of leading up to that moment it wasn’t necessarily just just the 47 9 9 like at our Olympic trials we we were at risk of not even having a team to qualify for the Olympic games because we were ranked 15th and you know only top 16 actually get to go so we came together to do a time trial to hopefully just get us a better out of time to or sorry just to get a better time so we can you know feel a little bit safer in case other teams behind us in the trial and knock this out and I think we moved up to 12th I think with that time trial and one thing that I was telling this the guys was the story of

watching the South Africans at the 2004 Olympics right was that I think Darian Townsend Lyndon Ferns Wike Nethling and Roland Schumann nobody expected them to to win a medal and they came out they believed in themselves when no one else would and they they won the gold medal so I wanted to kind of share share that experience with them so I use that as a as an example and just like we went out there you know I also told like there’s still a chance that this this could be it so swim this race like it’s a final in the heats and so we did every guy stepped up you know we had Ruslan Gaziov who was who swam as our alternate in the in the heats and he really stepped up big time as well so they got us that lane so that gave us the opportunity and still people still didn’t believe in us or like you know like guys like we have a chance to medal right and I guess leading off that that relay I knew it was going to hurt coming back and like because I didn’t train

necessarily focusing on the hundred I was training for the 50 because I felt that was probably the most realistic place or realistic event for me to be doing a come back at my age in such a short amount of time right but I guess my coach I guess was secretly training me for 100 without telling me right I just show up and just do what my coach tells me to do

so I just I just wanted to not put any limits on how on what my body was capable of on the second length that wasn’t going to save anything for for the swim back that’s why I was just thinking about that movie Gadica there’s a there’s a scene in that movie where the guys are swimming out and the one guy he just wanted to turn around swim back but he doesn’t want to get beaten and finally he asked the guy you know how are you doing this and he says I didn’t ever save anything for the swim back so I’ve always thought of that that line and so in that moment that’s kind of the way I decided to approach that race is don’t save anything for the swim back because I don’t know what my body is capable in in this moment all right what it’s capable of so I just went out as fast as I could and I came back and you know when that pain’s taken over your body there’s something about being on a relay when you’ve got three other guys they’re swimming with that kind of helps

elevate you and push through that pain just a little bit more sometimes and I touched that wall and it turned around and you know I see Josh’s feet enter that water and in that moment it was the first thing that went through my mind was that I feel like this was kind of like a passing of a torch this moment because here I am at 30 37 years old Josh was born after I made my first national team right at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester so I kind of feel like that moment is kind of like a passing of the torch and then I noticed that time and seeing that 47, 9, 9, 9 and you know the last time I saw a 47 up there was the 2012 Olympics 10 years earlier I’m sorry nine years earlier I felt really proud of what I did and I knew that I did what I needed to do to give ourselves a chance and we almost won a medal we were so close

On episode number 298 we saw former Iron Man World champion Craig Alexander and here he was discussing the most important piece of advice that he received early on in his career did you have a particular mantra or piece of advice that you’d gotten from a coach or you’d come across that you kept close to your heart during your career is there something that’s been this thread throughout your career that you’ve used as your philosophy or your way of approaching things as you’ve gone through this triathlon journey yeah there’s there’s been a few things so one piece of advice I got and I got early in my Iron Man career actually I just stepped up in distance to the Iron Man for the first time and it was just a casual conversation I was having with the lady called Pauline Ubi Fraser who won Hawaii eight times what was one of the all-time great triathletes and was still working in and around triathlon in media and doing other things and she just said to me

you know something she used to ask herself in training every day and also multiple times throughout all her races is what can I do right now

what can I do right now to improve my situation I think that’s a good that’s a good mantra because sometimes we get overwhelmed with the gravity of the task at hand or the length of the race we’re about to undertake off where you know we arrived at the pool and we got a set of 2400s to do the enormity of it can be overwhelming so it’s good to break it down and and you know it’s a little bite-sized pieces I always found that you know asking that question what can I do right now what’s what’s my immediate focus in the next 30 seconds the next 60 seconds the next five minutes one of the things I really need to be focusing on so that’s something that helped me a lot and I had a couple of really old school swim coaches both Olympians had a huge impact on on my career in my life and you know one used to say there’s no time like the present you know if you’re thinking about changing your swimstroke or changing your training or you know there’s there’s no time

like the present what put off doing things that we can we can start working on right now and another one used to say don’t quit before the magic happens you know it’s it’s a long journey nobody becomes a world champion overnight and there’s going to be I mean I guess it’s an analogy I like you know an endurance sporting career it’s like investing in the stock market you know there’s going to be peaks and troughs you’ve got to be you’ve got to be good enough and lucky enough to be able to ride the waves when they come along and but you’ve also got to be robust enough and durable not to ride out the storms when they come along so so you’re still around when the next wave comes so you know you just have to hang in there you know this this coach used to always say to me you know when when things get really really difficult that’s usually when you’re on the cusp of something really special either a little leveling up in performance or a performance breakthrough

so yeah you can’t quit before the magic happens you’ve got to you’ve got to hang in there so I think they’re good men just to have I just think a lot of the things we do in life whether it’s education academics sport business whatever they’re long journeys you don’t send to the great heights overnight I mean the great proponents in all those arenas will you know will tell us that so I think by virtue of the fact it’s a long journey you just understand there’s going to be a lot of low points so you’ve got to you’ve got to be able to ride them out one great lesson I also learned is to surround yourself with good people have the best people around you and that starts at home it starts at home with your family and your partner’s husband’s wives parents you know you’ve got to have great people around you and that extends in sport to your training partners your coaches so you know having people around you to share the journey when it’s great but also to to you know

help you take some of the lumps when it’s not so great I think is a good lesson yeah one of the things you mentioned there was just about what can I do in this this moment and one thing I got sort of came across a couple years ago it’s about being in the moment where nothing in your past exists nothing in the future exists it’s just this moment right now that we’ve actually got and if you can make the most of that whether that’s through

having that presence there where you’re not distracted by your phone you’re not thinking about the future where you’re just really in the present moment that’s where you actually have the power because nothing outside of that exists now I think there’s a certain truth to that obviously we want to be planning for the future and making good decisions for our future but the only thing you can do right now is here’s what’s in the moment and I think that applies particularly in training or if you’ve got to make a split decision in a race as well it’s like well don’t worry what’s going to happen 10k down the road on the run it’s like well what can you do that’s it for this episode I want to thank you so much for listening to the podcast this year if you haven’t left a review on Spotify or iTunes I would love it if you could that helps us reach more people and show that this is hopefully a podcast worth listening to I remember starting this podcast more than 10 years ago

it was and I was quite nervous about starting it I thought who wants to listen to me talk about swimming and I thought look I’m just going to try it see how it goes and I’m really glad that I stuck with it and the amount of people that I see clinics and camps or run into them at the pool who say they listen to the podcast it’s quite amazing to me that so many of you do so thank you so much it really means a lot and this is something that I really enjoy doing I’m going to continue to release an episode every single week through the holidays so I’ll keep that content coming we’ve got lots of new and exciting guests coming up over the next couple of months as well and my aim is to continue to make this podcast better more valuable more helpful and to keep bringing you new things that you can do to help improve your swimming or just learn about different things that people are doing so thanks very much for listening hope you have a great holiday

we’re going to continue to bring out these episodes thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming Podcast if you’d like us to help you become a faster more efficient swimmer go to www.effortlesswimming.com

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In this episode, professional speaker and author Glenn Capelli shares his expertise on learning better and making better decisions. He focuses specifically on how to improve swimming skills and mindset. Glenn discusses various topics he has studied throughout his life that can be applied to swimming, including getting into flow, maximizing the fun factor in training, using magic words to change approach, and developing small habits that lead to significant results. Tune in to this episode to gain valuable insights and tips for becoming a better swimmer.

Today’s podcast episode is also sponsored by Skillest. Exclusively for our Effortless Swimming podcast listeners, you can receive a free course, ‘The Art of Triathlon Swimming,’ and an online analysis through the Skillest app.

This podcast is brought to you by NanoClear — our own range of anti-fog swim goggles, designed by Effortless Swimming with the anti-fog treatment bonded into the lens itself (not sprayed on, so it doesn’t wear off after a few swims). Check out the NanoClear range here and use code PODCAST15 for 15% off.

So whether it’s swimming, you swimming, swimming, you coaching, when does time fly? When do you go, oh gee, look at that. It’s been, you know, it feels like it’s been five minutes and yet a half hour in a training session has passed. When does time fly for you? So I would ask every one of your athletes to yes, you’re using that constant feedback of times and data and what your garment or your Fitbit can tell you, but you’re also going, okay, what’s my theme for this swim? What’s my theme for this week? Oh, I can’t get in the water for six weeks. So what’s my theme for the six weeks? Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford.

Welcome back to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. My guest today is professional speaker and author, Glenn Capali. He’s an expert on the topic of how to learn better and make better decisions. And on this episode, Glenn shares his knowledge on these topics and how you can use them to shorten the learning curve to becoming a better swimmer. On this episode, we discuss a range of different topics that he’s studied over the course of his lifetime that you can use to improve your swimming and change your attitude and mindset and your approach to your swimming in order to get better results. We talk about how to use and get into flow, that state where it feels like time stands still, and I’m sure you’ve felt this in your training and in your racing at times. How can we get into that quicker and use it to our advantage? We talk about how to maximize the fun factor with your training so that not only do you have more fun

and it becomes more enjoyable, but it also fast tracks your learning as well. And he talks about a couple of tweaks to your vocabulary and some magic words that can actually help you change your whole approach to swimming and change your whole approach to some of the things that you tackle in your life on a day-to-day basis. And we talk about how to develop small habits that compound over the course of several years so that you can end up in a spot that’s radically different than where you are right now. So let’s get into the episode with professional speaker and author Glenn Capali who is also an avid swimmer. He’s based down in Western Australia a couple of hours outside of Perth and he’s an avid open water swimmer. Let’s get into the episode. Here we are, Glenn, welcome to the podcast. Absolute pleasure to be here, mate. So Glenn, I know you’re an avid swimmer yourself. You’ve somewhat recently really gotten into it.

You’re down there on the coast of Western Australia and you love your open water swimming. How has getting into swimming yourself, has that impacted the way that you teach or has that opened up new things that you’ve discovered when you are speaking and presenting on stage? Listen, first of all, I can’t, all of my life, I couldn’t be near an ocean without going into it. So as soon as there’s a beach or moving water, I’ve got to get in there and be immersed. And I guess being immersed is everything that we’re about in what we teach in learning. So to really immerse yourself in what it is you need to learn. So it’s been wonderful applying all the stuff that I’ve been teaching for decades but applying it now to swimming and particularly ocean swimming, which I’m not able to get all the data from swimming laps because there are no swimming pools in Denmark, Western Australia, but there are some of the best beaches in the world.

So you’re swimming in context, it’s like running a marathon, the New York marathon one year is different than the New York marathon the next might be the same distance, but weather conditions and in swimming, current conditions and everything else. So how you get to flow with all of that is being magnificent. And what it does for me is I get down to that water and I am rejuvenated every single time. Sometimes you might think, oh, it’s cold or whatever you go in and you come out rejuvenated. And here in Denmark, you bump into people that are in their 80s and are swimming every day. You bump into Luke Longley more often than not and he’s swimming down at Greenspool. It’s just a magnificent environment and a magnificent thing to do for your physical, mental and let me say it, swimming is almost spiritual health, Brenton. I would have to agree. When through 2020, when I couldn’t get into the water and I couldn’t swim,

I felt like a piece of me was missing through that time. So to me, that really stood out because I’d never taken, I’d say longer than about a week out of the water since I was probably 12, 12 years of age. It was a long time there where I would be swimming at least once each week, but typically it would be three, four, five times. So I totally agree with you there. When we’re talking about the concept of flow, which is a big area that you focus on, for those that are listening, can you define that a little bit more or just explore what that is and how would we know whether or not we are in that state of flow and then why would we wanna get into it? What’s the benefit? Fantastic and certainly will. That whole thing about being out of the water for a while, I had to have an operation, I mean that for a couple of weeks I couldn’t get into the water. And one of the things about flow, and it’s not particularly mentioned,

but it really is one of the essences of it all. My mate used to be the president of the Dietitians Association of Australia and often he would talk about metabolic flexibility. So that in your eating, if you suddenly you’re an elite athlete and you’re eating all the healthy stuff, you’re drinking all the healthy stuff, you’re doing all of that and then you have a big Mac or something or a burger at Hungry Jacks and you feel as if you’re a mesh, you’ve fallen apart, then he says you haven’t got any metabolic flexibility and you need to have some metabolic flexibility. Now I think it’s beyond and what that means is instead of when you’re eating something that’s not your norm that you’re not so fragile that you fall into a heap, you’re not so precious and a lot of elite athletes and I worked with the ones who are gold medalists and whatever, a lot of the elite ones suddenly they get a minor injury, they’re not able to swim and they fall apart

or a marathon runner looks at themself in a mirror because they haven’t run for two days and got arm fat. And it’s almost like we need to have not only a metabolic flexibility but a mental flexibility as well. So those times when we aren’t able to get into the water we just see them, okay, this is a challenge for me to be more flexible as a human being. This is a challenge for me to broaden my scope and when I get back into the water, boy, isn’t it gonna be doubly magic? Isn’t it gonna be absolutely wonderful? And I guess the factor of flow and flow is not my invention as such, it’s the research of Mahaly Chikcent Machai and when I first met the man way back in 1980s, early 1990s, said, mate, how do you say your name? And Chikcent Machai, very guttural, Hungarian background, 40 years of research at the University of Chicago. And he says, when we are at our very best, we are in flow. And for swimmers, I mean, effortless swimming,

what you’re everything about is about flow and it’s peak performance, but it’s more than that. It’s happiness and health sustainably. So why we should embrace the concept of flow? Why we should embrace swimming or running or doing pottery or something that’s going to challenge us to keep on learning is because it gets us to own flow. Now, there’s some indicators, first of all, Brenton. So let me just ask you a question in your swimming and then also outside of your swimming. So whether it’s swimming, new swimming, swimming, new coaching, when does time fly? When do you go, oh gee, look at that. It’s been, it feels like it’s been five minutes and yet a half hour in a training session has passed. When does time fly for you? It is, I’d say it’s primarily in a main set that may go for somewhere between 30 to 60 minutes and it’s when I’m in the middle of a set and I’m starting to work hard or I’m really focused on the task at hand

when I’m looking at trying to maintain my speed, hit certain times, hit certain stroke counts and yeah, and I’m kind of churning through this main set. That to me is when time flies and I couldn’t tell you, I couldn’t really tell you how long it’s been because it all just seems to, it seems to be a bit of a blur looking back at it after that main set. So for me, it’s then or it’s if I’m in the open water, let’s say I’m at a Maldives camp two months ago and I’m just swimming around the island with the group and we’re looking at fish and we’re just sort of riding the waves and the chop. To me, that’s when it flies as well. So I’d say they’re probably the main ones when it comes to swimming. Okay, well just on that, we do a mile event here in Denmark each year at Easter time and about 150 people go in it and the first time I ever did it, that first 100 meters, 150 meters heading out to the first buoy and it was pretty wild conditions

and I’m gasping for breath and I think I’m never gonna be able to keep up this and it often is the way with flow, with running, swimming, probably even with cycling for triathletes. Initially, you’re not there in flow, you’re gasping and then you hit what Mahaley Csikszent Mahai calls that flow channel and suddenly your breathing’s fine. Suddenly your arms are going, suddenly your feet are going, suddenly everything is melding together. So and in my mind, when that was happening for me that gasping for breath in that first 150 meters and okay, it’s fine cap, you’re gonna get into that flow channel soon. Know that this is part of it and don’t let it spook you or panic you, you’re gonna hit that flow channel and bang sooner or later you do. Mahaley did say that it’s vital to have some stuff that is flow outside of your work, outside of what you do. So giving that swimming is so much a part of your life and so much a part of the people listening.

It’s great to have flow as swimming because it benefits you health wise in all capacities. But you gotta have something that is also flow outside of the water. So hopefully, I don’t know, when you’re with your kids playing, time should fly. So if you got something that you make sure you’re doing to remain a happy, healthy human being and particularly in that time when you couldn’t get into the water, were you doing other stuff that was flow aspects in your life and what are they because it’s vital. A lot of the driven people are only aiming at one thing and Mahaley says if it’s gotta be sustainable you gotta have more than one thing. You gotta have other stuff that brings your flow too. So outside of the water, Brendan, what have you got for people? I was just thinking then it’s primarily all sports exercise based, it’s surfing, running. I can very easily get into flow when I’m doing those things. And the then I was thinking as well,

even just mowing the lawn, just the act of trying to make this nice, clean, like short grass, make it look nice and following this pattern going around in a circle with it. Even that, I get a little, I feel like I get into flow with that or doing other things around the house and there’s a bit of a sense of achievement with those things but I think more than anything, why I get a kick out of it is because it’s like time seems to fly and I feel like I get into that state of flow but I’d never really thought of it that way necessarily because I’m just doing a job that needs to be done but hadn’t really considered it as having something outside of the pool to get into that state. Oh, you’re wonderful, mate because I lived on a kaboots in the north of Israel for well over a year and then again for a number of months and at a kaboots you’re painting a fence or you’re doing something and I say now because a lot of my life is flying

speaking at conferences, being in front of people you got to have some kaboots in your life. You got to have something that keeps you grounded, keeps your feet on the ground, painting the fence, mowing the lawn, doing the cleaning and I got to work with the high performance people who were in charge of the all blacks, the New Zealand rugby team and that’s why they, they’re elite athletes but that’s why they’re sweeping the floor at their place of training. That’s why they’re cleaning the benches. They’re doing some grounded kaboots like stuff but just to keep them not getting a big head not losing their ego but also it’s repetition of something where you can instantly see the reward. You can instantly see you’ve cleaned this and it’s better for you and it’s better for other people. So you’ve hit upon some of the aspects that are vital and again some of our elite athletes get so caught up in themselves and Mahaley Chikset Mahai says

you’re not in flow if you’ve got self-consciousness if it’s just all about you. In fact, when you’re in flow you’re forgetting about what you look like and yet your self-esteem grows. So you lose self-consciousness. You lose that I’m gonna take a photo of myself and put it on Instagram and you get into a self-esteem that grows. So time flies, you’re losing self-consciousness giving self-esteem and it is better he says no matter what you’re doing for the whole brain and the whole body to be involved. So for people who are sitting on screens for a lot of time to get up and move to use their physicality in some way and likewise, if you are swimming and it’s one of the ironies you’re in flow it’s happening for you but chances are you’re also counting your strokes or doing something that has got your brain involved. I mean often when I’m swimming I’m inventing my next presentation or designing it in my head. So have your whole brain, whole body involved.

And again, if you’ve got an injury that becomes difficult but make sure if you can’t move if you’ve got an injury in your legs and you can’t use your legs use your arms. Whatever you’ve got use it and that again leads us into flow whole brain, whole body involvement. And it is one of the things that Mahaley says it’s why people are attracted to sports because you know what you’re trying to do. As complex as swimming can be it can also be wonderfully simple. As complex as golf is you know what you’re trying to do and you know what you’re aiming at and getting that ball in the hole and you’re getting that constant feedback which is one of the agencies that can kick us into flow. So time flies, whole brain, whole body involvement lose self-consciousness. And now I’m gonna get you to be a dictionary mate. This is really putting you on the spot in front of the millions of people who listen to your podcast. I’m gonna give you a word

and you’re gonna tell me what you think it might mean. Okay? The word is spelled A-U-T-O auto and telek, T-E-L-I-C, auto telek. So if you’re a dictionary, yeah guessing’s a great and fun thing to do. So have a guess. What do you reckon it might mean? Before we dive into the rest of today’s podcast episode this episode is proudly brought to you by Form Smart Swim Goggles. They’ve been a long time sponsor of the podcast and they are my go-to goggles when it comes to tracking my training sessions and being able to see what’s happening in real time through the goggles. And we know swimming is a highly technical sport but without the guidance of a coach on deck identifying and addressing technique flaws can be a challenge. They’ve recently added a new feature to the goggles, Head Coach, and this addresses that problem head on. It gives swimmers improved access to their technique awareness, focus skill development and in-app education and analysis.

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or use the code Effortless on Checkout to get 15% off your Form Smart Swim Goggles. This podcast is also brought to you by Skillist, the ultimate digital coaching platform that’s making waves in the swimming world. Imagine having the opportunity to train with Olympic and world champions like Kyle Chalmers, Ryan Murphy and Brent Hayden. Well, with Skillist, that dream is now a reality. Swimmers, you now have the chance to work with the absolute best in the sport, gaining insights and guidance from these elite athletes like never before. And Skillist isn’t just your run of the mill coaching platform, it’s a game changer. Here is what sets it apart. You can discuss training programs, receive detailed stroke analysis and even develop race strategies with these incredible athletes and coaches. It’s like having a personal coaching session with an Olympic champion right in your pocket. And excitingly, coaches from around the world

can also tap into the power of Skillist. Coaches can use Skillist’s amazing tools to train their students, analyze videos and incredibly connect with swimmers from across the world as well. So whether you are a swimmer or a coach, go to the app store, download the Skillist app today, that’s S-K-I-L-L-E-S-T, download the Skillist app today and get started. And only for our Effortless Swimming podcast listeners, we’re giving away our Art of Triathlon course free as well as a technique analysis online through the Skillist app from me for free as well. Go to effortlesswimming.com forward slash skillistoffer or click the link in this podcast description and you will get the Art of Triathlon swimming course for free as well as a technique analysis from me through the Skillist app. And now back to the podcast. I’m gonna think, I’m thinking down towards a telepathy sort of path like auto-telec would be something along the lines of being able to,

it’s almost like receiving messages or being aware of things without thinking about it. So subconsciously, how did I do? I think you can possibly hear everyone listening to your podcast, cheering and clapping and acknowledging, not because you are correct, but because it was a good guess. Auto-telec is one of the great words and again, it comes back to, to accept my high, auto-self and telec, the feeling of things. So auto-telec means it becomes enjoyable for its own sake. It becomes enjoyable for its own sake. So you’re doing something because you have to do it for work, but after a while, oh, I really enjoy this. I love doing it. I would do this even if I wasn’t paid to do it. Oh, you’ve got to do certain drills in training because it’s building up a certain movement in your arms. But after a while, it’s like, hey, this is good. So the thing with flow is that you might start off by doing it with a particular purpose,

but you then end up doing it because you just love it. You know, you might be swimming because you want to get healthier or fitter or whatever it might be, but you just then absolutely love it. And it’s one of the great motivators. It is the fun fact, you know, that as difficult and as complex and challenging as stuff is, when we really embrace it, oh, it becomes fun and to get a little bit better, it becomes fun. And I know you’re a fan of James Clear and the atomic habits. So one of the things I love in his work and that we teach in all of our programs is, it’s an instead of. So my roommate and my kibbutz was a Ukrainian and they would talk with a Ukrainian accent, more of Lysov. And instead of saying, I have to go to training today, I have to do these drills or I have to do this recovery stuff, it’s rubbing your hands together and saying, oh, I get to swim today. I get to do my drills today. I get to, and it’s a slight shift in language

that makes all the difference in the neuroscience of our brain. So, and the interesting thing too, with Mahaly’s work, then I did ask him about this because we used to teach a thing in our youth program, which went, the brain loves a challenge. The brain loves a challenge. So I like chanting. We worked on summer camps in America and they all begin to chanting. The brain loves a challenge. And Mahaly, and with Marion Diamond, one of the first women in neuroscience, she said, Glenn, it’s not necessarily correct. The brain needs a challenge. The brain needs a challenge. The brain, and after a while, when you need that challenge and you embrace that challenge, then I think you get to love that challenge. And that’s what we teach kids in terms of grit and determination. That’s what we teach CEOs, but love being challenged and fully embrace it. And then it’ll become enjoyable for its own sake. It’s auto-telec. It’s funny you mentioned that.

I had a podcast recently with another swim coach, Andrew Schaffin. He was talking about how to improve your stroke efficiency, improve your catch and pull, and he just threw out an example of, let’s say you’re taking 20 strokes for a lap and you want the swimmer to be able to improve on the catch and pull and hold the water a bit better, feel it a bit better. So you say, I don’t care how you get down there, but I just want you to take 10 strokes instead in this lap. Like just that alone, just that challenge of trying to go from 20 to 10 as an example, like that gives you some purpose, it gives you some meaning and it gives you something you can just start to attack and put your mind to. And even though that’s something very simple and in the grand scheme of things, probably doesn’t mean a whole lot, but it’s those little challenges like that that can really make the difference between feeling like you’ve got a reason

for doing something, it gives you that purpose and yeah, it doesn’t have to be a whole lot. Often it’s those small challenges like that that can be very rewarding and enjoyable to do. And something I’ve been doing a bit lately is I’ve started running again quite a bit more and just one of the things that I want to do most of the time is trying to do 10K each time I’m running and I want to try and find new places to explore and just that little challenge of 10K, find somewhere else to run, that just gets me at the door and I really enjoy it even if it’s like the run might not be that different but I just want to find some new streets and some new places to go and that’s enough to kind of get me doing it. So, and it makes me think of the times where I’m, if I feel a little bit lost or maybe a bit directionless, it’s when I haven’t got those challenges set out or I’m not clear on what they are and not clear on the thing that I’m working towards

even if it’s just a small thing. Magic and it’s athletes understand flow. They may not know what it is. They may have never heard of it before or defined it in this way but they’re flow based people. There’s an Alaskan wisdom. Now there’s two Alaskan wisdoms. The first one Frank Zappa wrote about which was don’t eat yellow snow which I don’t think you really should think about too much but the second Alaskan wisdom comes from a friend of mine, Rosella Wallace and she says variety is the magic key. The magic key is variety. And one of the things with flow is that you, yes you need to have a little bit of variety. Repetition is vital but as you’re saying when you change things a little bit when you take a different pathway or your friend coaching says listen let’s see what you can do in 10 strokes. It is what we call a wide zen. So how else? You try a how else? And we built, we discovered or invented the word wide zen

after the wonderful word kaizen the Japanese word which is kaizen is a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, a little bit of improvement every day. Tiny little improvements but as well as that how better kaizen we need the how else, the wide zen and that keeps it training interesting that keeps, it gets our body to be more flexible in different ways and try different things and situations or circumstances. So the, and what Chik-Sent Mahai says is that puts you into that challenge zone which is how better how else, how better how else constantly upping your challenge and upping your skills upping your challenge, upping your skills. So you never feel that you’ve actually you’re there. It’s like when you get there it just opens the door that there’s a whole stack more to learn. I mean, people think I was swimming I learned how to swim when I was a kid but when you start to unpack swimming boy it just opens another door

and another door and another door. There’s always more to learn. And the elite athletes that we’ve worked with and admittedly usually it’s on stage and they’re there talking about their successes but it’s those folk who they weren’t just about aiming for I’m gonna win this or I’m gonna get that world record time yes they had a name they had a target but they had a theme for what they were doing and you use the word purpose they had a purpose that was bigger than just a time or just bigger than one gold medal. The purpose was they were gonna maximize their talent or they’re gonna be the best that they can be as a swimmer and as a human being. So I would ask every one of your athletes to yes you’re using that constant feedback of times and data and what your garment or your Fitbit can tell you but you’re also going okay what’s my theme for this swim? What’s my theme for this week? Oh I can’t get in the water for six weeks

so what’s my theme for the six weeks? And my purpose is always to come out as a better, stronger, happier, healthier human being for myself, for my partner, for my family. So you got a bigger purpose than the achievement of a singular goal or aim or target and that bigger purpose will help you achieve the aims, the goals and the target. So upping the challenge, upping your skills why people get you involved go why we have coaches and constantly how better how else and that how else is a bit of a fun thing too. It’s like okay I’m gonna shift my training a little bit by doing this or I started to because I was doing so much timing on my swimming I’d read Roger Deakin’s wonderful book Waterlog and Deakin as you probably knows the guy who swam through a lot of rivers and things throughout England and he swam at what he called a frog’s eye view of the world which was breaststroke. You’re looking just above the water

and you’re seeing things. So I started to throw in some of my time swimming as frog’s eye view of the world. Here I am down at greens I’m looking at trying to get my pace up I’m working through that but then for a couple of hundred meters just breaststroking, noticing all of those rocks around me noticing all the wonderful things that are happening noticing as it happened one day the hail hitting the water as I’m swimming it is beautiful and ultimately one of the factors of flow is that it should be beautiful for you. So sometimes as fast as you are slow down sometimes as much as you’re doing this kind of training something else. So a little bit of that how else the challenge zone upping the challenge, upping the skills kaizen, wide zen little tweaking you can do and it’s not only in swimming it’s in life itself and it’s in business sometimes a few little tweaks can make all the difference.

Yeah those very small things it’s great to think big and set your sights on something big and work towards it but really comes down to those small improvements in different areas over time and chatting with Carl Chalmers who he had on the podcast a couple months ago he was talking about his turn and his start how that previously that’s been very weak for him it hasn’t been a strong suit so he’s just been working on improving his turn and his speed out of the turn and into those first couple of strokes and just over the course of 12 months 24 months just ratcheting it up and continuing to get a bit better get a bit better with it and I think it’s the same thing with like even with this podcast for example I sat down with my team last week and we said all right what can we do to make this better? How can we make it more engaging for the listeners? How can we get guests that are going to help the people that are listening more

and what can we do just to make it that a little bit better? And just by asking the question we’re able to come up with a couple of changes and improvements that hopefully people are starting to notice now and that challenge itself is like really invigorated me to wanna make the podcast better and it’s really got me kind of inspired to look for other areas of effortless swimming that can do the same thing and so I’ve started looking at our YouTube videos and how do we make those a little bit better and then the same thing with the clinics it’s where can we tweak things by 1% and hopefully improve them and give people a better result so I think that’s the essence of a really enjoyable life is having or wanting to just continue to develop and get better so it’s played a big part of effortless swimming for the last 15 years or so that we’ve been around. I know you speak about a number of topics to different groups.

Is there anything else that kind of stands out to you that you think would be beneficial for swimmers or triathletes listening to this podcast? Indeed and a couple of things just on what you said I mean, we’ve worked with Lisa Curry-Kennie on a number of conferences and Lisa of course a magnificent swimmer but when she was speaking she dedicated herself to being the best speaker she could be. So you take that approach, you know so for years not just about what you’re doing in terms of swimming but in terms of what you’re doing for your business you know, you’re looking at the flow that the second thing that attention the bigger picture I got to interview Sir Richard Branson on stage for 90 minutes because Richard doesn’t do speeches because of his dyslexia. He prefers an interview. My brother Gary wonderful business person good swimmer too is dyslexic and a lot of the dyslexic folk they struggle with reading and writing at times

but they’ve got an amazing ability with the bigger picture to do a really big picture with attention to detail within everything within that bigger picture. So I think we all need to become dyslexic in some way as we approach things bigger picture with attention to detail. And one of the things we do to help people with all of this is because of my Ukrainian roommate in the north of Israel and one of the world’s leading geophysicists his name is Zhenya Lander and he used to talk about all we need more of the air conditioning in this room so I would mimic him and go more of and now we teach people when you’re looking at your team sitting down you know, how can we make this better? What can we do more of that we’re already doing well but a little bit more of will help us and then the second Ukrainian his brother Lesov and Lesov might be equally even more important. What should we be doing Lesov with our diet with our movement, with our training, with our business

with our podcasts that can make it more enhancing? So I taught more of and less of and then to get less of sometimes you need to get rid of. There’s certain behaviors of mine certain behaviors of physicality certain behaviors that we need to stop doing we need to get rid of and the brain can be a very addictive thing so if you’ve got an addiction that’s very unhealthy then switch to swimming that’s far more healthy as an addiction more of, less of, rid of then because we were teaching innovation we came up with toss in what new things are you gonna toss into the brew? So for all of your swimmers or your athletes what new things are you gonna toss into the brew? They’re gonna help you be a happier, healthier more productive, more prosperous human being and then the other one that I mentioned earlier the instead ofs instead of I have to, I get to instead of the brain loves a challenge the brain needs a challenge and then it gets to love the challenge.

So I would say that every one of us can sit down with our youngsters and go through okay for us to be a happier family what do we more of, less of, rid of toss in and instead of for us to be better swimmers and as you learn the stuff that helps you be a better swimmer I think it can also help you be a better human being in life because flow really is the psychology of optimal happiness yes it’s the psychology of optimal performance but it is the psychology of optimal happiness.

And that’s why the introduction to this podcast is to help you become a better swimmer and live a better life I think the two things are certainly intertwined and that’s why I do what I do that’s why I teach swimming is because yes it’s great to get faster at it but I think just the ability to move through the water with ease and grace and to do it for long periods of time that in itself can lead to a lot of happiness and fulfillment and it can lead to making friends and joining social circles that you will be a part of for a long time and that’s just the start of it and I mean I’ve made a lot of great friends through the camps that I’ve run before and not only that but when I was training as a teenager I made a lot of good friends through that too and it’s much more than just a sport so that’s why I like to do what I do and a big reason why I started effortless swimming so Glenn I really appreciate you jumping on the podcast

to share some of these concepts with us and I really appreciate that you reached out and were able to share it so for those that are listening what’s the best way to either get in contact with you or find out more about what you do? Probably the best thing is just to go under LinkedIn and find Glenn with two Ns Mum said one N came from Glenn Miller one from Glenn Ford a musician and an actor Capelli C-A-P-E-W-L-L-I so yes, LinkedIn is great and sipped through a message to me and I’ll sipped through my email for everyone Glenn at GlennCapelli.com but you know, Brenton you mentioned the grace I think swimming and flow and what you’re doing is an amazing grace and it’s that amazing grace that we all need to discover in life no matter how many gold medals to be a grateful, gracious human being is that’s the sustainable factor Yeah, I love it Glenn thanks so much for your time I appreciate it and for anyone listening if you want to reach out to Glenn

we’ll include those links in the show notes and yeah, it’s been a good time thank you Glenn thank you mate thanks for listening to the effortless swimming podcast if you’d like us to help you become a faster more efficient swimmer go to www.effortlesswimming.com

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Join us in this inspiring episode as we talk to professional triathlete Kat Matthews. Despite a major setback in 2022 when she was hit by a car before the Kona Ironman World Championships, Kat found inspiration and made a triumphant comeback the following year. We discuss her journey of overcoming adversity and her impressive second-place finish at the Ironman World Championships. Whether you’re a seasoned swimmer or just starting out, this episode offers valuable insights. Tune in now!

Today’s podcast episode is also sponsored by Skillest. Exclusively for our Effortless Swimming podcast listeners, you can receive a free course, ‘The Art of Triathlon Swimming,’ and an online analysis through the Skillest app.

This podcast is brought to you by NanoClear — our own range of anti-fog swim goggles, designed by Effortless Swimming with the anti-fog treatment bonded into the lens itself (not sprayed on, so it doesn’t wear off after a few swims). Check out the NanoClear range here and use code PODCAST15 for 15% off.

It was like suddenly my life was on a hospital bed and it was more that like loss of personal freedom. Like I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t make decisions. I couldn’t choose anything. I had a listener send in a question about trying the mental aspect and the mindset aspect. And there’s two things that you mentioned just before that stood out to me there. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford.

Hello and welcome to today’s podcast episode. This is episode number 309, my name is Brenton Ford. And on today’s podcast, we have professional triathlete, Kat Matthews. In 2022, Kat faced a defining moment in her career when she was struck by a car just two weeks before the Kona Iron Man World Championships. And the accident left her with serious injuries and cast doubt on her future in the sport. And instead of giving up, she actually attended Kona as a spectator, finding inspiration among her peers. And in the following year, Kat made a triumphant return to racing, securing a remarkable second place finish at the Iron Man World Championships in the 70.3 distance. And in today’s episode, we talk about that amazing comeback and how she was able to overcome the injuries and get herself back on track. And we also talk about the silver lining that actually came from that accident where there was two things that she was doing in a swimming

that she wouldn’t have been able to change or improve had it not been for that accident. So she was able to find a silver lining there. And we also talk about some of the training and concepts that she’s been able to apply to her swimming to make big improvements and big changes over the last couple of years. She had a little bit of a swimming background as a kid, but not a huge amount. And there’s been some things that really stood out to me as I was asking her these questions that I think you’ll enjoy. And I think you’ll be able to take away and perhaps implement some of these things in your own swimming. So without further ado, let’s get stuck into the podcast with Kat Matthews. All right, Kat Matthews, welcome to the podcast. Hi, Brent, thanks so much for having me. I feel like it’s a real honour. And I had to have a little word for myself this morning. I was like, hello, I’m Kat Matthews and I’m going on a swimming podcast for swimming 10 years ago.

Do you think you would ever be saying that sentence? No, 10 years ago. Goodness, I wasn’t swimming. Like I hadn’t swam in like six years, 10 years ago. What is your swimming background? So I asked this for questions, which I’m going to ask later on. But a lot of them are asking swimming related questions like how have you got to the point where you are, which we’ll get into. But what was your swimming background pre triathlon? Yeah, I did swim as a kid. And I think that’s pretty fundamental. I did sort of swimming lessons as they do. Everyone does what I thought everyone did in the UK. And then I did at whatever age it was, 9, 10, transition into the local swimming club, where we then properly trained swimming. And I then did throughout my whole sort of 10 to 15, like age, did two to three training sessions a week. So that was maybe four hours a week by the time I was 14, 15, you know, seven p.m. finishing at nine, cycling home.

I think that was pretty massive in terms of technique. And I did it really for the social scene. Like I enjoyed it. But I didn’t ever think of swimming as a like a faff when I was there. It was just getting there in the rain. But I think I think that was pretty important. I joke now that I was a better swimmer then. Like, I’m pretty sure I did a 100 meter freestyle in a 104. And my husband, Mark, he’s like, there’s absolutely no where you did that. Because now I obviously can’t swim that quick. So, yeah, like child swimming was, you know, pretty fundamental. But then I got a bit bored of it and realised there’s other things I wanted to do on a Friday night just generally. And so I didn’t swim from maybe sort of age 17 through until 24, which I think by that point was quite a critical, you know, period of time. And swimming strokes just completely changed by the time I got back into it. And was that 2015, 16?

And by swimming strokes, changing, you mean the way it was taught or your own stroke had changed a lot in that time? I meant the way it was taught. So when I was taught, it was this sort of keyhole come in and then push out. And then by the time I started, you know, YouTubing, how to learn to swim again, it was very much like, no, absolutely don’t do that, S. You should just do a straight arm stroke. So I sort of, I guess, like retort myself to swim. It sounds a bit dramatic, retort, but got back into swimming and tried to relearn those technique points. But with this swim style, the Army triathlon sort of group hub were coaching the swim smooth, which I know it’s probably a bit of a competitor. But they I didn’t I never really have really got on board it. It just didn’t feel quite right to me. But obviously you pick up little bits of technique from that. And I think as your question, like I as a 15 year old to then a 24 year old

or whatever the gap was, you obviously your body changes a lot. And my ability to propel my now adult body through the water was completely different. So I think I had to just like relearn that as well. Do you think that when you were younger, when you’re a teenager that there was a lot less thought about the technique and it was just you get in and you do it. And then when you get a bit older, you start to think about things more and you’re more aware of technique. Is it do you feel like that was there was a difference there in I guess the thinking involved with it? Yeah, I think somewhat. I do remember as a teenager really being like really focused on my technique. I remember having the training sessions where a lot of technique, a lot of kick, which I hated a lot of different strokes. And I remember at one point like really progressing in one season in as a kid, because I had focused on the end of my stroke.

I was really finishing it and I was a couple of seconds quicker, 100 straight away. So I remember having these like significant sort of key teaching points. But yeah, I’ve definitely learned now as an adult that I’m a visual learner and kinesthetic like the act of movement. I think I’m really good at my body proprioception. And I think that’s also come from study of physiotherapy. So I’m now probably too in tune, which can be a negative with what’s going on. So yeah, it comes as a battle not to overanalyze the stroke. Yeah, I think for everyone, every adult who wants to get better, I think they battle with that. It’s like, hey, how I really want to think about things. I’m really aware of what’s going on. And in many cases, you sometimes just need to get out of your head and you need to just be in tune with how you’re feeling and then just kind of get into the groove and get into the rhythm of things. But it’s that constant battle.

And I find myself doing the same thing, trying not to overthink the stroke. And for me, and I’d be curious to hear if it’s for you, the sessions where I swim the best, the races where I do the best are usually the ones where I’m not overthinking the stroke. I’m just trying to be really aware of the race conditions and just getting into into a groove that I feel like I can sustain for the race. And when I look back at it, there’s a little bit of a blur when I look back at the swim. I can remember moments in time, but I feel like I’m really in flow. I guess it’s probably the way to put it. What is it the same for you? Do you sort of find that or something different? I’d be curious to hear your perspective there. No, I think I think so. I’m not sure I’ve got enough of a bank of good swims to really build this, you know, the norm now. And this is how I feel when it goes well. I think the biggest thing for me is like you said,

yeah, just like maybe the stopping, thinking about technique. But I definitely get a lot from thinking about my body position more than the stroke technique. So I feel like, especially at the start of every training session or mid-race, it becomes less about, oh, my goodness, that stroke wasn’t quite good enough because of the, you know, the ocean swell or something. It’s more about head and lower back, bum sort of position that makes me feel ground, like grounded. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but I think that that bit rather than the technique of the swim stroke, I think I’ll sort of go back to. Yeah, it’s because the first thing you need to do is you need good body position. You need to minimize drag first and foremost, because if your hips and legs are dropping, you’re going to be slow. And no matter how fit you are, you’re just going to slow yourself down. So I think it’s a great first principle to always come back to

is body position and how you’re sitting. So is that something that if you’re not having a great swim training session, do you feel like you sit lower in the water or are there other things that you feel like that aren’t quite working for you, whether it’s the timing or like your heart rates a little bit higher? What are those kinds of things where you can differentiate between a good swim and a not so good swim? Yeah, totally. I think it’s immediate, it’s sort of immediately. And it often comes after a hard bike or a run during training. Is the body position. So I I immediately feel that I’m lower through my hips and then I’m therefore not sort of able to get on top of the front of my stroke. So it just doesn’t feel like I’m moving at all, whereas I don’t think I ever had that good feeling before. So I think now I know what that feels like because I’m able to change my body position. Now I know what bad feels like.

I think that’s the big change this year, actually.

It’s like someone who’s constantly hung over if they’re drinking every day. It’s like they don’t know how bad they feel until they stop drinking. And then they’ve got this new this new level of this feels this feels amazing. It’s obviously it’s a lot better if you’re you’re just feeling bad in the water and not hung over constantly. But that’s that’s really interesting to hear hear you say that that now you get that sense of swimming well. How did it take you to get to that point where you feel that feel yourself feel good and move well through the water? I am actually maybe slightly unique there. I’m seeing this as a bit of a silver lining of a big accident I had last year. I broke my skull, didn’t break my neck, broke my back in a couple of places, sternum, hip. And I couldn’t lift my neck up for a while because it had been in the brace for six weeks or so. And then lifting it up generally was hard and stressful.

So I spent a lot of time in that build up at the end of last year with a snorkel, which I’d never really used before. And my husband, Keene Swimmer, I’ll mention him a lot because he sort of feeds back in a little bit. But he was he’s always been saying your head’s too high. And I was like, no, it’s just my swimming bun like the bun under your swimming hat. Like, I think it’s just affecting your perspective. And was adamant that I couldn’t get my head any lower. But then this accident and snorkel work suddenly I got my head down because it was way comforted to have my head down and that was massive for just bringing my body position back up and knowing what that should feel like. So then I started swimming training at the start of this year, twenty three, with my head in a better position. And then so sort of suddenly I was able to be like, oh, you know, even though way weaker, that’s what I should be feeling like in the water.

So it’s maybe not the norm, but I think the snorkel really helped, regardless of the accident, just allow myself that time to use the snorkel and feel a different body position. That’s great to hear about the improvement that you’ve been able to get from a negative that that happened last last year. And I want to go into that a little bit more as well in a moment in terms of your head position. So was he saying that you’re holding your head too high or that you’re looking too far forwards? I never felt like I was looking too far forwards. You know, I watched your videos and be like, there’s the forty five degree angle. Like I always felt like, yeah, I’m not looking for the end of the pool, but I’m looking somewhere in the middle. If not, I was sort of even just like looking at the floor sometime to try and bring my head down. But I think it was physically my head was out of the water. And the other caveat is that swimming in a public lane in England,

normally you are in a twenty five meter pool and there’s other people in the lane doing lots of odd to you things. And so you’re constantly looking for the end of the pool and you’re constantly looking to see if you’re going to swim into someone suddenly who’s swimming three minutes per hundred meter pace. So I think that there was that element as well. Like I never had a natural sort of the freedom to get my head down and eyes down and sort of practice that in a pool. Whereas another change that happened at exactly the same time is that I’ve now started swimming deliberately in like a 50 meter local pool where the fast lane is actually full of people who are swimming off a 90 base. Yeah. So I want to send me some footage that I do coaching with. And they were swimming trying to think where they were. I’ve got enough to top of my head. But I know I’ve been to Germany once and we went to a pool. No lane rips at all.

It’s just a free for all in there. And how to how can you not swim with your eyes looking directly forward? How can you not have your head really high when that’s the case? And that’s like the worst case scenario. But then if you’re in a in lanes where there’s just people doing all sorts of things in there, it’s it’s very hard to have that good good head position. So it just becomes becomes a norm. So I think there’s a big benefit to changing your environment. And that environment is going to that 50 meter pool with good swimmers in that lane where you can actually get your head down. It can make such a difference. And I work a lot with the age group triathlete, sort of some of the people who are new to swimming or pretty new to it and maybe didn’t learn as a kid or had a little bit of experience as a kid. But mostly they’ve been doing it for a couple of years as an adult and I’d say I’d say two thirds of the people that I work

with their heads are either holding up too high in the water or they’re looking too far forwards, but they think they’re looking in the right spot. And it’s not until we show them on the video where we go, this is where it is, you can see it and they go, OK, like, yeah, I didn’t think I was I was doing that. So there’s just such a disconnect from what people think they’re doing to what they’re actually doing. And it sounds like it was the same for you. And there’s just so much stuff in swimming like that. Especially in in the water where you haven’t got you’re not grounded and you can’t really see what’s going on is just such a disconnect there. So that’s why I think that coaching can be helpful. That kind of feedback like self feedback when you’re using a snorkel or just video analysis that can make such a such a difference. So the fact that that came out of the accident is quite quite remarkable. I think that that has been able to make such a such a difference.

Was there anything after making that change where so you said you felt like you could kind of get on top of your catch a bit more when you had that better head position? Yeah. And another key part was that I was actually doing kick because I couldn’t because my back I couldn’t do a lot of like swimming and pull. And so I was doing a lot more kick and I think therefore I got more confident with my kick again with fins because I wouldn’t have been moving forwards otherwise. I then was able to use that kick in my swimming. And I think that’s another massive change this year is that my kick is actually functional, which is obviously two factors important because one, it enables me to maintain that higher body position, which I don’t think I had before. It also helps. I think the kicking as a separate entity training would help with my core generally, which again helps the body position. But then also the speed in terms of get out speed for racing,

I think that that’s now something I’m actually really confident in. So I think the kicking as well as the head position were sort of tied together. Oh, that’s that’s great to hear that. Yeah, the kick is so many people age group triathletes. They go, I don’t kick at all. And it’s not that you really have to kick much, especially is just like an average age group are necessarily because you may not need that get out speed like like you do in a race. But the main thing with a kick is I love the word functional that you use. It’s like if you can kick the right way, then it gives you it kind of gives you a little bit of that that grounding and that ability to anchor like someone who’s throwing a baseball where they’ve got their feet planted on the ground. We don’t have that in the water. So an effective kick or a functional kick will actually give you something to be able to anchor against when you’re when you’re pulling.

And as you said, it sort of connects up with your hips and your core. And that’s where you feel like you’ve got something to pull against. And then the combination of having a functional kick when you need it, you know, you can bring in a six-speed kick if you have to, to try and make that front pack. Or if you’ve got to find feet, you know, you’ve got to catch up to someone. You can bring it in when you need to. And then you can drop back to a two-beat or a four-beat if you have to. So that’s yeah, it’s such a great thing to develop. And were you were you aware of that prior to improving that? Like were you aware that your your kick wasn’t necessarily functional? Or was it just something that you started to realise as you started to do more kick? I think I was definitely in the camp of, oh, I don’t need to kick. Like I barely kick, so therefore I don’t need to really train it. I had worked on kick timing quite a lot from, you know, the last couple of years.

So I was pretty happy, you know, last year of, you know, that my one kick per one reach sort of thing worked really well. And it was like one decent kick. It felt good enough. But I think I always thought it could be better if I was to ever kick against someone, my husband, he had just destroyed like I’d be useless. So I started thinking, right, why not again with the accident? Like why not do more kick because I can physically do it? So I might as well practice it while I can. And again, fins in a 50 meter is way easier than fins in a 25 because you’re at the end by 12 seconds or something. So I think again, another sort of opportunity area there. And can you tell me about what sort of kick sets you were doing? Like did you have the snorkel on? You have the fins on? We’re going hard for 50. Were you doing kick sets of 400? What did those kick sets look like? My kick sets have very little structure and it’s more like,

how can you possibly get through 400 meters? Do it as best you can. I did one yesterday as in I’m going to do 500 meters of kick. And I did like I was just I just braked what I needed to do or someone was in I was in someone else’s way. You know, 100 meters with fins, 50 meters harder with fins. Come on, try and make 45 seconds. Try and go off 50 seconds, not a minute. I remember it used to take me a minute in a 25 meter pool without fins, I think. And so by the end, I was absolutely, you know, this is with a float as well. I would way, obviously way prefer to do it with a float, but lots of the times I would do maybe 100 meters with a float, 100 meters without. And then I might do 100 meters, six, three, six to try and incorporate it back into a bit of the stroke. But I have been trying to do some without fins. It’s not it’s not very fun at all, as you know, to do fins and then take them off and do it without.

I didn’t think I was moving and I was really struggling in a 50 meter yesterday. Yeah, yeah. Well, it’s just nice to hear that that has helped overall. And again, the athletes I would normally work with the age group is when we put fins on and we do drills, a lot of them are very like they’re just they’re too laid back with their kick. So I encourage them to get your feet moving. You’ve got the fins on for a reason. And if you just start to work, you kick more in those moments, in those sets that you’ve got your fins on or when you’re doing kick sets, like just be more active with it, work it in the down and the up kick, try and feel that undulation with it and just train it while you’ve got the fins on. It can help develop it, develop it a lot. And, you know, if you get yourself a pair of good fins and some things are not great, like there’s some things are really stiff and hard and uncomfortable. But if you get yourself a good pair of fins, like I like the DMC fins,

DMC elite ones, or I think the arena power fins, pretty similar, which is quite good. Like a good pair of fins makes a world of difference. So if you hate fins and you listen to this, get yourself a good pair. First of all, they’re much more comfortable. You get more propulsion from them and don’t get the long fins that they’re fine. But they’re not as not as good for you as a good pair of kind of shorter fins like the ones that I’ve mentioned. What fins are you using? Oh, and honestly, not sure I’ve had them since, you know, three or four years. Like I have no sort of they are these ones. Yeah, they’re orange. OK, orange fins. So get yourself a pair of orange fins, yeah. Yeah, on your note about the intensity thing. I used to when I was getting back into swimming, I used to definitely be guilty of that, especially when I was swimming on my own a lot, I would just do kick for the sake of doing kick, you know, 50 meters cool, 50 meters cool.

But now every kick, I sort of dread it in a way because it’s harder than swimming. Well, that’s the intensity I feel like it should be at, is that I should be sort of basically racing someone every time I do it. So I remember that as a kid, like I remember, you know, cheating on the lane rope, like, can I, I can’t keep up, you know, I’ve got to try and like do one stroke, the coach won’t sort of see. Like, I remember it being a real stress, the kick set. So I think the intensity of that, yeah, that’s definitely something. The other element of not just intensity, but in terms of technique is I think you or someone else might have driven this sort of box around your kick, so like keeping the kick within that box rather than just like my old kick technique would be that sort of one bigger kick on one side. So I think that was pretty, pretty important in terms of reminding myself that it should be super efficient and therefore hopefully translates

to swimming without the fins as well. Nice. Yeah, I’ll take all the credit for that. That’s that’s fine. Kicking the bucket is the way the way I’d normally describe it and not a tiny bucket, but like a larger bucket out behind you, slightly wider than your body line. So it’s a good way to visualise it. And I like the the queue of ballerina in a bucket because the ballerina is up on their tippy toes and then just imagine kicking in that bucket. So I’ll take all the credit for that. Thanks, Kat. So going back to your accident last year, so take me back to that moment. What was the first thing running through your head? Was it am I going to be able to race again? Is it am I going to be able to walk again? What was going through your mind when that first happened? I haven’t really dwelled on like trying to remember that. So I find it quite hard to be like this was the first thing. Maybe when I write a book about it, I’ll have dealt with it better.

But I think the first bit of it and the overarching sensation was just like loss and grief. And it wasn’t about triathlon. It was like suddenly my life was on a hospital bed and it was more that like loss of personal freedom. Like I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t make decisions. I couldn’t choose anything. So, yeah, it wasn’t necessarily about, oh, no, I can’t do a triathlon. It was not allowed to walk at the moment and I can’t turn my head. So the doctors were very good and out in the woodlands in Texas. They scanned everything and gave me the appropriate amount of information. And my, you know, everyone else, all my friends, my coach was there. Husband got out there as soon as he could. So they gave them all the information they really needed. And me again, just just enough as a physio. I was really prodding at like what’s wrong. And I think there was a few uncertainties quite early on about just the integrity of my neck.

Blood like the main artery in my neck. And of course, just like double checking that they weren’t missing anything. I think the injuries didn’t quite make sense due to the trauma. So I think they were even though the scan, you know, I think they wanted to double check triple check triple check again just to make sure that that wasn’t something that was they’d really missed. So yeah, a lot of sadness, I think was the big one. Did you do you think it was at that time better to have your physio background or to not have it and maybe not know so much what was going on? Do you think it was helpful or not so much? I think it’s always helpful. I think education knowledge is it was always helpful because in theory, you should be there for have the rationale to apply it appropriately. So I think knowing that they had checked my spinal cord. Cool. You can you can walk. OK, cool. So then I was like, they must have done this, this and this to be happy.

It wasn’t me going, oh, are you sure I can walk? You know, like, are you sure? Well, they I had some like, obviously some issues with my lungs and I was being told to blow into these devices again. I would have freaked out probably a little bit about what this sort of, you know, how big a volume my lungs can blow it up. And to me, it was like, I’d given that little device to about 100 people and it was like, cool, yeah, just practice that. So I knew exactly what I had to do for the next two weeks in terms of blowing into a device and how my lungs, how important standing up, taking deep breaths, even though it hurt, you know, bracing during sneezing, like all of those things associated to the lungs. That is actually part of my, you know, experience as a physiotherapist, even though most people see physio as just soar knees or shoulder. I don’t know what it’s like in other countries, but we’re very grounded in our whole medical physiotherapy.

And part of that is respiratory. So those were the biggies as well as the, you know, walking side of life. Before we dive into the rest of today’s podcast episode, this episode is proudly brought to you by Form Smart Swim Goggles. They’ve been a long time sponsor of the podcast and they are my go-to goggles when it comes to tracking my training sessions and being able to see what’s happening in real time through the goggles. And we know swimming is a highly technical sport, but without the guidance of a coach on deck, identifying and addressing technique flaws can be a challenge. They’ve recently added a new feature to the goggles, Head Coach. And this addresses that problem head on. It gives them as improved access to their technique, awareness, focused skill development and in-app education and analysis. Head Coach provides real-time visual coaching via the Form Smart Swim Goggles augmented reality display.

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analyze videos and incredibly connect with swimmers from across the world as well. So whether you are a swimmer or a coach, go to the app store. Download the Skillist app today. That’s S-K-I-L-L-E-S-T. Download the Skillist app today and get started. And only for our Effortless Swimming Podcast listeners. We’re giving away our Art of Triathlon course free, as well as a technique analysis online through the Skillist app from me for free as well. Go to effortlesswimming.com forward slash Skillist offer or click the link in this podcast description and you will get the Art of Triathlon swimming course for free as well as a technique analysis from me through the Skillist app. And now back to the podcast. Is there anything that you do or can’t do quite as well at the moment as a result of it or you feel like pretty much back to normal? I saw the spinal consultant at like the one year point just a few weeks ago

and he came, he said a phrase that I now I really like. He says trauma leaves clues and I found it really hard for the first six months, especially then I got back racing and everything was fine for people to be like, oh, cool, you’re healed now. And I was like, I think that’s the trouble with this sort of injury. It can be a trouble is that the psychological trauma is an entity and then the physical trauma is an entity and anything to do with the spine. It doesn’t necessarily just fix like a 10 year old’s wrist would just fix or a tendon would just heal after loading it. So I think there are things that will always be a little bit different with my movement and just general sort of the integrity of those bits that were broken, but physically I’m now acting without any, you know, reservation. I think I realized over the summer and, you know, that sort of eight month point, I wasn’t worried about it anymore.

I wasn’t thinking, oh, you know, every so often it was just I’m able to move, I’m able to breathe, I’m able to sneeze. I’m able to, you know, attack a hill climb on the bike. I’m able to sprint on the run. There was nothing that was like, oh, not sure about that. Or even just a consideration of the overload. So my body is a bit different, but at the moment it’s not. There’s no problems with that. Yeah, it sounds like that’s a bit of a turning point where you’re not it’s not like there all the time, like, oh, OK, I felt felt that way. You get to that point where you can just operate. As normal, you can train as normal and maybe maybe you might pull up a bit sore here and there, but it’s not not restrictive where we kind of limited in your sessions there. So that’s it’s great to hear you’re at that point. And coming to this year to get podium at the 17.3 World Champs. Take me to that moment when you cross the finish line

or you’re on the podium. What was that like for you? Because I can’t imagine how much rehab, how much work you would have had to go through in a couple of months time to to get to that point and to to make it back when maybe that could have been the end of your racing career. Yeah, I think it looks like a bigger deal than it maybe felt because I never allowed that consideration of it could be it. And I say, I like my husband was from day one. Cool, you’re going to be back. You’ll be fine. You’ll be better than ever. And I just drove off that. Like it wasn’t a consideration or it it might have flickered across my mind, but it wasn’t I had never allowed myself to dwell on it. So the rehab was just the same as doing my job, you know, training. Yes, sure, there was moments where it was really hard. But by the time I got to the summer, it was I was working just as hard as everyone else or, you know, the same. I ish. And so it wasn’t necessarily

anything in my mind that was like super spectacular on reflection. Obviously there was a much lower starting point at the start of the year. But again, everybody has these, you know, big, big ish injuries that sometimes set them back in life. So I think it was it was pretty valuable to me in terms of my physiology, like the confidence in my physiology that I’m still improving. That was big. So my performance was pretty good. And my running consistency over the summer leading up into Lati was better than ever. So I think those things were just to then put it into a race was really nice. It’s so hard as, you know, as doing the sport to have this constant battle of I know I can do this physically in training, but so what if I can’t do it in a race? So I think that was the biggest thing was this sort of relief of my training is real. This is how fit I am because I can show it in a race. I think side note, I think we often get sort of sidetracked by how we think

we’re better than we are just because we can do it in training. Whereas actually I see performance level as the race. And I think that’s maybe why when it goes wrong, it hits you so bad because you haven’t got this, you haven’t got this, it’s OK. I can do it in training. It’s like, no, that race was all that mattered. And your training is completely relevant, useless, you know, pointless because you haven’t been able to show it in the race. Sounds like a bit of a double edged sword in a way where we should put the put the importance on on your race results. That means you can can do it like that is that’s the real that’s the real test and that and for you, you know, where you have to prove yourself in the race. I think that it can be a great thing. And then obviously when it doesn’t go right, that’s when it can can hit you and that and the mental side of it can be can be quite difficult. I had a listener send in a question about training the mental aspect

and the and the mindset aspect. And there’s two things that you mentioned just before that that stood out to me there. One is after the injury and your husband was saying, all right, you’ll be back. All right, this is this is just what we’ll do. We’ll get we’ll get back to it where it’s not not a big deal. It’s like, we’ll just get on with it and we’ll do what we need to do. That sounded like an interesting approach that seemed to to make a big difference for you where you don’t make it. You build it up as a huge thing in your head. It’s just that’s no big deal. Let’s get on with it. And then the second thing there that you mentioned as as well is putting that importance on proving yourself in in a race, because I know a lot of I know a lot of triathletes, a lot of swimmers who are great trainers and they will do some I’ve seen some amazing sessions by them, but they can’t put together in a race and from the outside, it seems like they put too much effort

into some of their training sessions where maybe they push harder than they need to because they’re trying to prove themselves in training and not in a race. What are your thoughts around those those two things? Does that sound about right? Because it just sounded quite interesting to me. Listen to you explain those couple of things. No, totally. I love I’d love to talk about them way too long for the podcast. But the first one because it’s easier. Yeah. My husband’s attitude was, I think, fundamental to my sort of mental health in those first few months. So it was it wasn’t just this. He was in the he was in the army had been for years now left. He’s sort of like, cool, you know, let’s crack on. It was more I think he needed to feel super confident that I’d be totally fine. And so it was both of us. It was the easiest way of being like, cool, it’ll be fine. You know, we were as a as an entity, he’d left the army.

We were going to go both, you know, go forward this year with my professional sport. There wasn’t also really a choice. It was just cool, you know, let’s just sort of it will all be fine. He doesn’t stress as in he’s one of those people who doesn’t worry. I’m a warrior. So it was like normal for us for him to not worry. And then if I started worrying, he’d do the head pat. It’s OK. I’d cry a little bit and it would be like, it’s OK. And then, you know, next day, cool, let’s do it. And it wasn’t it wasn’t ever a sort of super over the top positivity. It was just the perfect level of confidence and supporting, accepting that it was a really bad situation, because I think that would be easy not to allow those emotions and not to allow that sadness. But he and my family and friends got the perfect balance of letting me be super sad, but equally giving me the space to breathe before then deciding myself, which is how it normally works for me like in an off season,

like deciding myself that I’m ready to try and do a bit more on that as well. My physio was really important. I had moved to Loughborough, new environment, new house, new swimming pool, new physio the day we got back from Kona. And I went to see her for the first time and I was like, yes. So had all these had all these injuries and we looked at my thoracic rotation and my neck rotation. She’s like, so when are you racing? And this is like week seven. And so that was a big like, oh, steady on, you know, I don’t really know you. That’s not how I work. Like I need to feel confident in myself before I, you know, even think about racing. And it was just sort of honestly, later in that day, I was like, hmm, actually, she was right. When am I racing? Like I need to, she suggested, say, like from a physio perspective, what do you need to be able to do 12 weeks away from a race? You know, and therefore what do you need to be able to do 16 weeks away

from a race sort of thing? And so I then go out my Excel spreadsheet and started making these little like, OK, well, if I was to race in April by March, I need to have done. I think my confidence would be like two 20 hour training weeks or something back to back is it sort of as a fitness entity, like tolerate the load. I need to be able to swim at least 20 K a week sort of thing for a month. Those little markers, because of what she said, became my tangible, like just reachable goals for the next six weeks. So that’s pretty important mindset, like mentality wise. And then to the other part of training versus racing, I think it’s something that we like really people are quite divided on it. I think lots of people will always be like, oh, wow, she’s so good at training. She’ll be excellent. She is excellent. And I’ve always been the opposite. So it’s easy for me to say I need to show it in a race for it to be factual

because I’m not a great trainer. I don’t think like I don’t I don’t beat my I wouldn’t beat my competitors in training, even if I that same day or later that day, I’d then race and we’d I’d actually beat them. So I’ve never I’ve never really trained in an environment where it is competitive like that to try and beat my sort of friends. So I’ve never had that comparison. My power in training is in my like intervals, for example, swimming, cycling and running is always way better than I’m able to do in a race. But I think that’s normal. I think that was that sort of obvious. Like, obviously, it’s better in training when it’s a shorter rep. So I think some people perhaps just get confused that if they can do it in a in a training session, therefore they can do it in a race. Whereas the race is obviously way longer and has way more other factors involved. So I might be swimming like 75 long course threshold.

But I don’t think I can do that actual threshold for an hour. Like I don’t think I can. So if I then do 80 seconds per hundred in a race, then I’m pretty happy of that normally. So I think some people have this like mismatch, maybe of what those training values really mean. And for me, it’s always just been about the performance because that is what you’re training to do. But I don’t know if that’s just like my my mindset of that sort of ethos. But I do think that that’s where you show mental strength or resilience or just aptitude to employing strategic or resilient techniques. Whether that’s conscious or subconscious in the race is where it shows. So you can be excellent for a 10 minute rep in training because you’re just going to jump off and have a shower and go to work. But if you’re not like if you’re not able to just be focused and mentally strong, whatever that means in a race where you’ve still got half marathon to run, then so what?

If you can do a 10 minute rep. Yeah, when you say you’re not a great trainer, can you clarify that a little bit? Do you feel like you don’t train as hard as you could? Or do you feel like like the numbers that you put out could be like they’re just not as much as some of your competitors, but you are better in racing? Can you clarify that a little bit? Because I think when someone when someone hears that, yeah, maybe they might interpret it as, you know, you don’t like maybe faff about a bit here and there. And I’m guessing I’m guessing you don’t, right? Like I’m just just curious to get your thoughts on that. Yeah, thank you. I’m absolutely not saying that I’m not. I’m again, I don’t I train with some people sometimes and this year loads more than previously. And I have a I like as an example, I have like a semi different personality when I’ve actually got a session as opposed to just an aerobic session.

Like I become really I become a less nice person because I’m so focused. Like I’m not able to tolerate chat in the rep. Like it’s just about the rep, like everything is perfection. The rest is purely rest, rest or eating or drinking. Go like go again. Let’s chat at the end of the session when we’ve got an hour and a half easy riding or, you know, in the showers after swimming sort of training. And so I think my when I say I’m not a good trainer, I mean more every session that has to be ten out of ten effort is ten out of ten effort. Nine and a half some bad days or it’s ten out of ten effort and just not very good. But a lot of my sessions are seven out of ten sessions, you know, or they have a little bit of eight out of ten in there. And it’s only seven out of ten or eight out of ten RPE that I’m doing. I’m not putting I’m not doing my threshold reps at one hundred percent and then thinking, oh, my goodness, my my threshold is seventy seconds,

not seventy five seconds, for example, obviously, it’s not the same thing as it is on the on the bike. But so I think that’s sort of important. Like it’s the discipline of training control. And I have noticed mainly in cycling and run volume that my competitors do a lot more than me. And some age groupers, I hate that word, some amateur triathletes will do four hour rides at like averaging over three watts a kilo, you know, three point five watts a kilo. And they’re two kilometers an hour faster than me over the same route or something Strava is dangerous. And then I beat them by like half an hour in a race. So over four hours or over two hours even. So I think I know that I’m I have that sort of intensity, control and discipline in training, not that I am. I mean, I’m not a good performer in training. Yeah, it sounds like you’re smart about your training, not trying to overdo it when there’s no there’s no need to to push it

more just for the for the Strava numbers or to prove to yourself that you can do can do those numbers. And I think that’s a trap that a lot of people fall into, whether it’s because of Strava or they just like to compete. They like to challenge themselves. I know I’m guilty of it on occasion, just going harder than I need to in an aerobic based session because I want to get a good workout. I want to see what times I can hit. It is hard to restrain yourself sometimes, but I think that’s a good ethos that you’ve got of your performance. It’s it doesn’t matter in training. It’s about the race. So that’s it. And you want to go with what works well for you. And it sounds like you’ve thought a lot about the things that work well, the things that don’t and you’ve evolved over the last couple of years of training and racing and probably figured some of those things out. When it comes to thinking and or looking back at past performances

and the way that you do things, do you have a sort of structure that you that you follow? Do you review it annually? Do you sit down with your coach and go through it every six months? What’s that look like for you? Do you mean like a sort of as in like January to March race season? Yeah, just in terms of adjusting training and the way you go about things. Do you have a structure to to analysing that? Or is it usually after after a race, you do it each time and and then tweak things? Or have you have you got a general structure that you’d follow for that? I’m not really sure. I think I rely and I’m happy to like sit back sometimes, sometimes and rely on my coaches, expertise, Björn Giesmann, German triathlon coach. And I think I give him the overarching control over those things. And I trust that he’s looking back and seeing what works well and what doesn’t. Me and my husband, Mark, we will discuss things often and often disagree.

And I then choose to take some of those things to Björn and some of them I don’t. And sometimes we have a group, little chat about normally issues. Obviously, it’s easier to pick up on issues. But I I sort of pride myself that I’m good at also seeing the positives like going into Kona, like I felt great. You know, first week, awful, new conditions, environment. But coming into race week, I I honestly thought at one point I was like, wow, I could hug Björn. I feel so good right now. Like this this was perfect. So I think, yeah, that sort of structure, if that’s if that’s more what you mean, like that sort of that build into a race or even just training structure generally is totally on him because I’m full time. I can go away and do training camps. So when I’m at home, my training volume is way less. And it’s really nice, you know, 90 minute turbos, maybe two hours, two, often sometimes three sessions a day.

Whereas a training camp, you know, we’re pushing out to sort of 30 plus hours in the week with three and, you know, 90 minute swims, well, 75 minute swims and then three to four hours on the bike and then another hour running in the evening or a gym session. So it really fluctuates. And I think that’s something that I’m really grateful for that. I don’t have to do all of these, you know, horrible sessions or use up loads of mental energy when I don’t have to. I can sort of prioritize that into a training camp when volume is way easier. So, yeah, I think like a bit more volume over sort of the early part of the year. And then it becomes a little bit more sort of focused, perhaps, in terms of intensity control, less just bulk mileage for the sake of it around races. What you mentioned there about giving control to to beyond or giving just trusting that they know what they’re they’re doing. I had a professional swimmer here on the podcast recently,

a big guy flinted southern and he said the same thing. It’s like I when I go to the gym, when I go to the pool, I I just I trust my coaches know what they’re doing. So I just get in there and I do what they ask. And I’m thinking about my stroke. I’m working on those things. But that way he just takes that mental load off and that that your mental capacity working hard, you’re training a lot. 30 hours is a huge is a huge training week. And if you’ve got to think about the types of sessions you’re doing, all that sort of stuff, it’s it’s often too much. And so being able to just see that to someone else and someone that you trust, it can make a huge difference. And it sounds like that kind of takes the the a huge load off your off your shoulders, which is which is what you want as a professional triathlete. You’ve got a lot to think about. There’s the training. There’s stuff to do with sponsors. There’s flights and travel and all the sorts of stuff that you’ve got

to factor in that you don’t need any more in your plate. And I think the I think the satisfaction of the simple. Yeah, done that, Tick. If you’re not setting the goal, it’s very easy to feel that satisfaction of achieving the goal because it should be achievable. Whereas if I’m setting the goal, I will often either doubt myself that that’s not too hard to swimming here or I or it’s sort of too easy. And it’s like, have I done enough? So I think that’s a massive thing for me this last 12 months as I started swimming with somebody else. Because, yeah, like I said, moved to Loughborough and new environment at the same time, sort of somebody we knew, but we weren’t friends over the time, also moved here, Sam Proctor, another British pro athlete. And so me and him started swimming together and he also does some coaching. And for the last couple of years, I’ve just been setting my own swimming sessions, whereas now I turn up to the pool and Sam has taken complete control

of that sort of Monday aerobic Tuesday, we’re going to do, you know, V02 and then CSS or threshold on a Friday, like having this structure and having sessions that I I try not to look at the session because I’m so fearful and nearly every session I’m thinking I can’t do this. So I’m I’m two reps into 10 or whatever it is. And I’m I need to drop out. I need to drop out. I need to drop out. How do I explain? How do I like come up with some sort of I’ll do the next one is paddles or maybe I’ll just take one easy while you carry on and and I fight that so hard nearly every session to just finish. And that’s been the most rewarding thing this whole years. I’ve probably only dipped out of sort of one or two percent of those sessions because something’s wrong, like I actually do have a bit of a slightly sore shoulder, not just all my shoulder feels sore. It’s like, actually, it was sore the other day. I need to be steady on this swim, for example, I won’t use paddles.

I just use finger paddles sort of thing. So, yeah, that’s been massive, like having somebody else dictate that training sort of session intensity and routine through the week. It’s so funny what your mind goes through. Just I’ve done the exact same thing. It’s like, what excuse that sounds legitimate? Can I come up with to make it sound like I’m not being soft here and wanting to get out? But nine times out of ten, it’s like you’re being soft. All right, just push through it, you know, to be over soon and just embrace the suck, as Mac would say. So, yeah, totally, totally get it. Now, I know you’ve got to go, so we’ll wrap up here. Those that are, for those that are listening in terms of swim advice. So you’ve improved your swimming a lot over the last couple of years. We talked about some of those things. Do you have any other advice for people working on their swimming if they’re maybe newer to swimming and struggling with it?

What are a couple of key things that you’d or key bits of advice you give to them? Well, they’re listening to this. Obviously, they should be following your platform to like key advice. I but on that note, I found more interest in listening and watching like swimming technique rather than it being a doesn’t feel like a chore. It’s like, oh, this is interesting. And then like thinking about that as an idea. But that’s pretty like some people will find that really boring. So I think physically, I think the things we said are the things that I would think for most people. So body position rather than just thrashing yourself, but thrashing yourself is equally as important once and maybe not just once. But like all year round, I think I was guilty of not believing that I could do sessions. So I think knowing that it’s really hard and you’re really out of breath and you feel totally out of control is normal. Like I don’t have that with the other sports.

Like I’ve never I’ve never had that really, whereas swimming is horrendous. And I think being OK to go a bit slower as well is also fine. But I think it just changes. I think you just have to adapt. And that’s why it’s really hard and swimming is really hard. And knowing that I saw a really nice graph that made me feel better about myself. And it was like one of the best swimmers in the world. I think it was pre world champs and she took three years where she plateaued, not even a second quicker in three years. And then suddenly she dropped a second and then another two seconds the next year and bam, world champion, world record. So I think it’s a persistence thing. And the biggest thing not just this year, but for me overall with swimming has been the sort of change in mindset of target setting. So the effort used to be getting to the pool and swimming. I’ve got to swim. Now it was like, cool, I’ve made a decision that I want to swim at least

like insert an achievable kilometer goal here. For me, it was 20 K. That’s changed. It’s now 18, but it could be 10, it could be 12, 15. Like I want to swim at least 18 kilometers a week, regardless of how that looks. So I then stopped worrying about every session I was going to. It was like, cool, well, I only have to I just have to do three K today. It doesn’t matter what it looks like. So I stopped worrying that it was going to be a bad swim or it was going to be too hard. It was just so I’ve just got to get through three K. And that was really big for me in 20, 20, 21. So yeah, that would be my like set a totally achievable goal as your baseline. And then there’s so many other things that you can progress into. Like we’ve chatted to today, technique, structure, effort, confidence. Kat, that is a great, great way to end the podcast. I appreciate you sticking around. I know we’ve gone a little bit over time

and you’ll have to head off here. But that was terrific to hear very thoughtful about the way that you about your approach to swimming and triathlon. And I think for the listeners of the podcast, they’ll get a lot out of it listening to the changes that you’ve made to your swimming and how you’ve how you’ve thought about it. So I appreciate you sharing that on the podcast. And it’s been great to watch your watch your journey over the last couple of years. And I appreciate you being on here. So thank you. And I can’t wait to get you back on here. Thanks so much. And though all of the thank you goes to you and your platform, because I didn’t get the opportunity to say that I think most of my swimming technique comes from your Instagram. So I just that should be known. So thank you. Yeah, as I said before the podcast, I get a huge kick out of that. That someone at your level in triathlon is able to benefit from some of the videos that I do, because put a lot of effort into it.

I love helping people. I love working with people and the fact that that it’s been able to help you. I really get a kick out of it. So I appreciate that. And yeah, looking forward to your journey of the next couple of years. So thanks again, Kat. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming Podcast. If you’d like us to help you become a faster, more efficient swimmer, go to www.effortlesswimming.com.

The post Transforming Life’s Challenges into Catalysts for Growth with Kat Matthews appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

In this episode, we welcome back Dr Jim Taylor, a renowned psychologist specializing in sports and performance. Dr Taylor shares his insights and strategies from his recent experience at the World Championships in Spain. We discuss topics such as adjusting intensity based on race distance, effective focus and mindset for training and racing, and the importance of being brutally honest with oneself for improvement. Tune in for an enlightening conversation with Dr Jim Taylor.

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It’s not a good reflection on what I consider myself an expert in. So you’ve got to practice what you preach up. Indeed, indeed. Yeah. So there were three areas that came up in Panavidra that really sort of opened my eyes. Well, that was incredibly self-defeating and I know a lot of traffic to think that sort of thing, especially if they’re not swimmers. That’s how you’re going to know what works for you, whether it’s long and strong or whether it’s just push, push, push. That’s when you’ll start to get a handle on it. Yeah, absolutely. Welcome to the Effortless Swimming Podcast, the show that helps swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford.

Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Effortless Swimming Podcast. My name is Brenton Ford. I’m a swim coach based in Australia and I work with swimmers all around the world to improve their technique and to make them better swimmers and ultimately live a better life. On today’s episode, we have Dr. Jim Taylor, who is a psychologist specializing in sports and performance. And Dr. Jim Taylor has been on our podcast multiple times and every time I get him on, I get texts, I get messages from people saying that was really helpful. So I want to get him back on to talk about a few more topics related to mindset and performance in psychology. And he’s recently returned from the world champs in Spain and I asked him about his experience there and what sort of tactics and strategies did he use personally with all the experience that he’s got. So he talks about what he did and what he learned from those races and some of the topics we discussed today

include changing your intensity depending on the distance in the event that you’re doing, what to focus on, when to focus on it and how you may need to change your focus depending on what race you’re doing as well and the mindset that’s required to help you be successful in training and then how you can carry that into your races. And the final thing we discuss is being 100% honest with where you’re at and how a reality check can be a little painful at the start. But if you really want to get better and you really want to improve that 100% honest assessment of where you’re currently at can be the best thing going forwards, especially into 2024 and how you can make that your best year yet. And I told two stories about where I didn’t want to face reality initially, but when I did, I actually turned my swimming around and has helped me take that next step with it. Before we get into the podcast, I’ve got two things to ask

you. One is if you haven’t left to say review or a star rating on Spotify or Apple podcast, wherever you listen to this podcast, I would love it if you do. That would be the main thing that would help me out immensely because the more people that see this that has good ratings, then the more people that will listen to it and if you know anyone that is looking to improve psychologically with their racing, please share it with them. Thanks so much. Let’s get into the episode with Dr. Jim Taylor. Jim, you’ve been a guest on this podcast multiple times. I’d say you’re an expert in the psychology of sports and performance and that’s why I’ve had a lot of people reply after hearing your podcast saying that was a great episode. I got a lot out of it because I think the mental side of things is a large part of the equation when it comes to success in swimming or triathlon or life or parenting so many, so many areas of life.

So welcome back first of all and you’ve just returned from Spain. Tell me a little bit about that. Yeah. First of all, great to see you again, Brenton. I really enjoyed your recent show on Lucy Charles Parkley and what makes her so good. Really fascinating. Anyway, so yeah, I came back on maybe a month ago from Pond of Asia, Spain. It was the world super sprint and Olympic distance age group and professional world championships. So that was great challenge and a lot of great lessons learned there that I’m going to share with you today and it’s sort of interesting because I always have to meld my athletic life with my professional life and I use my professional life to make me a better athlete, but it’s always a fun give and take because I learned a lot of stuff in graduate school to getting my PhD and working on that side. But there’s nothing like being in the thick of it and you know, being in the water, being on the bike,

being on the run and then dealing with all those challenges. So one thing that I always have a column in my blog, a section of my blog called I practice what I preach because that’s one of the pressures of being doing what I do that I can’t like freak out or anything, but it’s all fine for sure. You went and you had some really good results there in Spain, a number of podiums. I think you said it was your best result yet at a world championships. Actually, it was sort of even. It was my third podium in a row tooth. I’ve had three thirds so far going back to Abu Dhabi in last November and then Humbert, Germany in in July and then Panavidra earlier this fall. So I’m consistent. I’m third. I thought the possibility of a world championship was was there, but you never know who’s going to show up and this this one Frenchman showed up who is just a ripper and there was like no chance. Yeah, yeah, gotcha. Well, I’d love to get stuck into some of those things

that you had to work on yourself. And I mean, I find the same thing coaching when I’m in the in the water training consistently. I come up with new ideas. I can test out some things that I’ve been been using. And if I if I swim and it’s it’s slow and I’m back of the pack and it’s not a good reflection on what I consider myself an expert in. So you’ve got to practice what you preach up. Indeed. Indeed. Yeah. So there were three areas that came up in Panavidra that really sort of opened my eyes and they were my physical intensity before the race, my focus and then my mindset. And so if you want, I can jump into each of those and we can talk about each one. Yeah, let’s do it. Okay, so when I talk about physical intensity, think that you can think of this range from really relaxed like sleep to unbelievably tense like sheer terror and somewhere between sleep and sheer terror. You swim your best and so it depended upon the

event and the distance and also just your personality. You’ll see some swimmers are super chill some kind of medium fire up and others are like bouncing off the wall really super intense and you can probably come up with better examples from the swimming circuit that I can and then but it also interacts with it with the distance. So as a general rule and this is part of my lesson I learned in Panavidra was that the the short of the distance, the higher the intensity and as the distance gets longer, lower intensity because obviously high intensity you’re burning fuel and so if you’re swimming 2.4 miles before the at the start of an Ironman you can’t be burning fuel and so I’ve been thinking about this since Hamburg the World Championships there which were the sprint and the mixed relay and and playing with different levels of intensity in the pool and then when I was doing open water as well and what I came to realize was that I wasn’t

getting fired up enough for the super sprint which is my better event and it’s about 400 meters and it’s basically full gas entry to exit. And so what I started and so I got this from my coach and was that it’s really important to the shorter sprints where you’re going full gas from beginning you can’t settle in is to make sure that your body is ready for it. He’s a ghost if you go out and your body is too relaxed in your body like a shock it’s like oh my gosh I need to get going and then you go into in Takoxia and actually heard this to when Lionel Sanders did Super League in London last fall and he was he was practicing and he said same thing for him like usually in a half Ironman and Ironman he would be working himself into the swim and into the bike into the run whereas his this he just wasn’t ready for it. And so what I began doing as I lined up with my group for the age group was just constantly moving

jumping up and down doing push-ups breathing intensely and it’s interesting to observe everybody else literally everybody else was just standing around and either chatting or standing quietly and that’s what I used to do so I’m not judging them but but what I noticed was that when as soon as I hit the water my body was ready to go and I could go really really high intensity and so that was a really big lesson for me and then for the Olympic distance obviously a bit of a longer swim you know twice to two and half times longer I was still active because I wanted I wanted my body to be able to go at that pace but so I was active but not quite as active so for me especially before swim were very often at least at the world level we don’t have the opportunity to warm up in the water. So so you can’t you can’t get ready in that you know five minutes of swimming back and forth next to the start and then climb out and then

get get the starter and so it’s really important to get your body going so being super active to get that intensity up especially short races but even the longer ones being active getting your body prepared because even though than Ironman you still have to go out pretty hard to get it going. That now that you say it makes a lot of sense and I haven’t really heard that before talked about that way but reflecting on my own experience reflecting on if you look at the 50 sprinters they’re generally like that they’re the big boys and the big girls who are generally quite you know they they get fired up and there’s a lot of in the men’s race a lot of testosterone flying and then if compare that to the 1500 in the pool those those guys those girls are a lot more relaxed behind the starting box because you have to be just can’t you’ve got to work your work your way into it so that’s interesting and something I’ve never sort of considered before.

Well that’s why I’m here Brandon I’ve given you some new ideas and so I really encourage swimmers and triathletes to experiment a little bit because I talk about that continuum from sleep to share terror is no one level it’s a very personal and so it’s a matter of experimenting and I find and this is interesting because this goes way back to when I was an Alpine ski racer back in the day when I was a kid same thing there I didn’t get fired up enough and and so I sort of started off slowly and so so doing things to keep yourself activated and it’s funny because I feel a little self-conscious because again everybody’s standing around and I’m dropping down doing doing 20 pushups and doing squats and jumping up and down but there’s an old saying here in the US that I heard people people get out of the way of crazy people and so so maybe there’s a little intimidation factor there I don’t know but the main thing is to just feel like when I when I hit

the water I am physiologically ready to go because if you’re not physiologically ready to go the mental stuff just doesn’t matter but the physiological stuff begins with the mental stuff of being aware of where you need to be with your intensity and then taking these active steps so begin with Pratt with your with your swim training both pool and open water and see what works for you see what enables you to go fast one little caveat to that and this is something that I learned from you is that you can’t force fast swimming like you can’t try to swim fast you need to let your body just flow with the water and one thing I’ve been really working on is developing my relationship with the water which I got from you and not fighting against it and again Lionel is a great example of somebody who fights the water constantly and of course he struggles and so there’s a balance between staying relaxed in terms of your stroke and your cadence while having

enough you know heart rate adrenaline blood flow for your body to function at at a pretty high level of intensity when you’re when you’re swimming and that’s the that’s the thing that takes a while to figure out you know if you’ve got on a scale of one to ten you don’t want to be that one you don’t want to be a ten where it’s just extreme tension through the body it’s like a depending on the race you’re doing but it’s like a seven it’s like that that’s seven where you’ve got it we operate best that way you’ve got that a little bit of relaxation where you move freely and but yeah enough enough intensity to be able to get out there and go fast and I think the sprinters the 50 hundred meters and as they are the the very best at finding that because they’ll have stroke rates of hundred and ten hundred and twenty strokes a minute in a in a fifty freestyle super fast but they’ve still got to have that feel and that hold of the water

even though they’ve got this rapid turnover so it’s it’s amazing to to watch and for them to be able to sort of find that balance between a huge amount of physical exertion a lot of like it got to be very strong to be able to do it but to have that finesse and that that grace still so I mean I I can’t find that in the fifty or a hundred I’m a I’m a two hundred meter plus event swimmer that’s why I admire those guys who can do it before we dive into the rest of today’s podcast episode this episode is proudly brought to you by form smart swim goggles they’ve been a longtime sponsor of the podcast and they are my go to goggles when it comes to tracking my training sessions and being able to see what’s happening in real time through the goggles and we know swimming is a highly technical sport but without the guidance of a coach on deck identifying and addressing technique flaws can be a challenge that recently added a new

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so the second key thing that I got there was was focused and so in the water what do you focus on because you yes you have to site but more than anything it’s just like what’s going through your mind in terms of are you focusing on technique are you focusing on people around you are you focusing on citing are you focusing on on you know how much longer you have to go and so I find there’s a balance I try not to focus on technique and I you know I will admit to everybody here I’m not a great swimmer growing up I was in the non drowning category and I suffered from what Lionel called called adult onset swimming and so you know someone like you I’ve seen you swim on your on your videos and there’s something about people who grew up swimming that they have this relationship the water with the water this way they move through the water that I will never have or maybe you can teach me I don’t know but I haven’t yet but but the important thing is

I find in training it’s important to focus on technique because you just need to do a lot of repetition and ingrain the good motor skills so it is associated with swimming but in the race I find it’s it’s much better to have some sort of sort of motivational sort of cues and and and this will tie into the third area that that I’ll get into in a minute but really being able to focus effectively on something that will help you swim better because I know I know a number of triathletes and swimmers who they’re all about technique in races that they just focus on technique and that ensures that they do what’s proper because I learned this from you 80% of fast swimming is technical it’s not like strength it’s not like trying and so so being able to have a clear focus on what will help you perform well and it could be something technical it could be something physiological like focusing on your breathing and it could be something that which again I’ll

get to with number three and in my topics for today. Yeah it’s and it’s going to be different for everyone right and it might even change depending on the on the event and I think it’s hard to completely switch off from thinking about your your technique but we want to try and just drill those habits in training that’s where it that’s where they become automated and then in the racing I find for most people it’s like just focus on on your intensity on your effort and good race skills making sure you’re siding properly making sure you maybe finding feet whatever it might be for you so that’s why we don’t want to overthink in with the stroke and people generally move a little bit more robotically and mechanically if they’re overly thinking about the stroke and I have a number of swimmers who might come to a clinic I might work with online and you know we do most of our work is on the the technical side of things and the ones that will be

overly focused on that this technique usually their stroke rate is too low maybe by 10-15% in the race and so their times are sometimes a bit slower as well until they then just kind of get used to being able to switch off from it so it’s a common thing that I see when people were really focusing on their technique it’s it can impact their racing negatively if they continue to do that when they’re racing right and I still I still think I struggle with that and essentially brought up cadence because I’m a huge fan of swim form swim goggles and and so I use them all the time in the pool and I’ve been using them more and more in open water and I’ve been wearing them in races and it that it says this time I don’t have I don’t have hooked up to my watch so I don’t do distance but it messes stroke rate and that’s something I struggle with so I’m able to get that clear data during training during a race that I need to up my strokes per

minute and that gives me a good focus because I have a tendency to I don’t have to I don’t really know how hard to push myself and that’s my next that’s my this winner’s challenge for me in my trainees to figure out how hard can I push myself and still be able to get out of the water and bike and run and because you know I I’ve been a runner a long time and that’s by far my strength but and so I know just their experience that I can go really I can go a certain pace for for quite a while and of course it’s the last event so I just need to make it to the finish line but I’m not sure I’ve ever heard Brenton of anybody blowing up in the swim I mean going out too hard and then not be you know getting into T1 and just not being able to go or being blown up enough to not be able to bike and run but I still part of my focus now is is really trying to push my limits and see how fast I can go and how quickly and and this actually played out really

well in in Spain because in the Olympic distance I’m typically like a 140 guy and I’ve been stuck there for a long time per 100 yards sorry 140 per 100 yards and there I did 133 and and I attributed a lot to these three areas again we’ll get the third one a second that that I really focused on in preparing for it and and I think it was higher cadence for sure and then to the super sprint which I was third in I came out of the water I think like 12 out of 50 or something like that I don’t remember exactly but that was a big improvement for me because usually I’m like in the middle of the pack so I’m playing serious ketchup but this time and again it was about keeping the intensity up really focusing on what would enable me to to maintain speed over that 400 meters. Yeah, that’s that’s a great result isn’t I mean that’s what do you what are you talking now talking like five percent quicker roughly which is a which is a great

result and I see that when I think of development and something you’ve got people who are brand new just finding their way getting comfortable being able to relax then when people get a little bit more established they can make it to the end and they’re just worried about conserving energy and getting out out fresh and then once you get to that third level of swimming or whatever sport it is that’s where you can start to play around with your pacing you can start to test how hard can I push this thing and that’s when it really gets gets fun and you you start to get a good innate sense of the effort level and what you can sustain and it sounds like that’s kind of where you’re at with your swimming at the moment is starting to figure that out. Yeah just starting to and you told me when I first met you on a year or two ago that that you can work on technique but it takes actually a long time to sort of pull it all together and and I hope I’ve been

really focusing on it since I discovered you on on YouTube on proper technique I truly never understood proper swim technique until I started watching your videos and since then I’ve just been super focused on it and now I mean I feel really comfortable in the water and you know I don’t know what I look like from the outside but I’m still working on getting some videos to see myself but but I feel comfortable and I feel sort of natural I feel like I’ve got a decent stroke going and I think that comforts really important and then it’s you know it’s taken a lot of miles to get that good feeling and now hopefully this next stage before my first races next March I’ll be able to get more miles and start to experiment as you indicate with with how fast can I go and number three 20. Yeah so that’s that’s what I call mindset now I need to come up with a better better word than that because when most people think of mindset they think of Carol Dweck’s

growth versus fixed mindset now what I’m talking about when I talk about mindset I’m talking about what’s going through your mind just before and during the ricks these bottom line that our bodies we’re evolutionarily not wired to want to feel uncomfortable he’s on the Serengeti 250,000 years ago when he first officially became Homo sapiens and long before that when we’re just animals if we were uncomfortable if we were in pain what was likely to follow was death so our survival distinct is incredibly powerful but thankfully we have this thing up here called the cerebral cortex this thing up front called the prefront cortex that separates us from animals that enables us to make choices so even though you might be hurting you have the capacity to say no I’m going to push through this and so so a key part of this is having a mindset plan in the race so this is about what you’re going to think about it and this is a little different than focusing

but it’s similar but it’s more like mental focus and and what involves is what kind of things do you want to say to yourself that will either keep you going or pushing harder because I remember when I first got back into triathlon in 2019 after well 11 year break and before that I’ve been doing Iron Man since 70.3 but I had no clue at all about swimming and that that what I noticed was that I felt like I could swim okay but I wasn’t able to push that push those liners and so I remember the first couple of races I did coming back and I had hadn’t been swimming very long I didn’t swim at all in 11 years literally and and I couldn’t like I just wasn’t enjoying myself so I was just going along going like man this is no fun I can’t wait to like get out of year why do I do this well that was incredibly self-defeating and I know a lot of traffic to think that sort of thing especially if they’re not swimmers and so over time and especially the last year so when I’ve really been

improving and also starting to challenge at the highest level of my age group that what can I do well first of all my whole mindset has changed about swimming because since discovering you and form swim goggles and that’s not a plug for either you I just love you and those the goggles both I actually I’d love to swim now

this morning at 5.30 AM in the heavy rain and the cold I enjoy it and so so and that’s translating to my races where it’s no longer drudgery to be there waiting to get on the bike and on the run and so and so what I think about is changed dramatically but now where I’m moving toward is having what’s when I call an aggressive mindset so and that’s where I don’t naturally just go fast I need to I need to like really push myself and so I need to be constantly going let’s go push push push push so for for the super spread again 400 meters it’s it’s all just like let’s go let’s chart let’s attack let’s go at because my mind has to tell my body to keep going when I’m suck and wind out there for and even though even though swims only like four or five minutes it’s really a pleasant and in the Olympic distance which again nine 10 so miles a mile it’s it’s a different mindset is for me I’ve got this mantra like long and strong and maybe I need to change that to fast and strong in terms of cadence

but it’s it’s the ideas that I’m constantly using my my mind my evolved brain if you will to tell my primitive brain that we’re not going to die and I need to keep going and then I’m choosing to do this because if you if your primitive brain hears that oh we’re not going to die and and and we’re actually doing this for on purpose then it’s going to go Oh I don’t need to hit I don’t need to trigger the survival instinct and so and then you can push the limits because

there is a lot left fuel and then fuel the tank and we might have talked about this in a in a past show but but really being very deliberate about what do you want to focus on what do you want to think about during the swim

that that reminds me of when if you’re underwater let’s say surfing you get held down and you’re still held you’re getting held down and you’re starting to run out of air when you start to get that sort of gulp that that reaction you’ve got something like you’re only halfway there you’ve still got 50% of the oxygen you need to to survive and it’s probably the same thing when it comes to pushing yourself and and and and trying to get the most out of yourself that you can it’s like you’re only just getting started we often give up too early we think I know this is this is hard I can’t possibly go any further but no doubt that you can and that sort of mindset and knowing first of all you’ve got the choice and you’re in control of that is a big step yeah so some of the clients I work with when I tell the story about there’s always fuel in the tank and there’s a ton of research on this by the way they go oh my gosh because because typically in the past if you don’t know that this

fuel in the tank you figure you’re just blown you’re done and of course then that the natural reaction is to either slow down or stop but if you’re hurting and you’re three-quarters of the race and and you go oh Jim said the still in the tank oh yeah so I’m going to tap into that now and the way you tap into that that physical fuel is with your mind because if you don’t have to tap into it then your body’s just going to go you know we might have fuel there but we’re going to keep it just in case because we don’t know how long this is going to be and so so really being very deliberate about what you’re going to say to yourself and you can’t just decide as you jump into the water in a race you’ve got to practice it in the pool in open water and find out what works and then use that if you’re doing intervals you’re constantly going push it you know the back the back 50 of the back 25 of 50s it’s like push it push it go go go and it’s amazing the difference because

you’re you’re basically commanding your body to keep going when it really doesn’t want to

and I had a swimmer ask they have a race coming up in two weeks time had a swimmer that I’m coaching ask all right what should I focus on in the lead up to the to this event I said every time you’re in training and you’re doing anything that’s roughly race pace I want you to just picture yourself there what’s it feel like what are the surroundings just forget you’re in the pool right now just pictures you’re in the open water and you are maybe bringing home that last 200 whatever it might be but I find that’s that can help you get much more comfortable and I know we kind of moving on to a almost a different subject in a way it’s like visualization but it’s it’s very much about just being in that situation and practicing it and that’s that’s how you’re going to know what works for you whether it’s long and strong or whether it’s just push push push that’s when you start to get a handle on it. Yeah

visualization the most powerful mental tool there is and in the in the weeks leading up to races if I even if I don’t know the venue I’ll just I’ll just look on on Google Maps and try to imagine it and then once I get to the race like the world championships or nationals I’ll get there three or four days before to to adjust and I’m doing like three or four times a day of seeing myself in the race key parts of it basically what you’re doing is you’re programming your mind to how you want to think how you want to feel so when you get to the race you just run the program you don’t need to make any choices should I push harder No I’m going to push harder because that’s program in my brain through the imagery

and if you want to dig a bit deeper on that topic we’ve recorded a number of episodes so we’ll link to that in the in the show notes as well the the last thing I want to touch on here is having a reality check so when we’re talking about topics beforehand one of the ones that I thought would be good is just having a reality check on where you’re currently out with your with your swimming because I mentioned this on a podcast a little while ago but basically I was using the EO swim better devices that almost the power meters for your hand and I and my propulsive forces were very low it was like 20 to 30 percent very low that the best that I’ve seen is 75 percent from Roland Schumann who’s in an Olympic level freestyle now it doesn’t mean that you can’t swim fast if your propulsive forces are in the 20 to 30 but it means that you are either

so I was very much downward so I first read that and went haha yeah the devices aren’t working it’s not me like I’m a I’m a good swimmer that’s there’s no way I’m in the 20s to 30s and then I use the devices with some other people test it there in the 40s 50s and and so on so I’m like all right maybe they’re not they’ve let it break imagine where I’d be if single did just maybe I don’t know but I’ve got to get me one of them

what’s and there’s there’s more to it than just the direction

if you are 20% propulsive and 60% downwards well there’s a big opportunity there to just be more effective with what’s happening so what I’ve when I finally came to terms with what the numbers are actually telling me I thought all right well that pretty clearly means I’m just putting too much force in a downwards direction through my catch so what I what I’ve been working on is changing that just relaxing more as I’m reaching forwards and really trying to bring my shoulder up near the side of the face shoulder near my cheek and then just relaxing through there working on the the catch in a better direction and it’s taking a while to to get there but it is improved it’s improved that a lot and my speeds come up with it so that kind of reality check first of all it’s like no can’t be it but then after took me a few weeks really to come to terms with it but yeah when you and then then you can I could actually start to make some changes to it and the same thing goes with maybe some race results

if you look at and go yeah I was fit I was healthy I thought I did everything well and my my bike was incredibly slow it’s like as much as that can can hurt to just sit down and take responsibility for where you currently at it’s the thing that’s going to help you move forwards yeah it’s so important in triathlon to be grounded in reality because you can’t fake triathlon there’s some other sports where where you can sort of fake it for a little while if you really good at it technically but you can only go as fast in the in the water on the bike in the run as you’re capable of running both physiologically genetically to a degree for sure and then in terms of your fitness and so so it’s it’s really important and nobody likes to admit that they’re not very good in in some area of triathlon but I can assure you I have to face the ugly reality despite my really good results you know there there are always there are a couple there’s one guy in the US and like I mentioned this French guy

who who swept both races in Panadietra by all a lot who they’re they’re just they’re just genetic freaks and

that’s my hope or I’ll stay healthy and yeah but but you know my but ultimately all we can do is except where we are and for me my goal is always to just get better close the gap and and the the last couple of years as I’ve as I’ve gotten back into triathlon the last I guess four years now the gaps are closing but it’s because I look at my weaknesses these people say well you should be a du athlete just give up swimming because duathlons it’s like run bike run so you it’s like it’s I think a pretty even balance whereas with with triathlon biking way more important and in terms of the amount of time you do it but for me the challenge is overcoming my weaknesses and it’s like I’ve always been one of the fastest guys in my age group on the run but for me the challenge is can I close the gap between where I am from the top guys in the swim the bike and I’ve actually seen that and and so yes it’s a bloat of ones ego to have to say like boy you know like like my power numbers on the bike

they’re not pretty I’m not a power guy but I’m proved my power by like 30 40 Watts over the last what from from last year to this year and so then it’s like whoa I’m starting to get in the game and it showed where I was fifth on the bike in the super sprint whereas in the in past races I’d be like you know you know 10 15th and then I’m playing even more ketchup so so I’m a big believer in testing which in fact next week my coaches have me do some really unpleasant testing in the pool and in the in the on the bike trainer and then on the run and so you know basically what it does it provides a baseline and what’s nice about that is having a clear sense of reality where I am and I think there’s a couple of areas where it’s not gonna be pretty but then hopefully I focus on those weaknesses I get I test again in let’s say January and we see improvement and you know improvement is one of the one of the main motivators for me I just want to get better or you know maybe in my age

it’s not getting faster it’s getting less slow so than everybody else but the idea but it’s basically like improving and so that’s an incredibly satisfying thing to see I I I got assessed I faced reality I’m not a good swimmer and then and I need to change that mentality too because maybe I’m actually not a bad swimmer anymore maybe I’m an okay one that’s a whole mental thing as well but but then I put in the work I get retested and I’m faster and I’m stronger and it’s like you know that’s like validation for all that hard work you put in and it doesn’t always work that way unfortunately you know it doesn’t always work that way but I mean that’s it’s where the the fun is it’s being able to see opportunities where you can get better and trying to figure out what you need to do we’re in Thailand recently for a swim camp there and me and one of the other coaches Mitch were doing a training session and one of the other coaches Sam he he got on the stopwatches and was

running us through this main set which was like a sprint set it was what was at 25 trying to remember I think was 50 diet max followed by 125 easy and then at 25 dive max followed by 100 easy and that was maybe five or six times through and Sam was like giving us feedback and it’s rare that I’d have someone on the on the stopwatches giving actual times or actually giving feedback and what I realized there is that it’s just so helpful to have someone with experience who knows what they’re talking about giving giving feedback to show where you’re at because basically it’s like you need to get your rating up your stroke rates was like eight low 80s and I need to get it up to around 100 so I I managed to get it up to I think like 100 105 for these sprints and my times came down by about a second in the 50s and maybe half a second in the 25s which is which is a fair bit for me and I was able to just make some changes like trying to go over the water a bit quicker so just faster over the top

not that much quicker underneath so I was able to do that and then I was able to work the turns so just having someone with experience actually giving that feedback made a huge difference and it’s just something that doesn’t often happen for me because I’m usually the one coaching but it made a big big difference and that was the reality check I needed there to go right there’s still a lot I can improve on I just need to get the feedback right right and I’m going to invite you to to California if you if you would for a few weeks so you can coach me up front and personal but but anyway so yes I mean having that data having that perspective I mean I have a coach he’s not near me unfortunately but he’s a PhD and exercise physiology his name’s Dr. Greg Rhodes and he’s phenomenal in terms of he looks at my data and he says this is what we need to do and you know just doing you know you know these days you can go online and get all kinds of swim workouts but it’s not

very helpful if you have no idea what the heck you’re doing and putting it all together into a program and that’s where you come in and that’s that’s why having a coach I find it so valuable being able to provide the insights and be able to analyze the data and know what it means then what to do with

with being able to admit I need to work on these areas because it seems a lot of people there was a book of a while ago titled something like like focus on your strengths or live for your strengths or something and the idea was that you should focus on your strengths because that’s those that’s what makes you strengths totally disagree because the fact is is that you let’s say this is this is as fast you can possibly go on the bull and and if it’s your strength then you’re already here so you can put a lot of time into it and you get this much better be focused on your weaknesses you got a lot of room for improvement right and so you put in a lot of time to that you get up to here but you just you just improve this much versus that much and so so certainly for me my running you know these days it’s I just want to maintain my running speed as much I can but certainly the pool and then and as well in the bike that’s where I’m going to make my gains because I’ve got so much room to play with

and that’s frustrating but it’s also cool to see improvements in the different areas that

can help anyone who is looking to get to work with someone like yourself on the mental aspect of their racing has best way to get in contact with you where can I find you well they they just think these days called the internet I think you’ve probably heard of it and and websites and and so I’ve website is a doctor DR Jim Taylor dot com doctor Jim Taylor dot com and I’m also on I’m Instagram Facebook and LinkedIn what’s the other one and Twitter so you can go there and I’ve got I’ve got all kinds like 95% of everything I’ve ever written is up there for free and I’ve got and my blog I’ve got a triathlon category and then if people do want to reach out to me I have a menu item that says something like one on one coaching but more than anything for me it’s I just love helping people and it’s been really gratifying be after being on a couple of your episodes I’m getting you know I get emails from people all over the world and in some cases just asking a question or thanking me

but in some cases where I spend focus time on on them because especially with like panicking and we did a show I don’t know maybe last year on panicking of the water and and that’s we’re seeing that more and more and even even with some really high-level athletes who have never had an issue then all of a sudden they do a race and they’re just like freaking out so anyway I guess my main mission in all my work is to spread the word that the mind matters and that the mind can be trained just like the buy it’s not a mystery it’s not weird and it’s an essential part it’s the last piece of the puzzle but it shouldn’t be the last piece bubble puzzle it should be just along along with technique and tactics and conditioning it should just be a piece of the puzzle that you focus on in order to be the best swimmer triathlete you can be

and I had a Australian summer on recently a young guy called Flynn Southern and he was he was talking about it World World Champs trial so to make the Australian team to compete at World Champs he his first day he had the 200 freestyle didn’t race well he finished what was he just in the top eight something like that or maybe fifth but he was expected to do pretty well didn’t have a great swim is like I want this meet to be over this is you know I’ve got 100 to go but I just I know I’m not racing well so let’s just get over and done with and he sat down with his coach and his coach said look you’ve got nothing to lose I want you to go out there in this 100 free swim like you’ve got nothing to to lose and he ended up doing his fastest time first time he swam under 48 seconds ended up coming second Carl Chalmers made the team and then went on to win a gold medal in the 4-0 one at at world champs and I spent especially at that level it is very much about mind it is like those guys it’s it’s often

the mind that can determine whether or not they’re going to to do well so it’s a it’s an important piece of the the puzzle and it’s one that can be easy to easy to forget if we not not conscious of it not aware of it so that’s why I really like doing these episodes every couple of months just to bring that to our attention and to to cover some new things that that you’re coming up with or even just revisit things that you’ve spoken about for a long time because it’s like with swimming technique that all that information that knowledge is there but not everyone knows it not everyone’s doing that on a daily basis so it’s good just to get that that reminder so guess what I’m getting at is thank you for being on the podcast I really appreciate you coming on so regularly and sharing all of your expertise always fun Brenton I learned so much from you and I’m happy to give back to helping you be as successful as you can be as well thanks thanks for listening to the Effortless Swimming podcast

if you’d like us to help you become a faster more efficient swimmer go to www.effortlesswimming.com

The post 3 Under The Radar Mindset Techniques That Transform Your Race Day Performance with Dr Jim Taylor appeared first on Effortless Swimming.

Join us on today’s episode as we interview Flynn Southam, a talented young Australian swimmer who has already achieved remarkable success at the age of 18. He’s been in the Commonwealth Games team and won numerous gold medals at the Junior Pan Pacific Championships. We delve into Flynn’s unique perspective on technique, exploring the key aspects he focuses on and the mindset he maintains during training and races. Discover the one phrase his coach told him that completely transformed his training approach, turning him into a dedicated and determined athlete. Tune in now!

Today’s podcast episode is also sponsored by Skillest. Exclusively for our Effortless Swimming podcast listeners, you can receive a free course, ‘The Art of Triathlon Swimming,’ and an online analysis through the Skillest app.

This podcast is brought to you by NanoClear — our own range of anti-fog swim goggles, designed by Effortless Swimming with the anti-fog treatment bonded into the lens itself (not sprayed on, so it doesn’t wear off after a few swims). Check out the NanoClear swimming goggles here and use code PODCAST15 for 15% off.

Welcome to the Effortless Swimming podcast to show that help swimmers and triathletes love the water, become a better swimmer and live a better life. Here’s your host, Brenton Ford. Welcome to episode number 307 of the Effortless Swimming podcast. My guest today is a young Australian swimmer named Flynn Southern. He has been a gold medalist in the 4×100 freestyle relay at this year’s World Champs. He’s also been in the Commonwealth Games team and won numerous gold medals at the Junior Pan Pack Championships. Now Flynn is a very insightful and I think very smart swimmer, especially for someone at the young age of 18. And in this podcast we discuss a number of things including the one phrase that his coach told him that completely changed the way that he trains. Previously he was a weaker trainer, wouldn’t put in as much effort as he could, but was very talented. But there was something that his coach said to him that completely changed that and turned it around for him.

We also discuss what he likes to focus on when it comes to technique. What are those key aspects of his technique that he believes are important? And what does he keep in the back of his mind as he’s training and as he’s racing? We also talk about why they suit up three times a week in training and race. Because I don’t know many squads that would get up and get their race suits on and do three sessions a week where they’re going hard and racing. But he talks about why that is and the benefits that he gets out of that sort of training. And finally we also discuss why he’s learnt more from the failures that he’s had compared to the successes. And how he’s been able to turn around his success as part of some meets and coming around to different meets from what he’s learnt from the failures rather than the successes. So let’s get into this episode with Flynn Southern. Welcome to the effortless swimming podcast.

My guest today is Flynn Southern. Flynn, you are one of the up and coming swimmers here in Australia. And I say up and coming. I mean, you’ve made the Australian team on multiple occasions, but some really exciting racing over the last 12 to 24 months. And it’s been amazing seeing some of the development in your swimming and getting to the point where you’re currently at. So I’d love to talk to you about where you started as a swimmer and how you’ve got to the point where you’re currently at. Because I mean, you’re only 18, you’re still quite young in my eyes on twice your age here. But I think really switched on mentally. And just hearing your interviews, we’ve been back and forth a bit. It’s really inspiring to see someone of your age at the point you’re at in terms of your swimming, but also in terms of mindset and your approach to things. So first of all, I’d like to welcome you to the podcast.

Cool. Thanks for having me. Yeah, it’s pretty cool to be here today, but yeah, it’s been a pretty crazy past 12 months, you know, let alone the past two years have been, you know, so many highs, ups and downs and all that. But, you know, going away and swimming internationally for Team Australia is something some people can only do once in their life and we’ve already done it like four or five times now. It’s such a young age and I’m so grateful for it and it just keeps me hungry. I enjoy it so much. I just want to keep making those teams and do the best I can and represent Australia the best I can. Tell me about World Champs. So you were there on the first night in the four by 100 freestyle relay and ended up winning gold with the Australian team. I remember watching it and just like just that whole night going, oh man, this is amazing. Just so many great swims and one after the other. And so tell me what was that night like being there, the atmosphere and then your race as well.

I mean, there’s bumps thinking about it. And like for me, it feels like almost like a year ago, but it was only a couple of months ago because it’s been so much happening. I think it all started the night off with Ariane Titmuss winning the 400 free for the girls. And like that was just like such a kick in everyone’s step. Like everyone got so jeet up from it. It was just great to see because it’s such a highly anticipated race. And then, you know, we had the 400 champion and the women’s and then Sam Shaw, my roommate over there, one of my good mates. He backed it up and won the 400, which was also another amazing race. And then the girls four by one, they do what they always do and smash it. And I’m pretty sure they broke a world record. And yeah, it was just so cool to see everyone firing. Like we had won three out of the five golds so far of that night. And you know, when we had our little team huddled before where like boys like, come on, we’ve got the Aussie spirit behind us.

And we just wanted to get out there and try and replicate what everyone else has been doing that night. Just that momentum and the team environment kind of just built and everyone was there competing for not only themselves, but more importantly for Australia. And like that was just so motivating. And you know, it was such an awesome experience. And we would have been stoked with the bronze medal, let alone winning it. So it was such a cool experience. What do you take away from that? Because to me, it seems like and when I’ve been racing as part of teams, it’s like there’s so much to be said for. Good team culture, the environment, the and just the enthusiasm of everyone else around you. Like especially at that top level where you’re so close physically, but that that mental aspect of it is such a big contributing factor. Yeah, it was such a so many different learnings about it, you know, like you could talk about the physical side of it.

Like what I learned in that, like, you know, first seeing the big Italian boys next to us and, you know, me being a bit of a smaller skinnier dude, like getting absolutely pummeled in the wash, but learning how to swim through that and doing the changeovers in such a high pressure pressure situation. You know, it’s like one of the biggest events on swing program events four by one free really. So it was just learning about how can I bring the best I’ve got to the table and we kind of all said to each other like if we can. Jack Cartwright let off and then I think I went second and then Ky Taylor was another young gun. He went third and, you know, us three boys just said to each other if we can get Kyle within a whiff of the anchor swim off all the teams like we should have it in the bag because he’s just so reliable because he’s been on the relay team. His first team was 2015 Worlds. He was telling me he got on the four by one and it definitely didn’t go as well as how I really went back.

They I think they ended up missing the final. So there’s so many different learnings, whether you win or you lose, I guess what I’m trying to say is just like, you know, just Kyle. He has the experience and the leadership and he helped us younger boys and Jack to big shout out to the two older boys. They, you know, helped us through the marshaling room. There’s so many different things we learned from that me and Ky and probably almost, if not better than getting a gold medal. Michael Phelps was in the presentation room for the medals and he comes up to me and Ky and he’s like, oh, he’s just like big hands, big hand or big handshake. He said like, hi, I’m Michael and me and Ky looking at our hands like that for like, you know, the next hour and just so like, buzzed up. So it was so cool. It’s just the best experience ever. That’s awesome. Back in, I’ve got to check the dates. It was early, early 2000s.

Michael Phelps and Bob Bowman came and did a clinic in Melbourne just after World Cup. I think it was. And this was like just as Michael was really starting to become well known. It was like probably just probably a year or two before he really started to get really well known. But in the swimming world, everyone sort of knew who he was because he was already pretty successful at that point. And I remember going to that clinic and just think it’s so cool to be around someone like this. And this was before he was who he was. And then my friends, my friend’s dad was actually kind of help managing him when he was there in terms of like, make sure he gets the pool and all that sort of stuff. And we ended up having breakfast with him at the hotel. And I was so nervous. I don’t think I asked him a question. I didn’t say anything because he’s like this, you know, this big swimmer and we didn’t say anything.

He was trying to get, it’s like getting water from a rock. He was just he was trying to get us to talk a bit, but we were just so, so nervous. And the one thing I got from meeting him was that like, we asked him, what do you like, what did you do today? He’s like, I just played PlayStation. I’m like, oh, he’s like us. Yeah, we are young at the time. I was like, oh, it’s so cool. He plays PlayStation. So I just remember that and thinking that like it people are like everyone’s the same. Basically, we’re all just normal people. But some people just really commit themselves to something and become become great at it for you. Like, when did you feel like you could really make swimming the thing that you do? What age? I guess I’ve always kind of believed in myself that I could make it to an Australian team and win a medal at go win a medal at world champs. And, you know, I’ve got so many more things I want to achieve in my mind before I’ve said I’ve made it, I guess.

But I feel like I’ve always kind of believed I could do that. But it was just about actually doing it and having the work ethic to do it. I think everyone should believe in themselves that they can do anything they want. But I mean, just because you believe in yourself doesn’t mean it’ll happen. You just have to work incredibly hard and make a lot of sacrifices for it. And that I probably learned that you need to make the sacrifices around probably 13, 12, 13 years old. And, yeah, I’ve pretty much been the same since then. Was there a certain thing that happened or, yeah, there was a time where you started to realise that? Yeah, well, I think my coach pulled my coach, Xander Hay, he coached me a few years ago, still at the same club now. He pulled me in another pretty talented swimmer side out of our like junior program training session once. And this is, yeah, when I was 12 or 13. And he pretty much said to me, he said the quote like hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.

And that like this message was pretty much saying like the two of you are pretty talented. But, you know, you’re not really hard workers. And I guess no one’s really hard working on that 10, 11, 12 years old. He’s still voting how to swim, I guess. But I guess he saw the talent in me. And then it kind of made me reflect and be like, hey, it would be a bit of a waste if I didn’t live up to my talent, I guess. And, you know, I was really passionate about it. Still am really passionate about it. And I kind of just thought to myself, like, why not give this thing a crack? And why not me? I guess that’s the saying I always tell myself, why not? Like, why can I not go to the Olympics and, you know, just stuff like that for a bit of belief. Was there a certain race or a time where you felt like it confirmed that I can mix it with these with these top boys in the sport? I think I was about what immediately comes to mind is I think I was like 11 years old.

I was 103 for like school states or something like that. I don’t even remember, but I came close to this kid who was like the Ip kid of the age group swimming back then down in Sydney for school states. I went 1019, I think, and did like a massive PB and, you know, a few people were like, wow, these two kids are super fast and for their age and all that. So that was kind of like, that kind of catapulted me into being like, wow, I’m actually, you know, half decent of this. And then I guess maybe when I was 15, at states when the era broke, Kyle Chalmers Australian record in 103 for 15 year old boys. I went 49-6 and that was like a real, like, you know, the hard work I’ve put in. Actually, like you put two and two together, you put the hard work and the belief together and it comes out pretty, pretty good. And for me, I never really looked back from there. I think I remember seeing that either someone like sent it to me back then as like it was like a swim swim article on it or like that.

Your swim and I remember going, holy crap, like that’s, that is so fast. It’s like, I think, yeah, I think that race was maybe recorded too. I think I watched it. So it’s just cool to see, you know, in that period of time over the last couple of years, you know, where you’ve where you’ve got to. So it’s, and that tell me about that 47-7 that you did at Trials for World Chance. So was that, were you expecting or hoping to go that fast? Did you feel like you had that in you? Well, it’s kind of a funny thing because leading into that meet, my 200 that entire season had been on, you know, all throughout in season. I was dropping 146 low a couple of times. I’m tapered, unshaved, and then I, you know, should go up to Trials on day one. And I’m like, you know, I’m going to try and win this 203 and do a really impressive time. And I kind of just swam with the weight of the world on my shoulders thinking that I needed to be perfect in this race.

And this 200 needs to be perfect. And funny story is almost missed the final. And then did the final wasn’t a very impressive time. It’s probably like PV plus 1.3 or something in my mind. I choked the race. I think physiologically I was there. I would have been, could have been the best for me in that race. But my mindset kind of held me back that day because I built it up in my head too much. Pretty much spoke to my coach afterwards, Chris Mooney. And, you know, we’re really disappointed, but the 100, I’m still pretty good at that. So we’re kind of like, all right, let’s just go for this. And I got fifth in the 200 and they take the top six in a relay. They can take up to eight in the relay, but usually they’ll take the top six and rest the four fastest swimmers and swim. The two heat swim, something like that combination. But, you know, I got fifth and Chris said to me, he was pretty much like, don’t consider yourself on the team.

Swim, like you’ve got no expectations of making a team or anything like that. Throw that out the door, but just tell yourself you’re not on the team. And that last, you know, 20, 15 meters of that 100 free be like, this is like do or die now. So back against the wall kind of swim and to drop such a impressive time by my standards. It was a pretty, pretty exciting thing. And it’s hard to explain because it was such a, you know, emotional rollercoaster. That was day three of trials, the 100, but day one was the 200 free. And I was just like, I just want to go home. I’m not, I’m not going to make team like all this stuff. Like the self talk starts to creep in. That’s where you really have to take your accountability for yourself and kind of quiet those voices down, but go on in your head and tell yourself that, you know, you’ve done the hard work and you’ve made all the sacrifices and you just have to go out there and swim and race.

And that’s one of the best things I can do is just go and race and turn emotion and kind of adversity into passion and success, I guess. So it was about me toting that, that loss and making it kind of a comeback story in my mind. So yeah, that was pretty much it for me. And it wasn’t really expected to go that time. I’ll obviously want to go that time, but based on life, my form, I guess, in the first half of the night, it wasn’t really expected. Hmm. Well, how do you balance? Because you came home so strong in that hundred that last like 25 just monstered home and like another couple of strokes and it would have on the touch with with Kyle there. How do you balance the staying relaxed enough to keep your technique and not muscle your way through the water when you’re thinking, all right, it’s do or die. How do you balance that line? Yeah, it’s so that’s like that’s the question everyone wants to know, I think.

And I think the best winners in the world have cracked that. And that’s how they do the 46 nines and the 46 eight. I guess if you David Popovich, but I think that’s the thing I’m looking for at the moment. And I’m definitely getting there because, you know, a lot of my swimming doesn’t come from skills and muscling it and, you know, that fast twitch sort of stuff. It’s more the technique and the connection and the flow, I guess. So for me, it kind of all starts behind the blocks and in the marching room. I guess the moment you step foot into the arena. It’s, you know, about staying calm in your mind and getting into that flow state, which is what I kind of believe to be like that seven out of 10 intensity in your mind. You don’t want to be like, this is do or die, like grit your teeth. You know what I mean? You don’t want to be super mentally aroused, I guess, but you don’t want to be like, oh, I hate swimming.

I don’t want to do this. So for me, it’s finding that like nice middle point of emotional kind of stability. And then it’s just about letting, you know, I kind of, I kind of like thinking that us athletes are artists and that we’re like, what we do is art and it’s for the entertainment of others. And you don’t have to entertain yourself. You don’t have to get caught up in the storyline, whether you’ll make the team or not. You can just go out there and do your thing. And, you know, at the end of the day, whatever other people think of you as whatever, you just have to do your best and that’s all you can ask for. But yeah, it starts, you know, with my ritual of getting into the flow state. And that’s behind the blocks where I do my pre-race ritual. I’ll splash the water and do some claps and all that. And that’s me telling my body and my mind that it’s time to create some art. And are you doing that in training or that’s just like in racing?

That’s just the ritual you’ve got. And so you basically, that’s when your body just knows, all right, I’m ready to go. Yeah. Well, I mean, I would consider myself, you know, a lot of people speak, whether they’re a trainer or a racer. And I know me, I’m a racer. So for me, it automatically just clicks in on race day. But the concept behind it is just, you know, getting into that nice state and that flow state and the technique and the connection and all the aspects of that. It’s, yeah, it’s challenging. But when I show up on race day, I know that I’ve put the work in and I can do something special. Let’s talk about technique. So one of the things that I’d love to dig into is technique and you’ve got a great hold of the water. What are some things over the last couple of years that you’ve had to focus on and that you feel like you’ve either had to change as part of your stroke or really just develop to get to where you currently are?

So all of it really comes from your body position in the water and your front, front catch, I guess. For me, you know, growing up, I was tall, but I wasn’t insanely tall and I was, you know, strong, but I’m not the level of strength of some of the other guys. I’ve never really been that good at underwaters or turns or dives. So I have to look at it with a bit of logic and be like, hey, you know, I’ve got really long arms, my wingspan’s two meters on the dot, 190 tall, 190 centimeters tall. So I got to use my frame and my arms to my advantage. And that, for me, looks like getting a high elbow catch and reducing drag. And then when it’s time for gym work, it’s all about trying to increase propulsion. So then when I come into the pool and I work with my Biomech, we look at kind of trying to be like as straight as an arrow, trying to go through the water and as streamlined as possible. So that’s different for everyone.

And sometimes the loping stroke, breathing twos works. And sometimes, you know, just having your head down and a bit more thoracic rotation works for the people like me. So I guess it’s all about finding out what works for you and just working on it every day. But for me, it’s about that front end catch, harvesting, yeah, I guess using my long arms and then getting strong in the gym, which is what I’m working on at the moment. Before we dive into the rest of today’s podcast episode, this episode is proudly brought to you by Form Smart Swim Goggles. They have been a long time sponsor of the podcast and they are my go-to goggles when it comes to tracking my training sessions and being able to see what’s happening in real time through the goggles. And we know swimming is a highly technical sport, but without the guidance of a coach on deck, identifying and addressing technique flaws can be a challenge. They’ve recently added a new feature to the goggles, Head Coach.

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enabling you to boost your performance and your speed. Get your pair of Form Smart Swim Goggles today. Click the link in our podcast description or use the code effortless on checkout to get 15% off your Form Smart Swim Goggles. This podcast is also brought to you by Skillist, the ultimate digital coaching platform that’s making waves in the swimming world. Imagine having the opportunity to train with Olympic and World Champions like Kyle Chalmers, Ryan Murphy and Brent Hayden. Well, with Skillist, that dream is now a reality. Swimmers, you now have the chance to work with the absolute best in the sport, gaining insights and guidance from these elite athletes like never before. And Skillist isn’t just your run-of-the-mill coaching platform, it’s a game changer. Here is what sets it apart. You can discuss training programs, receive detailed stroke analysis and even develop race strategies with these incredible athletes and coaches.

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And now back to the podcast. What sort of stuff are you doing gym-wise to develop your strength? Yeah, so we do a bit of a split of upper body power, lower body power, upper body strength and lower body strength. And a lot of shoulder stability and rehab, sort of prehab sort of stuff. So we don’t, you know, stay injury free. That’s the goal. A lot of core, a lot of functional movement sort of stuff. There’s the whole thing, the whole kicking caboodle. Joe Coyne, he is like a wizard. He knows this stuff. I reckon he’s one of the best in the world at his job. He’s worked with the MMA UFC dudes in China and Xu Jiu, Chinese backstroker and he worked with Chin Hai Yang a bit. So he knows this stuff and we’re just so lucky to have him at Bond because he’s a wizard. And I’m sure if you asked him, he could give you a whole big list and what we’re doing, but my job is just to lift a lot of weight and get strong. So that’s, yeah, my answer.

I mean, that’s the thing, right? You don’t want to have to think about more than what you need to. Let’s get out and do your thing. Do you ever go into training heavy from the gym or is that something that you like try and try and avoid? Like what’s, how is it for you? Yeah. Well, Joe, he’s got a saying if you fly too close to the sun, you’re going to get burnt. So, you know, it’s really good that we go hard in gym, but sometimes if we go like too hard and we end up injuring us, injuring ourselves. So we show up to training sick the next morning because us boys, we go pretty hard in gym. Like we’re all really committed to it. So, yeah, the saying is you don’t want to fly. You don’t want to get burnt from the sun and you want to use this to, you know, increase your swimming performance. So it’s a fine line between taking it too easy but going too hard. But we have like a lot of, like all of our gym is prescribed with the weights and the rep count

and everything. So we just have to do that. And, you know, reality of the situation is some days you’re going to be sore as hell and some days you’re going to feel like, wow, this is, you know, put a kick in my step and I feel good. I could do a suited set quality set tonight and smash out some PBs, but, you know, it’s just about managing that I think and, you know, not getting too caught up if your arms are sore or you don’t have that feel for the water. It’s just about going through the process. What about favorite sets? Are there any main sets that for you, you feel like number one, you enjoy and number two, you feel like prepare you really well for racing? Yeah. So the one that would prepare me really well for racing. And I probably enjoy the most. We do a lot of dive 50s. We suit up three times a week. It’s all about physiological gains, increasing the anaerobic capacity. So pretty much 30 seconds or less worth of high intensity sprint work.

That’s what we do. And it’s, you know, a typical Chris Mooney set would be like six times through dive 35s, dive 50, maybe five times through that. It’s all about, you know, just a high velocity output and great skills under pressure and increasing the anaerobic capacity. So, you know, you show up on race day and you go out. We don’t actually do much back end work at all. Like we don’t do push back end speed or anything like that because one, Chris doesn’t believe in it and two, if you think about showing up to race day and swimming 100 free, which is what I want to target, you show up and think about diving in for the first 50 and going 7 out of 10 and trying to turn in 23.0. If your 50 PB is, you know, 22 high, then that’s going to have to be higher than a 7 out of 10 to turn that fast. But if your 50 PB is 21 high or 22 low, which is where I’m trying to get, you know, that 7 out of 10 is more realistic and you don’t actually have to, you know,

muscle it and beat fatigue by the time you get to the wall. Do you know what I mean by that? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. To get that easy speed at the start, you’ve got to be quick. Yeah, and then you pair that and you massage that in with aerobic conditioning that we do. So pretty much every second morning, every morning we’ll do a lot of, you know, not threshold work because that uses a lot of glycogen, as Chris would say. So, you know, it’s more just low intensity, A1, A2, Nex split, Nex split stroke count, a lot of that sort of stuff actually work the efficiency and they have that aspect, the actual conditioning purpose of the day and then we have the technical aspect, which is, you know, my front end catch and keeping my hips still and, you know, head neutral, thinking that you’re getting pulled by a fishing rope, kind of a fishing line from like the top of your head and then just trying to get as skilled

as I possibly can. So that’s pretty much what, like, you know, my favorite set looks like because it’s a killer, you know, people say sprinting isn’t hard but when you’re sprinting with your head down and trying to be the best you can be with your conditioning and capacity and all that, it’s bloody hard and you get to the end of the third or fourth 50 and the time cycle is on four minutes and you’re just like, you just want to, like, vomit, you lactate through the roof but you just got to keep working, I guess, and keep grinding away at it. Are you swimming down in that set or it’s just all, like, walk back? Yeah, it’s all walk back and just let that lactate get as high as you can so you can deal with that lactate and push through, I guess, and still hit those times within, you know, 0.5 of, so for say, I’ll start a set and I’ll start around 22, 8, 22, 9 for a dive 50, I don’t want to be going any slower than 23 mid by the 650.

If we do 650s on four minutes, you know. So that’s the goal. That’s it, we had a camp in Thailand two weeks ago where we did, we call it last one standing, it’s 850s dive walk back on about a five minute cycle and we’re doing it with, we’re doing it with people who would typically never do that sort of stuff, most of them are like aerobic based athletes, lot of triathletes, and they were absolutely bugged at the end of it, like 8, 950 walk backs on five, it’s a 40 minute set, you swim 400 meters but you’ll be more tired than if you’d done 3100s, doing like as close to 3, it’s hard work and most people, I’ll say most people, a lot of the people that I coach will never sort of hit that kind of lactating their sessions because yes, they’re training for something different, and you want to be specific with your training. It’s such a good place to have that aerobic capacity. Yeah, that’s exactly right. Do you feel like the aerobic work that you do,

do you feel like you can pull from that in your races? Can you feel the benefit that that training has for you? Yes, but more so, it’s more so the aerobic capacity work that we do that really helps me in my back ends, like I said, well I’ve been doing that actually, we don’t even do over 5k sessions and everyone has this idea in their head that you need to do distance to become so fit and come home in a 24 or even a 23 high or something, which has never been done, but the race only lasts for under 50 seconds and just going as hard as you can I guess, and I guess you don’t really go into a different energy system other than your lactic acid system, so for us it’s just about like that aerobic conditioning it’s good to have a base, but I feel like the aerobic stuff isn’t really touched on by a lot of people because I think it’s so powerful when you really harness that lactate production. You were saying earlier, you do the aerobic base and then you

do some of the technique work what kind of drills, what kind of exercises are you doing to work on your front end catch, work on your hip stability and those sorts of things? Yeah, well there’s just so many little intricate drills that I have that’s kind of hard to explain on camera, but a lot of it is like just simple stuff like doing single arm with a paddle in a pull buoy and just like working like as you would swimming normally but just with one arm, you do like 100 single arm change arms at 50s and that will like cook your arm so quickly like you wouldn’t think it would, but it does and it’s such a good kind of it exposes the little flaws in your technique if you can only swim with two arms instead of one arm so that’s good to do that, then also I forgot we have been doing a lot of drag and resistance work and I find that there’s this thing called a parachute that I wear and probably heard of before but for all the viewers it’s pretty much just like

a bucket with a no hole at the bottom, well with a hole at the bottom and it’s attached to a rope which is attached around your hips and you swim against that and you can change the resistance of it and sometimes it feels like you’re pulling a person through the water which is really hard and you know we do a lot of sprints with that sort of stuff on and I find with my hips which is a weakness of mine like whether they drop and the career it’s a bit of drag when I breathe I find with the drag so that actually you can kind of feel it, you can feel it slowing you down when you slow down so it’s yeah there’s little innovative things rather than just like smashing out just K’s mindless K’s but you know if you do those K’s with good intent and good technique which is you know your message that’s like the best K’s scenario I think yeah it’s those sorts of drills even like single arm and it does expose the weaknesses in your stroke

and we even like when we run clinics we just do a basic like hand on top of kickboard 45 degrees rotation and just practice breathing low with that split vision and more times someone feels very comfortable on one side and not on the other so yeah so it’s like see if you can figure out the next time we do it see if you can figure out what is causing you to feel like you are uncomfortable on the other side and more than likely there they’re like under or over rotated maybe they’re lifting their head as they turn or their hand isn’t straight there’s all these little things that if you can start to become aware of them as an elite level swimmer it’s like you become so in tune with these little variations in your stroke that you just build up this really good innate sense of where your body is and how you’re moving and then you try and just keep on top of it as you’re training yeah exactly and then like you know you get like the foundation work in

when you’re younger kid and then when you get into your late teens early 20s that’s when you just look at little 1%ers and 1% 47, 7 for the 100 free it’s a big margin the difference between winning a race and coming third or fourth especially now like how competitive final is like I missed out on the final at Worlds in the 100 by 0.09 I think so I came 11th and you know top 8 gets you into the final so that’s how close it is you know 1 tenth of a second gets you like 3 or 4 swimmers in there so you know it’s all about finding those little 1%ers now hmm yeah the drag stuff is the drag stuff that you’re talking about earlier is I think a lot of fun we’ve been doing the poor man’s version of it training so part of it like just an adult squad and we tell each other we grab onto a leg the other person just drags behind and it’s like and you notice it right like you when they let go you feel like you are just motoring you through the loop and yeah it’s a lot

of fun as well and that’s like that’s a big part of it whether you are training 9, 10 times a week or if you’re like an adult just you know just swimming 2 or 3 times a week it’s like you can make it fun I find that your ability to learn and adapt and want to come back again the next week is it’s hugely motivating when it’s enjoyable and that comes from what you’re doing, who you do it with your coach and those sorts of things in terms of your training have you got a bunch of good mates that you’re training with yeah like I’m one of 6 boys in the squad and you know we’re so all committed to it and it’s so great because none of us are really interested in partying or you know any little teenage stuff we’re all there to be the best we can be and we have a lot of fun and we get up to some mischief sometimes but just the boys a couple of them Benny, Armbruster and Jesse Coleman they’re both 51 mid for the 100 fly Colette he’s a 1-0

1-0 low mid and Gideon Burns they’re the 2 breaststrokers they’re 1 low for the 100 breast and Ferguson LaGlocklin is back stroker so we got like a really good medley relay team kind of coming through so that’s the goal if we can all snag the boys on to the Australian team for like the LA Olympics that would be pretty fun but you know we’re all there to motivate each other and help each other up when you know they’re a bit down and stuff like that so it’s such a good training environment yeah it makes a huge difference that’s awesome and I know you’ve been doing a bit of mentoring with like some juniors and younger swimmers what are some of the common things you’re hearing from them that they struggle with and then what what kind of advice do you find yourself giving them so a lot of the time it’s really just you know these 12, 13, 14, 15 year old kids they’re really struggling with the pressure that they put on themselves

and you know I can’t point the finger at anyone because I’m really guilty of that you know sometimes in the past I’ve put myself worth dependent on my results in the pool which sounds like crazy stupid but it’s such an easy path to fall down and sometimes I need to remind myself like not to get caught up in that and you know these kids it’s literally like looking into having face like a FaceTime session with myself like five years ago it’s pretty crazy but my main message is just to have fun you know I broke my arm when I was 5th, 14 I think and I was about to miss my first age Nationals which was devastating and I was really sad ended up getting cancelled because of Covid but main point of the story is that I broke my arm and I realized like holy crap like swimming just got taken away from me for like for three four months like what the hell just happened it was just a random day at school I fell over playing basketball and broke my arm

and that was swimming ruled out for a couple months and I think that was a real eye-opener being like hey you’re time to sport like you’ve got an expiry date like a vegetable or something you know what I mean like it will go off soon whether you like it or not so you gotta enjoy it and kind of treat every day like you lost so you know you’re trying super hard but you also gotta have a bit of fun as well and make sure the journey is worth it yeah it seems so young to have that that realization because it’s so it’s just so easy to get caught up in there in the day to day and it’s like I’ve got to like I’ve got to make this team I’ve got to do this time and then just not step back and like and just enjoy it because as you get older you kind of look back and go wow was like to be able to to train that much and and be that feel like it is it’s such a great time of your your life but yeah it’s like they say youth is wasted on the

on the young it’s yeah it’s just hard to realize that at the time but yeah to to be able to know that you know the journey is is really a lot better than the destination more times at night at the end of the day like I walk around training now and no one looks at me and be like would think like oh wow he want to you know gold medal at world champ so like oh wow like it’s like such a nice friend or wow he’s a tosser you know something like like people like look at you for who you actually are not like the medals around your neck you know so it’s like swimming is something we do it’s not who we are and you know I have to tell myself that every day and I struggle with perfectionism I’m actually I got a quote written up above my desk saying success is not about having fun and you do this because you love swimming you don’t do this because you don’t want to lose you know what I mean yeah like yeah you just you just do it to be the best you can

be and sometimes the best you can be is having a laugh and not being such a crazy athlete that gets caught up in the the mental the mental math of it so I call it yeah yeah and when it comes to racing too when you when you see swimmers and athletes of any kind really when they’re having fun they’re generally the loosest you move better and you just get into that that flow but if you’re trying to force things it’s that is when you don’t you’ll normally don’t don’t race and compete that well so it’s yeah yeah man that’s that’s that’s great to hear you’re able to go through that experience and often when you look back at things you know those more challenging times there can be some great lessons out of it you know you know I look back and I mean I saw the same thing with COVID when I couldn’t coach when I couldn’t do the things that I was doing as like man okay I really I really miss that face-to-face interaction of working with people

I miss I miss like being able to try and better myself and have a have a purpose and the thing that I’m working towards so it’s like yeah these these things that can really suck and they’re challenges I look back and go I’m so glad I went through that hmm yeah yeah and I always say that like at junior worlds you know like not that I really want to talk about it but I will just for the you know point of the discussion we’re talking about you know I missed the final at junior worlds in the hundred free as of the end of the week you know there’s a hundred different excuses that I could go over but I missed the final in that but I almost made the final at world champs in senior world champs and you know went PB plus two and a half or something really disappointing and for me I learned more doing that horrible time that horrible experience I learned more in that that I did winning a gold medal at worlds so that’s you know

I always say learning is probably more valuable than winning all the time so if you can learn and win great but if you have a bad race and you still learn like it’s not all bad yeah yeah absolutely and I mean I’m sure there’ll be there’ll be a lot more lessons like that along the way and but as you sort of get that experience you know you can hopefully just make less and have less and less of those experiences it becomes more more winning so yeah that’s and it’s such a we’re talking about this before the podcast as well those junior world champs are in Israel yeah five weeks or so before everything kicked off so it’s just like it really is a yeah that’s right and it’s such a privilege to be able to do I guess do what we do and that we’re very very lucky and sometimes it’s hard to realize that you know just when we’re going to think of things so yeah that’s a pretty good experience for you for sure so what have you got coming up that you’re

looking forwards to I’ve got a big next couple of months you said you came off a break a couple weeks ago where you’re just able to switch off you know two weeks out of the water and now you’re back in the training what have you got on your mind for the next six to 12 months well I mean first things first is you know trials next year Olympic trials that’s a meet like no other I’ve heard I haven’t been to one so you know we’re looking forward to that and we’re training for that and making winning a habit so that’s that’s first things first but if we backtrack from there there’s you know Queensland states at the end of this year which would be a great hit out and such a great meet I always say Queensland states is like one of my favorite meets because it’s just got such a good atmosphere and you know everyone’s like at different stages but you know everyone’s like super competitive at that meet because you know a lot of

prides on the line and it’s not super high shot so yeah it’s good fun and good racing and I always find that you know you learn just as much from Queensland states as a young age group or as you do from world champs so you know it’s great to see all the little kids there as well like you know kicking butt so we’ve got that and then there’ll be nationals and a couple of meets down in Sydney next year so you know just little ones but the main one in the back of everyone’s minus trials and the preparation for that starts now even though it’s in June next year starts now well Flynn all the best for when led up to trials and it’s been great great having you on we tried to do it earlier but you ended up being pretty busy in between the two worlds so I’m glad I could get you on it’s been great watching your journey over the last couple of years I’m excited to see what happens over the next couple of years because you’ve got

great head on your shoulders great watching your swimming yeah I love to watch good good swimmers particularly good freestylers and yeah and it’s just really exciting to see what you’re doing so thanks for being on the podcast thanks for having me wish you all the best thanks for listening to the effortless swimming podcast if you’d like us to help you become a faster more efficient swimmer go to www.effortlesswimming.com

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